|
In November 1804 Charbonneau and one
of his two woman were engaged by Lewis & Clark to accompany them and
act as interpreter among the Indians. Sacajawea and Charbonneau
represented vital links in an involved chain of interpretive
measures that would be required to communicate with Indians on the
westward journey. The interpretive process was complicated because
of the limited language knowledge of the parties involved. The
Frenchman Charbonneau was conversant in French and Hidatsa, but
spoke no English. Sacajawea spoke both Hidatsa and Shoshoni, but
neither French nor English. This was resolved through a third
person, Private Francois Lebiche, a member of the expedition, of
French and Omaha Indian extraction, who spoke French and some
English. The process went as follows: "I spoke . . . to Labiche in
English -- he translated it to Charboneau in French -- he to his
wife in Minnetaree -- she in Shoshoni to the Indians." Sacajawea
gave birth to a son on February 11, 1806 and Charbonneau named him
Jean Baptiste, but Sacajawea called him Pomp or Pompy. The infant
member of their expedition was a delight to his exploring companions
and held an affectionate place in all their hearts.
Sacajawea became very ill at the
Great Falls of the Missouri and wasn't expected to live. There was
great concern among the men as to the fate of the baby. The Captains
also were very concerned because she was their vital link to the
Shoshoni Indians. Captain Clark bled her three different times and
Captain Lewis spent much time treating her with salves and
ointments. It wasn't until they gave her mineral water from a spring
close by, that she began to get better. The spring today bears the
name "Sacagawea Spring".
From the Nicholas Biddle Journal
published in 1914 we read the historical melodrama of the reunion of
Sacajawea and her brother, Cameahwait, when the Lewis and Clark
Expedition met his band of Shoshoni's in the mountains of Montana.
Sacajawea was called upon to be an interpreter at a meeting of the
captains and the Chief:
She came into the tent, sat
down, and was beginning to interpret, when, in the person of
Cameahwait, she recognized her brother. She immediately
jumped up, and ran and embraced him, throwing over him her
blanket, and weeping profusely. The Chief was himself moved,
though not in the same degree. After some conversation between
them she resumed her seat and attempted to interpret for us;
but her new situation seemed to over power her, and she was
frequently interrupted by her tears.
Sacajawea spent several days with her
Shoshoni people while the expedition did portage their supplies over
the Lemhi Pass into the Lemhi Valley.
The decision to take Sacajawea and
her infant son on the mission into the unexplored Pacific Northwest
proved to be a masterstroke of diplomacy. Indian groups encountered
throughout the journey, befriended the strange assembly of explorers
when they sighted Sacajawea and her papoose, as no woman ever
accompanied a war party of Indians. She aided the expedition in
many other ways also. Her knowledge of edible berries, roots and
plants, which she collected for food and medicinal use, contributed
importantly to the diet and health of the men.
None of the members of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition left us a physical description of Sacajawea,
however, we can construct a profile of Sacajawea's behavioral and
character traits by piecing together comments about her during the
expedition. She emerges as a faithful, capable, patient and
pleasant woman. In his journal in August 1806 Clark noted that she
had been particularly useful among the Shoshones. He said that she
had been born the hardships of the long journey with admirable
patience even though encumbered by an infant. Captain William Clark
had a compelling fondness for Sacagawea's son, Jean Baptiste
Charbonneau that would endure until Clark's death in 1838. After
paying Touisant Charbonneau for his services at the end of the
expedition, Clark offered to take the child, whom he described as..."a
butifull, promising child who is 19 months old"..., to raise in
a proper manner. It was agreed that after a year the boy would be
old enough to leave his mother, and Charbonneau would take him to
Clark.
Although Sacajawea had little
knowledge of the country covered by the westward expedition, she was
able to identify some significant landmarks from her childhood. The
most important guiding service credited to her by the captains was
performed during the return trip when she recommended to Captain
Clark certain passes in today's Big Hole Divide and the Bridger
Range.
There is a controversy regarding
Sacajawea and the place of her death. John E. Rees claims that she
lived in Wind River, Wyoming, under the name of "Porivo" until her
death in 1884. Statements by William Clark and trader John C.
Luttig make it plain that Sacajawea died on December 23, 1812 at
Fort manuel in present day South Dakota. Most scholars now accept
Clark's note on the cover of his Cash Book, That Sacajawea was dead
by the 1825-28 period, and Luttig's note in his journal..."this
evening the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake Squaw, died of a putrid
fever she was a good and the best woman in the fort, aged abt 25
year. She left a fine infant girl". This should be substantial
evidence of Sacajawea's early death.
In the spring of 1813 there was a
massacre of the white men at Fort Manuel. A few escaped by boat and
brought the infant girl to St. Louis to Captain Clark. William
Clark thought that Charbonneau was killed at that time and he knew
that Sacajawea was dead, so in the fall he legally adopted Baptiste
and the infant girl, Lisette. Lisette must have died a short time
later because there is no more written concerning her.
In 1816 Charbonneau did show up again
in St. Louis. From that time until he died in 1843, he was a
prominent guide and interpreter for many who traveled west.
On February 8, 1978, the Federal
Government entered the Fort Manuel site into the National Register
of Historic Places, in formal recognition of Sacajawea's death
there.
References:
A Charbonneau Family Portrait by Erving W. Anderson
Lewis and Clark Amoung the Indians by James P. Ronda
The Journals of the Expedition by Nicholas Biddle
The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition University of
Nebraska Press Articles
from the We Proceeded On publication. |
