February 9, 2021 • 47 mins
Sacagawea was only 16 when she joined the Corps of Discovery. That is one seriously impressive teenager.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there, and this is
stuff you should know. And I can't help but feel
that I'm being subtweeted right now before. I don't know
(00:23):
what that means. Oh, it's where you talk about somebody
without directly talking about them. He's kind of maybe talk
about their behavior, how you disapprove of something that they did,
but you don't directly say this person did this and
I don't like it, you know. I one time, I
don't know all this lingo with the Twitter because I
(00:43):
was never on it, and I was emailing with Jonathan Colton,
musician Jonathan Colton about coming on movie Crush, and I
can't remember what I said, but he said something something
don't at me, and I didn't know what that meant,
and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I'm
not sure what I did. I don't know. I apologize
if I did something wrong, and I think he was
(01:05):
kind of like, who is this idiot? Hodgeman likes this guy?
And I think, don't I mean, didn't that just mean
you're tagging someone on Twitter or something. Yeah, but usually
it means like you're you're telling them that they got
something wrong, or you disagree with what they said, or
they should be ashamed of what they said. It's usually
a hostile thing that you're adding somebody or you're you're yeah,
(01:27):
they don't they're they have made their point and they
don't want to hear any feedback from you about it.
That's why. That's kind of what I took from it.
And you have to like kind of snap a few
times when you say it. I'm just really so thankful
still that I never joined Twitter. Just that's the last
thing I need. I'm already on Facebook, which is terrible.
I've been enjoying Instagram. I have to say that seems
(01:49):
like a pretty nice crowd, totally different place. Yeah, but
you know, we're talking about all this because we're talking
about yes we are who truly Yeah, naturally, Who would
probably a shoe both Instagram and Twitter because she seems
like a pretty solid human being. She'd be like, don't
at me, that's right. So um, just to just to
(02:12):
get this done out of the gate again, I thought
that her name was pronounced Socca Joweyah. I am not
like in the minority in the United States at least
because that's how we were raised to say her name.
But fortunately we have such things as historians and people
who listen to Native Americans who have been told over
(02:33):
the years. Now it's not socca joeya, it's Soaca caauaga. Right,
there's one pronounced pronunciation of it, but that it's not
just it's gou um. And we've started to kind of
pronounce her name correctly. You say it way better than me,
So why don't you take it well? I mean, gosh,
this is the third time now we're on this, I've
(02:54):
seen different things from sicago Away to Sicaga. I think
in Clark's journal, uh William Clark, that is of Lewis
and Clark fame spelled it s a h k A
h emphasis on that g A r w e a,
so sicag Away or Cicagoa. But then the Shoshone, which
(03:17):
is a Native American tribe that uh, well we'll get
to the importance there. Um they say, actually it is
s a c A j A w e a, and
it means boat pusher, not the Hidatsa language of bird woman.
So there is some debate. Yeah. Um. One thing that
(03:38):
I did see is that Lewis and Clark um and
they factoring this because Socaa was the the main guide
and interpreter as they pushed further westward, um she or
they they actually tried to spell every Indian or Native
American word that they encountered phonetic as best they could.
(04:01):
They were terrible spellers, even of English words. I mean
just like barely literate, it seemed like. But they tried
their best. Yeah it's really bad, um, but they they
tried to try to spell every every word that they
found phonetically. And I think Sacca go Awea's name appears
seventeen different times in both of their journals, and not
(04:26):
once do they spell that third syllable guh with a
J sound with a J. It's always a G. And
they think that it was a hard G, so that
it's not Socca jawiyah. So they said it's definitely gif
and not Jeff right, which it is definitely gift as
we all know. Uh So, if you listen to the
(04:46):
Lewis and Clark episode, was it a two parter? I
feel like it was. It was not. It was not
new thinking of the evil Kennebil God, it's embarrassing. You
always bring that up to shame me. I think it's
shame both of us and Jerry to a certain extent
as well. She stepped in been like, for God's sakes,
what are you doing? Totally consolidate man. So a great
(05:11):
episode though. I know in that episode we talked a
bit obviously about Chicago Way and Ken Burns in his
great documentary about the Core of Discovery. But she was born,
she had a she know, she lived a short life,
and there is a little controversy on how long she
did live, which we'll get to at the end. But
she was born in either seventeen or eighty nine as
(05:34):
a member of the lim Limy is what I'm gonna say,
Eli m h I band of the Shoshone tribe, which
we spoke about a minute ago. Is this Shoshone or Shoshoni?
Shoshoni is shy That's what I've always heard, But then
again I always heard it was ska Joya too. I
believe she grew up though in a very imagined, lovely,
(05:58):
lovely part of the country and what is Idaho in
the Salmon River region. Yes, um so she was actually
a member of a specific band of the Lemhi Shoshoni.
Um the salmon eaters is what they were called. Um.
And she she grew up in that that part of Idaho.
(06:19):
I guess it was around them the bitter Root mountains
near the Continental divide, and the bitter Roots are part
of the Rockies. But yeah, it just sounds absolutely gorgeous. Um.
The Shoshoni tribe was enemies to the Hidatsa, who you
mentioned earlier. And the reason that they say that saka
Awa means bird woman is because Skawa became an involuntary
(06:43):
member of the Hidaza tribe when she was around twelve
years old. Um I didn't get as she was out
on a buffalo hunt, or if the Hidatza happened to
be out on a buffalo hunt and came across her,
did you understand that. I'm not sure, Um. I kind
of just in my mind and thought that they were out.
But I guess it doesn't really matter, because either way,
(07:04):
she was kidnapped and settled with them near what is
now Bismarck, North Dakota, and here's where her life took
a or I guess that event actually took her life
in a very different direction. Uh, and that that was
a trading center, an international trading center, so people from
all over the world would kind of stop through there
(07:24):
to trade their weares. And she was essentially uh, I mean,
it's hard to not say kidnapped again. Um, a fringe
Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau beautiful took her as property.
He called her his wife. But we can't you know,
(07:44):
now through today's lens, we've got a lot better about
not glossing over that stuff. She was property to him.
She was a teenager, I think, like sixteen or seventeen
even I think she was, oh was she? Uh? And
she was about two decades younger than him. And there's
no other way to say it other than she was property.
(08:05):
And part of being property was that she was raped
by Charbonneau. Yeah, like there's there's um, there's no way
you can put it that that, Like she didn't have
any say in the matter of whether they had sex,
so like it's just that's rape, no matter what. Um.
But yeah, over the over the years, like she's always
been referred to as one of his wives because I
(08:28):
guess Americans didn't want to kind of confront that stuff,
you know, right, So she ends up um living among
the Haidatsa and as Um Charbonneau's wife slash property Um.
Because Charbonneau being a fur trader and the Hadatsa Um
settlement that they lived at, Um being this kind of
(08:51):
international trading post. He had kind of adopted, like the
hadats A way of living himself. Um. He had just
being a fur trader, he had to be able to
handle himself out in the elements. UM. So I think
it kind of it was his speed from what I gathered.
For the rest of his life, he just basically lived
(09:12):
in a style similar to Native Americans. UM. So she
aside from being away from her native tribe, she lived,
you know, probably fairly in a fairly cosmopolitan manner compared
to how she would have had she never been kidnapped
from the lem He band of Shoshonees Um. Which is
(09:34):
kind of sad. But there's one thing that should be said.
There's there's documentary opinion that she was Um. She was
not unhappy living on this kind of um, this border
land between the two cultures. Like she she seemed to
(09:55):
feel somewhat comfortable um living among you know, the colonizer's
way of life. UM. On the frontier just as much
as she did living among the Shoshoni. Yeah, and we
should also point out that a lot of this is
very little is recorded, a lot of speculative um, because
(10:16):
you know, there's remarkable well, I guess not remarkable because
it was eighteen o three, but um, very little actual
recorded information about her life. But it's remarkable how much
there is for the well typical teenage Native American girl
at the time. Um. Like the fact that there's anything
recorded about her, says, well, it is a kind of
(10:37):
a huge testimony to her and her personality. No, absolutely, Um.
So eighteen o three is when Charbonneau takes control of
her life. Eighteen o three is also when Thomas Jefferson said, Hey,
we got this uh big tract of land, really sweet
(10:57):
deal called the Louisiana Purchase, eight hundred and twenty eight
thousand square miles of land stretching from the Canadian border
to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Mississippi to Colorado.
And we need to go see what's out there because
white people have never explored this territory. Um, I want
to find a Northwest passage, which was eventually found. They
(11:19):
were looking in the wrong place, but Um, that's what
they were sort of after, but they were after more.
Jefferson really wanted to know what was out there the landscape.
He wanted maps, He wanted to know about the Native
American tribes. He wanted to know about the plant life
and the animal life, and just like, go Merryweather Lewis
(11:40):
out there and record everything you can. Yeah, Mery Meryweather
Lewis was Jefferson's personal secretary, and Lewis um selected um
what was Clark's first name, Josh Billy William William Clark
Billy Clark um As, who had been his captain in
UM the Army, as the leader of the expedition. He
(12:03):
found him to be an able leader and said, hey,
you want to come leave this super high prestige UM
expedition for the president that the entire nation is going
to be watching. And Clark said, sure, let's do it.
So Lewis and Clark set out on this expedition and
they actually traveled I think six miles before they ended
up um in at that head atsa settlement, Um, which
(12:29):
is about where they really started to hit the frontier.
From what I understand, all right, that sounds like a
great turning point to take a break. So we'll be
back right after this and pick up with the meeting
of Loos and Clark and SARKA. Stuff you should know, Nash,
(12:50):
stuff you should know. Okay, Chuck. So we've reached what
is now today Bismarck, North Dakota at the South Dakota,
(13:14):
South Dakota. Are you sure? I think so? No, it's
it's yeah, it's Bismarck, North Dakota. Are there two? I
was gonna say it almost literally doesn't matter. We're gonna
get crushed for this. It is. No, it's definitely Bismarck,
North Dakota. Okay, then there that was a misprint. Then
in the I'll tell you what. Get this. I've got
(13:37):
this machine called the compute Tour. Are you actually gonna
look it up? Yeah, I'm gonna look it up. I'm
gonna do a favor for the people of Bismarck for
once North Dakota. I think it's North Dakota. It is.
That's weird because I think this is from Austaff Works.
I got South Dakota written in there. All right, we'll
(13:58):
let to send an email. I'm not gonna I'm gonna
add them yeah, that, don't you know, that's the tagline
of how stuff works. Don't add us. That's right. So
apologies to all the people in the both Dakotas, all
three Dakotas. We met nothing by it, and we're gonna
do a live show there one day to make up
for it. Are we sure? Why not? Um, I'll tell
(14:21):
you later. Okay, all right, where are we? It's November
two four when they finally land and they meet up
with Chicago, who is six months pregnant at this point,
and Charbonneau is get the impression that he's a bit
of a not a grifter may maybe, but sort of
(14:45):
an opportunist. Yeah, yeah, I think so for sure. I mean,
like he's a fur trader for Pete's sake, Like you
gotta be you gotta be a little like that. That
includes not just survival in the woods and killing animals,
but also having to you know, get the highest price
you can for your pelts. So I'm guessing there's a
(15:06):
bit of used car salesman to Charbonneau. For sure. He
was not exactly. He was not well liked by Lewis
and Clark. I don't know that he was heated or despised.
But I get the impression from reading historians interpretations of
their their journal entries about Sharbonneau was that he was
kind of a cross between um, Chris Farley, okay, and Gallam.
(15:35):
Maybe I can't wait to see that photoshop goodness, yea,
who's going to take care of that for us? So
just this idea that this guy was not competent necessarily
and was maybe a little bit evil. Um. And that's that's,
you know, all you need to know about Scharbonneau. I
also get the impression, Chuck, that there was a there
(15:56):
was a you know, we'll talk about later, but there
was Kaga was plucked from historic obscurity and really kind
of raised up on this pedestal. And I think rightly so.
But there was a sport that developed alongside of that
where you could very easily raise up by contrasting her
to her good for nothing slave holdings quote husband, um,
(16:21):
and showing how just just terrible he was at everything.
It made her look all of them all the much better.
So I think there's a sport to it. There's a
kind of a long history of putting down Charbonneau. Um.
But I think that it's kind of rooted in fact,
from what I understand. Yeah, So at any rate, he
comes along and he's like, hey, you guys really need
(16:43):
to bring me along. And uh, and my wife slash
property here. Um, I speak Datza and French, and they're like,
we don't really need that, but I see that Chicago
Way speaks Shoshone, and we really need to learn that
because at a certain point gonna need to talk to
them to get some horses. Uh. And since we can't
(17:03):
hire a woman because it's three, we have to actually
hire the husband to get her to come along. I
guess you both can come. Yeah. So like we got
to explain why um Chicago Way being Shoshone was really important,
and it was, like you said, those horses somehow, I'm
not exactly sure how they already knew this, because these
(17:24):
are the first Americans to chart a course westward. But
they knew that the um the Missouri River and the
Columbia River was um was separated by mountains, the Rocky Mountains,
the bitter Root Mountains to be specific, and that since
they were taking to the river, they were going to
(17:44):
need to get from one river to the other, and
that the Shoshoni Indians happened to live exactly where they
needed um or where they needed to pass through, where
they needed the most help, where they needed horses, and
so having a Shoshone along to help broker a deal
would be incredibly useful, so useful in fact, that the
(18:07):
arrangement was going to be that when they finally met
up with the Shoshoni tribe in this area where they
needed the horses the most, um Sicagowa was going to
speak to the Shoshones and then she was going to translate,
with the Shoshones said into Hadazza to um Charbonneau. Charbonneau
was going to translate from um Hadatza into French for
(18:31):
a French speaking member of the Court Discovery, who would
then translate from French into English for Lewis and Clark.
That's how he didn't No, he spoke Hadazza in French.
So an addition to no, he so he did. He
did play a role that was important. He was going
to translate from Datsa into French. Um. It would have
(18:54):
been way better if he had spoken English. But yeah,
it just meant another person in the chain. Everything came
out purple Monkey dishwatcher at the end. So uh, one
thing we failed to mention, I think, which is just remarkable,
is that um, a few a couple of months before
they leave together. Uh, Chicago has her son, Jean Baptiste UM,
(19:19):
known as Baptiste and so. And I know we talked
about this in Lewis and Clark, but I think I
didn't have a kid at the time. It's just astounding
to me now that I've had a two month old
baby two to take and like keeping that baby alive
and all the comforts of you know, modern day America.
To take a baby like that on a voyage like
this is astounding. Yeah. Yeah, it's really remarkable. Yeah. And
(19:46):
I mean, like, if you look at all of the
memorials to Chicago Aya, UM, I don't think there's one
out there that doesn't also show Baptiste as well of
not um. Not just because he was an adopted honorary
member of the Court of Discovery basically a mascot sure um,
but also because it just goes to point out just
(20:10):
how astounding what his mom did UM was. You know.
I think when when Chicago was put on the the
dollar coin in the United States in two thousand, UM,
Hillary Clinton famously referred to her as the original working mom. Wow,
that's that's pretty cool designation. I thought so too. So yeah,
(20:32):
I think it's great to to just that that she's
remembered as you know, doing all this with a baby
strap to her back the whole time. Right. So, um,
that's their plan they plan to get there, send her
out to talk to the Shoshoni tribe to get these horses.
But which was a good plan, but it was even
(20:52):
way better. It worked out like almost like it had
been written in a movie script or something, because I
think it is. Lewis shows up first and has contacts
with an older woman of the tribe, and then about
sixty Shoshone on horseback ride up and they're like, you
seem like a decent guy, you're friendly, let's all make
(21:13):
this workout. Then Park's group shows up about a day
later with Chicago Way and they're like, oh my god,
it's you. You were the one that was kidnapped and
taken away so many years ago. And then Chief kama
Wait rides up and it's Icago Way's brother. Yeah. So
(21:34):
not only did they get to have this reunion, but um,
Lewis and Clark are like, yes, we're going to Yeah,
the chief is her brother, Like this is perfect. But
you know what that stuck out to me as Chuck,
Um that meant that Chicago way, it probably would have
met Lewis and Clark even if she had never been kidnapped.
(21:58):
Uh yeah, maybe didn't that really crazy to think like
that one way or another she was going to probably
meet Lewis and Clark even even with her life diverging
that radically from its you know, original projected path. Yeah,
And what it really did was um, I mean, she
was already proving to be useful in that she could
identify berries and things that you could eat and plants
(22:21):
that you could use as medicine, and kind of acted
as the um the navigator in a lot of cases
like no, we need to go this way. I've been
here before, this is where I grew up. Yeah, there's
a huge, huge rock called Beaverhead Rock that she um
famously recognized that you can go visit and stand in
the place basically where she showed Lewis and Clark like, look,
my my people are going to be right around here.
(22:43):
I recognize this place. Yeah, so they've already got all
this respect for up until that point. And then she
has such an end with the Shoshone. Like you said,
they get I'm sure a really good deal on the horses.
And not only that, but they get help. They get
like they kind of partner up with them to help
them along, which is a really big deal. Yeah, because
Lewis and Clark's expedition had UM somewhere in the neighborhood
(23:05):
of forty people, involved huge boats, several huge boats, lots
of equipment, lots of instruments. And some people say, well,
like if they needed horses a bad way and they
bring the horses because they traveled by water, they really
needed horses really really badly. But just for this one
specific part of the trip in between the Missouri and
the Columbia River, Thomas Jefferson very famous famously called a
(23:29):
dilly of a pickle that they had run into. UM.
But the fact that they were able to get the
horses from the shown um, it just basically checked this
enormous box that the whole expedition UM was predicated on.
They just couldn't They could not have completed their mission
without this and UM, so I could go away and
(23:51):
basically brokered that made sure that box got checked. And
there's one other thing that stands out about her too,
that that gets overlooked us on a few places. Um,
Charbonneau had another wife who was Shoshone, and if they
needed a Shoshoni speaker, who was who was? You know
with Sharbonneau who came with Sharbonneau. Um, they could have
(24:12):
very easily gone with Otter woman the other the other
Um I guess victim of Charbonneau. Um, And they didn't.
They went with Sacagea, who knowing full well that she
came with an infant, now like there was going to
be an infant, even though with Otter Woman there wouldn't
have been so clearly. Chicago way is like putting out
(24:32):
the right kind of vibes. That's saying like, I'm extraordinarily competent.
You should probably pick me, even though if you pick me,
I'm going to be bringing a newborn baby along on
this frontier trek. Um. I think that says a lot
about the kind of UM I guess, charisma or competence
or whatever. She was putting out that that that Lewis
(24:56):
and Clark were like, yes, I think she would be
the better of the two. Yeah, because you don't want
a two month old baby along. No, But if you're
you're cute. But now but if you say, okay, we'll
have a two month baby along like that says a
lot about the mom that's carrying the baby around and
where her abilities are. I think, yeah, absolutely. Um. She
(25:16):
also proved her worth when and I can't remember if
we I think we might have talked about this when
there was one of their sailing vessels almost capsized when
a big squall hit it. Apparently Charbonneau was navigating. He
panicked under pressure, and it was Chicago Way who was
calm and said, you know what, we need to get
(25:37):
these papers together. We need to get the books that
we've been writing in, all these navigational instruments and medicines
and provisions and other stuff. We need to get it
all together and take care of it. And oh also
this baby, uh and basically saved that situation. And Charbonneau
was just you know, he was like, oh my god,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my gosh, sacarbl
(25:59):
sac Blue is right. So yeah, that was That's one
of the big stories that's told about Sacagaweya so much.
So I mean, um that that either Lewis or Clark
wrote about it, and basically was like, Um, this this
second away is an amazing person, Like she's she's doing
stuff that other members of the Corps not doing. I
(26:19):
mean there's I think at least twelve members of the
Corps Discovery who aren't mentioned by name in either of
the journals of Lewis and Clark throughout the expedition. They
did work, they did their their job obviously, UM, but
they didn't get mentioned because they weren't doing stuff like
Scagueya was. And I think the fact that she's mentioned
multiple times with kind of um frequently discussing like just
(26:46):
they're impressed, how impressed they were with her, it says
a lot as well. Um. Yeah, I mean they named
because of that sailing incident, they named a branch of
the Missouri River after her. And I think Clark um
was the one who really closer to her. Uh. It's
really hard to get a read on exactly what the
nature of their relationship was. It seems just like maybe
(27:10):
mentor type of relationship, and that he kind of took
her under his wing and took these long walks with her. Um.
I don't think there's anything untoward about it. It is
kind of what I'm getting at. I don't have that
impression either, and I have not run across the history
and that's asserted that there was something untoward about it
(27:30):
either the way they were close, the way yeah they
were The way I took it was like an adopted
little sister kind of thing. Yeah, that's kind of the
way I see it. I also don't think Charbonneau would
have stood for that. I think that would have been
not okay with him, because he was the kind of
guy who would be like, that's my property, you know, right, Well,
of course, so I yeah, I don't have the impression,
(27:52):
but yeah, I thought the same thing, you know as well. Uh.
And in fact, they thought so much of her, especially Clark.
And this is a really telling thing is that they
gave when they reached the Pacific coast, there was a
vote on whether or not to stay there for the
winter or not, and they actually let her vote, which
in the early eight hundreds, to let a woman have
(28:15):
a vote like that was remarkable. So um, when they
when they decided to stay, that vote um led to
them staying in what's now a story of Oregon. They
build a winter quarters called Fort clats Up after a
friendly tribe nearby, and so what I thought too, but
(28:37):
it's it's close. There's an l in there. Uh yeah,
clasts up. Uh. But the class up people said, hey,
get this, there's a beached whale. You gotta see this thing.
It's enormous. And so I think Louis was like, Okay,
we're gonna go check this out. You guys stay here
and psychic away. I know we talked about this in
the Lewis and Clark episode Psychic Way and said, look, man,
(29:00):
I have walked a long ways and helped you guys out,
and the idea that you're not going to let me
see the ocean. I've never seen any ocean. You're not
gonna let me see the ocean and this giant whale
that's been beached come on. And so Louis relented very famously.
I was like, okay, come along, so it's I could
go away a kind of. She put her foot down
basically and said, no, I'm I'm going to see this
(29:22):
um that would be unusually cruel not to let me.
So she went and saw this, this giant whale, She
saw the ocean for the first time. I mean, that's
a pretty big I've never seen a beached whale imagine
seeing a beached whale the first time you see the
ocean too, you know. Yeah, I remember when I uh
as a young kid when I we showed my grandmother
(29:42):
the ocean for the first time, and she was in
her uh jeez, she was probably in her seventies. She
lived to be a hundred, so she had to be
in her mid seventies when we took her the ocean
and we walked her out there, and she walked out
on the beach. I'll never forget it and said, oh
it's big, that's cute, and that was about it. She
didn't hang out for long. It's like, I'm good, this
(30:05):
is enough. Yeah, And there was no whale to poke
with a stick. So, um you I'm kidding, by the way,
you should never do that, poke a whale with a stick. Yeah,
I was. I was making a joke. That wasn't nice.
I think everybody knew that chuck. Yeah, you try and
get that whale back in the water if you can,
now with the stick, though not with the stick. Um,
you want to take our second break, Yeah, we'll talk
(30:25):
about how this all wrapped up in what happened to
her afterward. Right for this st you should know, gosh
suck stuff, you should know. Okay, So they made it
(30:55):
to the Pacific. They overwintered there and I think eighteen
o five eighteen os X and then they started to
make their way back, and um, they actually went right
back to the same um hitatsa settlement that international training
post or outside of Bismarck, North Dakota, UM where they
picked up Charbonneau and Sacaga and they said, hey, thanks
(31:20):
a lot, We'll see you guys later. And everywhere I saw, um,
Charbonneau was paid something like five dollars and thirty three
cents for his efforts, and Psycha was not paid anything. Um,
although I saw also in this article that she was
paid as well, what do you can do? You have
any idea? Yeah, you know, I was confused to everywhere
(31:43):
else I looked said that she did not get direct payment,
which article said that she did. I don't know, but
it doesn't seem to be right. Um. Or maybe they
just sort of said, well, since her captor slash husband
was paid and sort of means she was. I'm not sure,
but I saw nowhere else that said that she was
actually paid independently, and I mean that would make the
(32:05):
most sense you know, although after that that expedition, it's
I could I would also not be surprised if she
was paid directly, even though it bucked you know, convention. Yeah,
he got paid five dollars and three and twenty acres
of land, which was pretty good. And it's like, I
tried to do a inflation comp but it's they don't
(32:27):
even have anything. I think it said, like when you
when you go that far back, you can't even compare
it to today's Really west, they gave me a um
an estimate of about nine grand. Oh see, I saw.
I saw that too, but I didn't see that as
a as a direct inflation calculator, more like the goods
(32:48):
that you could have bought back then. No, no, I
saw that. It just didn't seem like a wonder one
to me. Um even still, it seems like, really I
would I would imagine five dollars back then would be
like ten trillion today, you know, Yeah, it would seem
(33:08):
it would seem to be the case. It's it's a
little weird, but yeah, because I mean, like a journey
of thousands of miles um at the behest of the
president of the United States getting paid nine grand seems
like it just seems like you would get more than that.
I don't know, but then again, he's a fur trapper
who only speaks at Atza in French, so who knows.
(33:31):
I think what confused me is like if you enter
five hundred dollars a hundred years later, it's like fifteen
thousand or maybe that does work. I don't know. It
just didn't seem to work out math wise. But what
do I know? Yeah, no, I'm with you. Who you
kind of have to be able to peer back into
the vagaries of the American economy over the last couple
(33:53):
of hundred years to suss that out. I looked it
up and it said that what that would be today
would be two hundred eight beaver tails and nine thousand dollars.
Poor beaver. I know. That's the other thing about Sharbonneau
that people don't say. He killed a lot of animals
for their pelts. So all right, so after the expedition,
(34:19):
she stayed with Charbonneau. Um, I think a few years
later they moved to with Little Baptiste moved to St. Louis. Yeah,
the invitation of m clark, right, yeah, and it says
you know that they he offered them an opportunity of
land to farm, which I don't quite get because he
just got three acres of land. I was wondering if
(34:40):
that was one and the same. Maybe I couldn't quite
part that out, but at any rate, he's like, here,
you come, here, here's some land to farm if you
let me educate your son, uh in the you know,
American sort of schooling system, and uh, you know that
was he was the godfather or of the boy at
that point. Really cared a lot about Baptiste and Chicago, ay,
(35:03):
and one of the best for him, and I think
that was a pretty decent deal for Charbonneu. Yeah, so,
I mean, um, I believe Clark officially adopted Baptiste as
his guardian at least, if not as his his adopted parent. Um.
And he was educated at the St. Louis Academy, I believe,
(35:25):
and then he um. I don't know how he met him,
but that Baptiste went on to meet a German prince
who was like, Hey, you should totally come back and
hang with me in Germany and I'll make sure you
get a European education, and he did. He moved to
Europe and was educated there. Um lived a pretty interesting life. Said, yeah,
I'm gonna go back to America. Became a trapper for
(35:48):
a while. Um had a bunch of different interesting jobs.
I believe it was a hotel clerk in Auburn, California
for a little while. Um. So, yeah, he did a
bunch of different stuff and had a pretty pretty amazing life, uh,
in addition to basically being this the official mascot of
the Core of Discoveries expedition. Yeah, and he he ended
(36:11):
up taking guardianship because Charbonneau and Chicago Way left in
April eighteen eleven to go on another fur trading expedition,
and they left Baptist with him. So I can I
think it kind of worked out for everyone. Yeah. Yeah,
I get the impression. It wasn't like we don't want
our kid and Louis give me your kid. I think
like it was for the best interest of the kid,
(36:31):
and they all loved him very much. That's the impression
I have. She also had a daughter about a year
after that, in eighteen twelve, Lisette or Lizette, I don't
know if it's an s or Z. And this is
where we get to the sort of fork in the
road as to what actually happened to Chicago way, and
(36:52):
there are a couple of stories. One is that she
died not long after of what was called putrid fever
or which is probably typhoid fever. There's another story and
which she would have been about twenty five years old
in December of eighteen twelve. There's another story that she
went on to live a very long life in another
(37:13):
part of the country. But I think that one has
kind of been shot down, right. Yeah, So at the
at the turn of the last century, um, CHICAGOA was
kind of dug out of obscurity. Um. Well, actually there
was a guy who was the the official I don't know,
biographer chronicler of the Core of Discoveries expedition where he
(37:35):
was in charge. His name was A Biddle. I believe
he was in charge of basically taking the um notes
of the Core discovering getting them ready for publication. You
just couldn't publish the whole thing like that. He he
edited them basically, but he also interviewed Clark, and out
of his interviews with Clark, we we found a lot
more out about Chicago Aya than we knew before. And
(37:58):
Biddle was like, this is a very interesting story right here,
I'm gonna put Chicago away a front and center. So
he kind of brought Chicago way into the foreground for
the first time. But then, almost a century later, as
the UM the women's suffrage movement was starting to gain
momentum Uh, there was a woman named Um Emily no
(38:19):
Eva emery Die who wrote a book about the Lewis
and Clark expedition and said, here's my heroine. Chicago is
a heroine. I'm going to basically use her as an
icon for the suffragette movement. UM. And that's how she
kind of became this this symbol from that point on.
I don't remember what kicked up the spiel, though you
(38:39):
asked a question, you said something, What was it? Do
you remember my spiel about how UM Chicago was kind
of brought out of obscurity by these writers. Oh oh, um,
where where it came? This idea came from that um
she had she had gone on to live a long life. UM.
(39:00):
That first book that was written by Eva emery Die
was picked up by another historian who said, you know what, Um,
I've heard these stories about this woman who went on
to live at the wind River plant Um Reservation. And
I think she's actually Chicago, WEA. And that kind of
kicked off this whole hunt. Yeah, because like you said,
(39:20):
there was I mean, there are numerous, um, numerous people
who wrote down sort of officially that she did die
very young at five years old, including I think Clark
uh in one of his um I think like maybe
a financial leisure leisure ledger. It was a cash book
(39:42):
about like where people like where are they? Where they now?
Basically have they've been paid? And uh, next to her
name he just wrote dead, which not even a face next.
I guess if it's a ledger, you're just trying to
sort of, you know, be cold about it. But that
someone who really cared a lot about her, it seemed
it probably wasn't the right place to wax philosophical, right.
(40:05):
But also some people have said, um, well, no, he
was covering for her because she The legend goes that
she left Sharbonneau ran off to live a life away
from her as an independent woman, right exactly, which really
kind of dovetailed with the suffragette movements, um, push for
women's rights. Um, So that was a great idea that
(40:25):
that that that's what she did, and the idea was
that Clark was covering for her in his little cash
ledgers by saying she was dead, knowing full well she
was alive. Other people are like, who's going to ever
look in Clark's cash ledger? Like Sharponne is ever going
to get his hands on it? That's probably not correct.
And there the whole idea that she went on to
live on the wind River Reservation until age a hundred
(40:47):
when she died in like the eighteen eighties, makes for
a good story. It makes for a great story. And
there was a woman who did live like that. Her
name was Para evo Um, also known as Basil's mother,
who lived to be a hundred and a lot of
people said, no, that's soccagaweya. But that was before more
historical record came out Um, including an account from a
(41:09):
guy who worked for the same fur trading company that
Charbonneau did knew Charbonneau personally and wrote in his journal
had no reason to make anything up. But in December,
I think on December twentie of eighteen twelve, was it
wrote that Charbonneau's wife, uh, he's the one who said
(41:31):
that she had a putrid fever and died and that
she was the best woman in the fort. She was
a good woman and the best woman in the fort.
She was aged about twenty five years, which totally fits
the bill for Chicago auayah. And she left the fine
infant girl. Yes, so once that once that guy's journal
was found, that was basically the nail in the coffin
(41:52):
of the idea that Chicago Aua had had lived to
age a hundred after escaping her captor husband. Yeah, I
think what kind of cool, as you know, even though
there's very little officially recorded about her life, everywhere she
is recorded, it's all glowing praise um. There's not like
one entry where anyone was ever like, boy Cicago and
(42:14):
that baby are really like, what a mistake that was.
By all accounts, she was a boon to the Core
Discovery and a big, big part of its success. Yeah.
And so as a result, Chuck Um Lifetime is in
Lifetime Movie Network. Lifetime. I couldn't find the year, but
they recently conducted a survey of memorials to create the
Lifetime Her Story map, and of I think hundred plus statues,
(42:42):
monuments and memorials that exists in the United States, only
about two hundred, which is around four honor Women, but
of those, two hundred sixteen honor Cicagowa, which means that
she is the most honored woman via monuments and statues
in the entire United States. Amazing. The first one, from
(43:05):
what I read, was by a group of suffragettes in Portland,
Oregon in NT five, And that statue is obviously still
there today, and it is beautiful. And guess who's strapped
to her back in the statue? Um, loss set little
Baptisset's right, you got anything else? No other than and
(43:26):
we should mention. I don't think we know a lot
about what happened to Lasette. Unfortunately she was sort of
lost to history. Yeah, for sure. Um, I guess that's it.
That's it, all right. So since we said that's it,
that means it's time everybody for listener mail. Yeah, we're
gonna do a couple of corrections. A bit of a
maya culpa for me. In a correction, Um, I said
(43:49):
the word redneck a lot entitled the episode about the Clan.
Uh use the word redneck, and uh, you know, I
probably shouldn't have. That's a derogatory term. The name actually
has a different history. I think West Virginia Coal Miners
has something to do with that, and I just wasn't
really being as sensitive enough. I'm not apologizing for for
(44:13):
degrading the clan, but I probably shouldn't use the word
rednecked with such a broadbrush. Think about it. The chuck
that means the clan is so rotten they give Rednecks
a bad name. That's essentially what we're saying here. I
love it. Uh. And then as from that same episode,
we need to address the Robert Bird instant from a
(44:35):
lot of people that, Yeah, so I think we were
talking about Senator Robert Bird sort of being unapologetic about
being in the clan. That was very much not the case.
This is one of the many emails, and this is
from Aaron Patrick Lyons. He him his hey, listen to
the great episode in the KKK, and as usual, did
a bang up job. However, I have to take issue
(44:55):
with Josh's statement indicating the Senator Robert Bird was an
unrepentant Lansman. He was indeed an exalted cyclops or local
leader of the clan in the fifties into the fifties,
but through the seventies and eighties he had a sincere
change of heart regarding race relations and voted for the
Martin Luther King Junior National Holiday, among other legislation in
(45:16):
his very long career. He was deeply embarrassed, embarrassed and
apologetic about his time in the clan UH. And that
is like I said, from Eric Patrick, Aaron Patrick Lyons,
and Cedar Paul's Iowa. We heard from a lot of
people that um, not only did he vote for the
MLK holiday, but apparently did a lot of work for
legislation to UH for equal rights for African Americans. I
(45:40):
totally flubbed that one. To my apologies to Robert Bird's
family for his legacy in that small way, and I'm
glad we got corrected almost immediately right after the episode
came out. It was I can't believe you guys used
redneck so much. You were totally wrong about Robert Burg.
So this this listener mail is perfect. And then there's
one other thing I want to say too about the
neck thing, chuck Um. Somebody pointed out I think it
(46:03):
was on Twitter that using the word redneck it's not
only derogatory towards rednecks, it obfuscated it cover it up.
All of the people who aren't rednecks, who see who
are just kind of everyday normal people who are either
in the clan or subscribe to the clan's ideologies. That
it makes it seem like just this marginal group um
(46:23):
or a marginal thought or fringe thought, when it's really
kind of subscribed to by an alarming number of people
that you know, you live in, work beside, and might
never really guess at just how deep their racism goes.
So I think that's another reason to have a shoot
it as well. Yeah, and you know, I'm not gonna
stick up for myself, but I think when you grow
up in the South, you might feel like you have
(46:46):
a little bit of ownership. So yeah, my apologies to
all the great rednecks of the world. That's right. Sorry
Jeff Foxworthy, Sorry Larry the Cable Guy, who's actually not
really a redneck if you listen to David cross Is
beef with him. Yeah, I mean that's a that's fully
an act, right. Yeah, from what I understand, he created
(47:06):
that persona to get more fans and comedy. That's right.
Uh smart, that's right. And uh, well, I guess since
we started talking about Larry the Cable Guy, that's the
end of this episode and listener mail is petered out.
Uh And if you want to get in touch with
us to correct us or call us out for something
or whatever, um lay it on us, send us an
email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
(47:33):
you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio for
more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there, and this is
stuff you should know. And I can't help but feel
that I'm being subtweeted right now before. I don't know
(00:23):
what that means. Oh, it's where you talk about somebody
without directly talking about them. He's kind of maybe talk
about their behavior, how you disapprove of something that they did,
but you don't directly say this person did this and
I don't like it, you know. I one time, I
don't know all this lingo with the Twitter because I
(00:43):
was never on it, and I was emailing with Jonathan Colton,
musician Jonathan Colton about coming on movie Crush, and I
can't remember what I said, but he said something something
don't at me, and I didn't know what that meant,
and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I'm
not sure what I did. I don't know. I apologize
if I did something wrong, and I think he was
(01:05):
kind of like, who is this idiot? Hodgeman likes this guy?
And I think, don't I mean, didn't that just mean
you're tagging someone on Twitter or something. Yeah, but usually
it means like you're you're telling them that they got
something wrong, or you disagree with what they said, or
they should be ashamed of what they said. It's usually
a hostile thing that you're adding somebody or you're you're yeah,
(01:27):
they don't they're they have made their point and they
don't want to hear any feedback from you about it.
That's why. That's kind of what I took from it.
And you have to like kind of snap a few
times when you say it. I'm just really so thankful
still that I never joined Twitter. Just that's the last
thing I need. I'm already on Facebook, which is terrible.
I've been enjoying Instagram. I have to say that seems
(01:49):
like a pretty nice crowd, totally different place. Yeah, but
you know, we're talking about all this because we're talking
about yes we are who truly Yeah, naturally, Who would
probably a shoe both Instagram and Twitter because she seems
like a pretty solid human being. She'd be like, don't
at me, that's right. So um, just to just to
(02:12):
get this done out of the gate again, I thought
that her name was pronounced Socca Joweyah. I am not
like in the minority in the United States at least
because that's how we were raised to say her name.
But fortunately we have such things as historians and people
who listen to Native Americans who have been told over
(02:33):
the years. Now it's not socca joeya, it's Soaca caauaga. Right,
there's one pronounced pronunciation of it, but that it's not
just it's gou um. And we've started to kind of
pronounce her name correctly. You say it way better than me,
So why don't you take it well? I mean, gosh,
this is the third time now we're on this, I've
(02:54):
seen different things from sicago Away to Sicaga. I think
in Clark's journal, uh William Clark, that is of Lewis
and Clark fame spelled it s a h k A
h emphasis on that g A r w e a,
so sicag Away or Cicagoa. But then the Shoshone, which
(03:17):
is a Native American tribe that uh, well we'll get
to the importance there. Um they say, actually it is
s a c A j A w e a, and
it means boat pusher, not the Hidatsa language of bird woman.
So there is some debate. Yeah. Um. One thing that
(03:38):
I did see is that Lewis and Clark um and
they factoring this because Socaa was the the main guide
and interpreter as they pushed further westward, um she or
they they actually tried to spell every Indian or Native
American word that they encountered phonetic as best they could.
(04:01):
They were terrible spellers, even of English words. I mean
just like barely literate, it seemed like. But they tried
their best. Yeah it's really bad, um, but they they
tried to try to spell every every word that they
found phonetically. And I think Sacca go Awea's name appears
seventeen different times in both of their journals, and not
(04:26):
once do they spell that third syllable guh with a
J sound with a J. It's always a G. And
they think that it was a hard G, so that
it's not Socca jawiyah. So they said it's definitely gif
and not Jeff right, which it is definitely gift as
we all know. Uh So, if you listen to the
(04:46):
Lewis and Clark episode, was it a two parter? I
feel like it was. It was not. It was not
new thinking of the evil Kennebil God, it's embarrassing. You
always bring that up to shame me. I think it's
shame both of us and Jerry to a certain extent
as well. She stepped in been like, for God's sakes,
what are you doing? Totally consolidate man. So a great
(05:11):
episode though. I know in that episode we talked a
bit obviously about Chicago Way and Ken Burns in his
great documentary about the Core of Discovery. But she was born,
she had a she know, she lived a short life,
and there is a little controversy on how long she
did live, which we'll get to at the end. But
she was born in either seventeen or eighty nine as
(05:34):
a member of the lim Limy is what I'm gonna say,
Eli m h I band of the Shoshone tribe, which
we spoke about a minute ago. Is this Shoshone or Shoshoni?
Shoshoni is shy That's what I've always heard, But then
again I always heard it was ska Joya too. I
believe she grew up though in a very imagined, lovely,
(05:58):
lovely part of the country and what is Idaho in
the Salmon River region. Yes, um so she was actually
a member of a specific band of the Lemhi Shoshoni.
Um the salmon eaters is what they were called. Um.
And she she grew up in that that part of Idaho.
(06:19):
I guess it was around them the bitter Root mountains
near the Continental divide, and the bitter Roots are part
of the Rockies. But yeah, it just sounds absolutely gorgeous. Um.
The Shoshoni tribe was enemies to the Hidatsa, who you
mentioned earlier. And the reason that they say that saka
Awa means bird woman is because Skawa became an involuntary
(06:43):
member of the Hidaza tribe when she was around twelve
years old. Um I didn't get as she was out
on a buffalo hunt, or if the Hidatza happened to
be out on a buffalo hunt and came across her,
did you understand that. I'm not sure, Um. I kind
of just in my mind and thought that they were out.
But I guess it doesn't really matter, because either way,
(07:04):
she was kidnapped and settled with them near what is
now Bismarck, North Dakota, and here's where her life took
a or I guess that event actually took her life
in a very different direction. Uh, and that that was
a trading center, an international trading center, so people from
all over the world would kind of stop through there
(07:24):
to trade their weares. And she was essentially uh, I mean,
it's hard to not say kidnapped again. Um, a fringe
Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau beautiful took her as property.
He called her his wife. But we can't you know,
(07:44):
now through today's lens, we've got a lot better about
not glossing over that stuff. She was property to him.
She was a teenager, I think, like sixteen or seventeen
even I think she was, oh was she? Uh? And
she was about two decades younger than him. And there's
no other way to say it other than she was property.
(08:05):
And part of being property was that she was raped
by Charbonneau. Yeah, like there's there's um, there's no way
you can put it that that, Like she didn't have
any say in the matter of whether they had sex,
so like it's just that's rape, no matter what. Um.
But yeah, over the over the years, like she's always
been referred to as one of his wives because I
(08:28):
guess Americans didn't want to kind of confront that stuff,
you know, right, So she ends up um living among
the Haidatsa and as Um Charbonneau's wife slash property Um.
Because Charbonneau being a fur trader and the Hadatsa Um
settlement that they lived at, Um being this kind of
(08:51):
international trading post. He had kind of adopted, like the
hadats A way of living himself. Um. He had just
being a fur trader, he had to be able to
handle himself out in the elements. UM. So I think
it kind of it was his speed from what I gathered.
For the rest of his life, he just basically lived
(09:12):
in a style similar to Native Americans. UM. So she
aside from being away from her native tribe, she lived,
you know, probably fairly in a fairly cosmopolitan manner compared
to how she would have had she never been kidnapped
from the lem He band of Shoshonees Um. Which is
(09:34):
kind of sad. But there's one thing that should be said.
There's there's documentary opinion that she was Um. She was
not unhappy living on this kind of um, this border
land between the two cultures. Like she she seemed to
(09:55):
feel somewhat comfortable um living among you know, the colonizer's
way of life. UM. On the frontier just as much
as she did living among the Shoshoni. Yeah, and we
should also point out that a lot of this is
very little is recorded, a lot of speculative um, because
(10:16):
you know, there's remarkable well, I guess not remarkable because
it was eighteen o three, but um, very little actual
recorded information about her life. But it's remarkable how much
there is for the well typical teenage Native American girl
at the time. Um. Like the fact that there's anything
recorded about her, says, well, it is a kind of
(10:37):
a huge testimony to her and her personality. No, absolutely, Um.
So eighteen o three is when Charbonneau takes control of
her life. Eighteen o three is also when Thomas Jefferson said, Hey,
we got this uh big tract of land, really sweet
(10:57):
deal called the Louisiana Purchase, eight hundred and twenty eight
thousand square miles of land stretching from the Canadian border
to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Mississippi to Colorado.
And we need to go see what's out there because
white people have never explored this territory. Um, I want
to find a Northwest passage, which was eventually found. They
(11:19):
were looking in the wrong place, but Um, that's what
they were sort of after, but they were after more.
Jefferson really wanted to know what was out there the landscape.
He wanted maps, He wanted to know about the Native
American tribes. He wanted to know about the plant life
and the animal life, and just like, go Merryweather Lewis
(11:40):
out there and record everything you can. Yeah, Mery Meryweather
Lewis was Jefferson's personal secretary, and Lewis um selected um
what was Clark's first name, Josh Billy William William Clark
Billy Clark um As, who had been his captain in
UM the Army, as the leader of the expedition. He
(12:03):
found him to be an able leader and said, hey,
you want to come leave this super high prestige UM
expedition for the president that the entire nation is going
to be watching. And Clark said, sure, let's do it.
So Lewis and Clark set out on this expedition and
they actually traveled I think six miles before they ended
up um in at that head atsa settlement, Um, which
(12:29):
is about where they really started to hit the frontier.
From what I understand, all right, that sounds like a
great turning point to take a break. So we'll be
back right after this and pick up with the meeting
of Loos and Clark and SARKA. Stuff you should know, Nash,
(12:50):
stuff you should know. Okay, Chuck. So we've reached what
is now today Bismarck, North Dakota at the South Dakota,
(13:14):
South Dakota. Are you sure? I think so? No, it's
it's yeah, it's Bismarck, North Dakota. Are there two? I
was gonna say it almost literally doesn't matter. We're gonna
get crushed for this. It is. No, it's definitely Bismarck,
North Dakota. Okay, then there that was a misprint. Then
in the I'll tell you what. Get this. I've got
(13:37):
this machine called the compute Tour. Are you actually gonna
look it up? Yeah, I'm gonna look it up. I'm
gonna do a favor for the people of Bismarck for
once North Dakota. I think it's North Dakota. It is.
That's weird because I think this is from Austaff Works.
I got South Dakota written in there. All right, we'll
(13:58):
let to send an email. I'm not gonna I'm gonna
add them yeah, that, don't you know, that's the tagline
of how stuff works. Don't add us. That's right. So
apologies to all the people in the both Dakotas, all
three Dakotas. We met nothing by it, and we're gonna
do a live show there one day to make up
for it. Are we sure? Why not? Um, I'll tell
(14:21):
you later. Okay, all right, where are we? It's November
two four when they finally land and they meet up
with Chicago, who is six months pregnant at this point,
and Charbonneau is get the impression that he's a bit
of a not a grifter may maybe, but sort of
(14:45):
an opportunist. Yeah, yeah, I think so for sure. I mean,
like he's a fur trader for Pete's sake, Like you
gotta be you gotta be a little like that. That
includes not just survival in the woods and killing animals,
but also having to you know, get the highest price
you can for your pelts. So I'm guessing there's a
(15:06):
bit of used car salesman to Charbonneau. For sure. He
was not exactly. He was not well liked by Lewis
and Clark. I don't know that he was heated or despised.
But I get the impression from reading historians interpretations of
their their journal entries about Sharbonneau was that he was
kind of a cross between um, Chris Farley, okay, and Gallam.
(15:35):
Maybe I can't wait to see that photoshop goodness, yea,
who's going to take care of that for us? So
just this idea that this guy was not competent necessarily
and was maybe a little bit evil. Um. And that's that's,
you know, all you need to know about Scharbonneau. I
also get the impression, Chuck, that there was a there
(15:56):
was a you know, we'll talk about later, but there
was Kaga was plucked from historic obscurity and really kind
of raised up on this pedestal. And I think rightly so.
But there was a sport that developed alongside of that
where you could very easily raise up by contrasting her
to her good for nothing slave holdings quote husband, um,
(16:21):
and showing how just just terrible he was at everything.
It made her look all of them all the much better.
So I think there's a sport to it. There's a
kind of a long history of putting down Charbonneau. Um.
But I think that it's kind of rooted in fact,
from what I understand. Yeah, So at any rate, he
comes along and he's like, hey, you guys really need
(16:43):
to bring me along. And uh, and my wife slash
property here. Um, I speak Datza and French, and they're like,
we don't really need that, but I see that Chicago
Way speaks Shoshone, and we really need to learn that
because at a certain point gonna need to talk to
them to get some horses. Uh. And since we can't
(17:03):
hire a woman because it's three, we have to actually
hire the husband to get her to come along. I
guess you both can come. Yeah. So like we got
to explain why um Chicago Way being Shoshone was really important,
and it was, like you said, those horses somehow, I'm
not exactly sure how they already knew this, because these
(17:24):
are the first Americans to chart a course westward. But
they knew that the um the Missouri River and the
Columbia River was um was separated by mountains, the Rocky Mountains,
the bitter Root Mountains to be specific, and that since
they were taking to the river, they were going to
(17:44):
need to get from one river to the other, and
that the Shoshoni Indians happened to live exactly where they
needed um or where they needed to pass through, where
they needed the most help, where they needed horses, and
so having a Shoshone along to help broker a deal
would be incredibly useful, so useful in fact, that the
(18:07):
arrangement was going to be that when they finally met
up with the Shoshoni tribe in this area where they
needed the horses the most, um Sicagowa was going to
speak to the Shoshones and then she was going to translate,
with the Shoshones said into Hadazza to um Charbonneau. Charbonneau
was going to translate from um Hadatza into French for
(18:31):
a French speaking member of the Court Discovery, who would
then translate from French into English for Lewis and Clark.
That's how he didn't No, he spoke Hadazza in French.
So an addition to no, he so he did. He
did play a role that was important. He was going
to translate from Datsa into French. Um. It would have
(18:54):
been way better if he had spoken English. But yeah,
it just meant another person in the chain. Everything came
out purple Monkey dishwatcher at the end. So uh, one
thing we failed to mention, I think, which is just remarkable,
is that um, a few a couple of months before
they leave together. Uh, Chicago has her son, Jean Baptiste UM,
(19:19):
known as Baptiste and so. And I know we talked
about this in Lewis and Clark, but I think I
didn't have a kid at the time. It's just astounding
to me now that I've had a two month old
baby two to take and like keeping that baby alive
and all the comforts of you know, modern day America.
To take a baby like that on a voyage like
this is astounding. Yeah. Yeah, it's really remarkable. Yeah. And
(19:46):
I mean, like, if you look at all of the
memorials to Chicago Aya, UM, I don't think there's one
out there that doesn't also show Baptiste as well of
not um. Not just because he was an adopted honorary
member of the Court of Discovery basically a mascot sure um,
but also because it just goes to point out just
(20:10):
how astounding what his mom did UM was. You know.
I think when when Chicago was put on the the
dollar coin in the United States in two thousand, UM,
Hillary Clinton famously referred to her as the original working mom. Wow,
that's that's pretty cool designation. I thought so too. So yeah,
(20:32):
I think it's great to to just that that she's
remembered as you know, doing all this with a baby
strap to her back the whole time. Right. So, um,
that's their plan they plan to get there, send her
out to talk to the Shoshoni tribe to get these horses.
But which was a good plan, but it was even
(20:52):
way better. It worked out like almost like it had
been written in a movie script or something, because I
think it is. Lewis shows up first and has contacts
with an older woman of the tribe, and then about
sixty Shoshone on horseback ride up and they're like, you
seem like a decent guy, you're friendly, let's all make
(21:13):
this workout. Then Park's group shows up about a day
later with Chicago Way and they're like, oh my god,
it's you. You were the one that was kidnapped and
taken away so many years ago. And then Chief kama
Wait rides up and it's Icago Way's brother. Yeah. So
(21:34):
not only did they get to have this reunion, but um,
Lewis and Clark are like, yes, we're going to Yeah,
the chief is her brother, Like this is perfect. But
you know what that stuck out to me as Chuck,
Um that meant that Chicago way, it probably would have
met Lewis and Clark even if she had never been kidnapped.
(21:58):
Uh yeah, maybe didn't that really crazy to think like
that one way or another she was going to probably
meet Lewis and Clark even even with her life diverging
that radically from its you know, original projected path. Yeah,
And what it really did was um, I mean, she
was already proving to be useful in that she could
identify berries and things that you could eat and plants
(22:21):
that you could use as medicine, and kind of acted
as the um the navigator in a lot of cases
like no, we need to go this way. I've been
here before, this is where I grew up. Yeah, there's
a huge, huge rock called Beaverhead Rock that she um
famously recognized that you can go visit and stand in
the place basically where she showed Lewis and Clark like, look,
my my people are going to be right around here.
(22:43):
I recognize this place. Yeah, so they've already got all
this respect for up until that point. And then she
has such an end with the Shoshone. Like you said,
they get I'm sure a really good deal on the horses.
And not only that, but they get help. They get
like they kind of partner up with them to help
them along, which is a really big deal. Yeah, because
Lewis and Clark's expedition had UM somewhere in the neighborhood
(23:05):
of forty people, involved huge boats, several huge boats, lots
of equipment, lots of instruments. And some people say, well,
like if they needed horses a bad way and they
bring the horses because they traveled by water, they really
needed horses really really badly. But just for this one
specific part of the trip in between the Missouri and
the Columbia River, Thomas Jefferson very famous famously called a
(23:29):
dilly of a pickle that they had run into. UM.
But the fact that they were able to get the
horses from the shown um, it just basically checked this
enormous box that the whole expedition UM was predicated on.
They just couldn't They could not have completed their mission
without this and UM, so I could go away and
(23:51):
basically brokered that made sure that box got checked. And
there's one other thing that stands out about her too,
that that gets overlooked us on a few places. Um,
Charbonneau had another wife who was Shoshone, and if they
needed a Shoshoni speaker, who was who was? You know
with Sharbonneau who came with Sharbonneau. Um, they could have
(24:12):
very easily gone with Otter woman the other the other
Um I guess victim of Charbonneau. Um, And they didn't.
They went with Sacagea, who knowing full well that she
came with an infant, now like there was going to
be an infant, even though with Otter Woman there wouldn't
have been so clearly. Chicago way is like putting out
(24:32):
the right kind of vibes. That's saying like, I'm extraordinarily competent.
You should probably pick me, even though if you pick me,
I'm going to be bringing a newborn baby along on
this frontier trek. Um. I think that says a lot
about the kind of UM I guess, charisma or competence
or whatever. She was putting out that that that Lewis
(24:56):
and Clark were like, yes, I think she would be
the better of the two. Yeah, because you don't want
a two month old baby along. No, But if you're
you're cute. But now but if you say, okay, we'll
have a two month baby along like that says a
lot about the mom that's carrying the baby around and
where her abilities are. I think, yeah, absolutely. Um. She
(25:16):
also proved her worth when and I can't remember if
we I think we might have talked about this when
there was one of their sailing vessels almost capsized when
a big squall hit it. Apparently Charbonneau was navigating. He
panicked under pressure, and it was Chicago Way who was
calm and said, you know what, we need to get
(25:37):
these papers together. We need to get the books that
we've been writing in, all these navigational instruments and medicines
and provisions and other stuff. We need to get it
all together and take care of it. And oh also
this baby, uh and basically saved that situation. And Charbonneau
was just you know, he was like, oh my god,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my gosh, sacarbl
(25:59):
sac Blue is right. So yeah, that was That's one
of the big stories that's told about Sacagaweya so much.
So I mean, um that that either Lewis or Clark
wrote about it, and basically was like, Um, this this
second away is an amazing person, Like she's she's doing
stuff that other members of the Corps not doing. I
(26:19):
mean there's I think at least twelve members of the
Corps Discovery who aren't mentioned by name in either of
the journals of Lewis and Clark throughout the expedition. They
did work, they did their their job obviously, UM, but
they didn't get mentioned because they weren't doing stuff like
Scagueya was. And I think the fact that she's mentioned
multiple times with kind of um frequently discussing like just
(26:46):
they're impressed, how impressed they were with her, it says
a lot as well. Um. Yeah, I mean they named
because of that sailing incident, they named a branch of
the Missouri River after her. And I think Clark um
was the one who really closer to her. Uh. It's
really hard to get a read on exactly what the
nature of their relationship was. It seems just like maybe
(27:10):
mentor type of relationship, and that he kind of took
her under his wing and took these long walks with her. Um.
I don't think there's anything untoward about it. It is
kind of what I'm getting at. I don't have that
impression either, and I have not run across the history
and that's asserted that there was something untoward about it
(27:30):
either the way they were close, the way yeah they
were The way I took it was like an adopted
little sister kind of thing. Yeah, that's kind of the
way I see it. I also don't think Charbonneau would
have stood for that. I think that would have been
not okay with him, because he was the kind of
guy who would be like, that's my property, you know, right, Well,
of course, so I yeah, I don't have the impression,
(27:52):
but yeah, I thought the same thing, you know as well. Uh.
And in fact, they thought so much of her, especially Clark.
And this is a really telling thing is that they
gave when they reached the Pacific coast, there was a
vote on whether or not to stay there for the
winter or not, and they actually let her vote, which
in the early eight hundreds, to let a woman have
(28:15):
a vote like that was remarkable. So um, when they
when they decided to stay, that vote um led to
them staying in what's now a story of Oregon. They
build a winter quarters called Fort clats Up after a
friendly tribe nearby, and so what I thought too, but
(28:37):
it's it's close. There's an l in there. Uh yeah,
clasts up. Uh. But the class up people said, hey,
get this, there's a beached whale. You gotta see this thing.
It's enormous. And so I think Louis was like, Okay,
we're gonna go check this out. You guys stay here
and psychic away. I know we talked about this in
the Lewis and Clark episode Psychic Way and said, look, man,
(29:00):
I have walked a long ways and helped you guys out,
and the idea that you're not going to let me
see the ocean. I've never seen any ocean. You're not
gonna let me see the ocean and this giant whale
that's been beached come on. And so Louis relented very famously.
I was like, okay, come along, so it's I could
go away a kind of. She put her foot down
basically and said, no, I'm I'm going to see this
(29:22):
um that would be unusually cruel not to let me.
So she went and saw this, this giant whale, She
saw the ocean for the first time. I mean, that's
a pretty big I've never seen a beached whale imagine
seeing a beached whale the first time you see the
ocean too, you know. Yeah, I remember when I uh
as a young kid when I we showed my grandmother
(29:42):
the ocean for the first time, and she was in
her uh jeez, she was probably in her seventies. She
lived to be a hundred, so she had to be
in her mid seventies when we took her the ocean
and we walked her out there, and she walked out
on the beach. I'll never forget it and said, oh
it's big, that's cute, and that was about it. She
didn't hang out for long. It's like, I'm good, this
(30:05):
is enough. Yeah, And there was no whale to poke
with a stick. So, um you I'm kidding, by the way,
you should never do that, poke a whale with a stick. Yeah,
I was. I was making a joke. That wasn't nice.
I think everybody knew that chuck. Yeah, you try and
get that whale back in the water if you can,
now with the stick, though not with the stick. Um,
you want to take our second break, Yeah, we'll talk
(30:25):
about how this all wrapped up in what happened to
her afterward. Right for this st you should know, gosh
suck stuff, you should know. Okay, So they made it
(30:55):
to the Pacific. They overwintered there and I think eighteen
o five eighteen os X and then they started to
make their way back, and um, they actually went right
back to the same um hitatsa settlement that international training
post or outside of Bismarck, North Dakota, UM where they
picked up Charbonneau and Sacaga and they said, hey, thanks
(31:20):
a lot, We'll see you guys later. And everywhere I saw, um,
Charbonneau was paid something like five dollars and thirty three
cents for his efforts, and Psycha was not paid anything. Um,
although I saw also in this article that she was
paid as well, what do you can do? You have
any idea? Yeah, you know, I was confused to everywhere
(31:43):
else I looked said that she did not get direct payment,
which article said that she did. I don't know, but
it doesn't seem to be right. Um. Or maybe they
just sort of said, well, since her captor slash husband
was paid and sort of means she was. I'm not sure,
but I saw nowhere else that said that she was
actually paid independently, and I mean that would make the
(32:05):
most sense you know, although after that that expedition, it's
I could I would also not be surprised if she
was paid directly, even though it bucked you know, convention. Yeah,
he got paid five dollars and three and twenty acres
of land, which was pretty good. And it's like, I
tried to do a inflation comp but it's they don't
(32:27):
even have anything. I think it said, like when you
when you go that far back, you can't even compare
it to today's Really west, they gave me a um
an estimate of about nine grand. Oh see, I saw.
I saw that too, but I didn't see that as
a as a direct inflation calculator, more like the goods
(32:48):
that you could have bought back then. No, no, I
saw that. It just didn't seem like a wonder one
to me. Um even still, it seems like, really I
would I would imagine five dollars back then would be
like ten trillion today, you know, Yeah, it would seem
(33:08):
it would seem to be the case. It's it's a
little weird, but yeah, because I mean, like a journey
of thousands of miles um at the behest of the
president of the United States getting paid nine grand seems
like it just seems like you would get more than that.
I don't know, but then again, he's a fur trapper
who only speaks at Atza in French, so who knows.
(33:31):
I think what confused me is like if you enter
five hundred dollars a hundred years later, it's like fifteen
thousand or maybe that does work. I don't know. It
just didn't seem to work out math wise. But what
do I know? Yeah, no, I'm with you. Who you
kind of have to be able to peer back into
the vagaries of the American economy over the last couple
(33:53):
of hundred years to suss that out. I looked it
up and it said that what that would be today
would be two hundred eight beaver tails and nine thousand dollars.
Poor beaver. I know. That's the other thing about Sharbonneau
that people don't say. He killed a lot of animals
for their pelts. So all right, so after the expedition,
(34:19):
she stayed with Charbonneau. Um, I think a few years
later they moved to with Little Baptiste moved to St. Louis. Yeah,
the invitation of m clark, right, yeah, and it says
you know that they he offered them an opportunity of
land to farm, which I don't quite get because he
just got three acres of land. I was wondering if
(34:40):
that was one and the same. Maybe I couldn't quite
part that out, but at any rate, he's like, here,
you come, here, here's some land to farm if you
let me educate your son, uh in the you know,
American sort of schooling system, and uh, you know that
was he was the godfather or of the boy at
that point. Really cared a lot about Baptiste and Chicago, ay,
(35:03):
and one of the best for him, and I think
that was a pretty decent deal for Charbonneu. Yeah, so,
I mean, um, I believe Clark officially adopted Baptiste as
his guardian at least, if not as his his adopted parent. Um.
And he was educated at the St. Louis Academy, I believe,
(35:25):
and then he um. I don't know how he met him,
but that Baptiste went on to meet a German prince
who was like, Hey, you should totally come back and
hang with me in Germany and I'll make sure you
get a European education, and he did. He moved to
Europe and was educated there. Um lived a pretty interesting life. Said, yeah,
I'm gonna go back to America. Became a trapper for
(35:48):
a while. Um had a bunch of different interesting jobs.
I believe it was a hotel clerk in Auburn, California
for a little while. Um. So, yeah, he did a
bunch of different stuff and had a pretty pretty amazing life, uh,
in addition to basically being this the official mascot of
the Core of Discoveries expedition. Yeah, and he he ended
(36:11):
up taking guardianship because Charbonneau and Chicago Way left in
April eighteen eleven to go on another fur trading expedition,
and they left Baptist with him. So I can I
think it kind of worked out for everyone. Yeah. Yeah,
I get the impression. It wasn't like we don't want
our kid and Louis give me your kid. I think
like it was for the best interest of the kid,
(36:31):
and they all loved him very much. That's the impression
I have. She also had a daughter about a year
after that, in eighteen twelve, Lisette or Lizette, I don't
know if it's an s or Z. And this is
where we get to the sort of fork in the
road as to what actually happened to Chicago way, and
(36:52):
there are a couple of stories. One is that she
died not long after of what was called putrid fever
or which is probably typhoid fever. There's another story and
which she would have been about twenty five years old
in December of eighteen twelve. There's another story that she
went on to live a very long life in another
(37:13):
part of the country. But I think that one has
kind of been shot down, right. Yeah, So at the
at the turn of the last century, um, CHICAGOA was
kind of dug out of obscurity. Um. Well, actually there
was a guy who was the the official I don't know,
biographer chronicler of the Core of Discoveries expedition where he
(37:35):
was in charge. His name was A Biddle. I believe
he was in charge of basically taking the um notes
of the Core discovering getting them ready for publication. You
just couldn't publish the whole thing like that. He he
edited them basically, but he also interviewed Clark, and out
of his interviews with Clark, we we found a lot
more out about Chicago Aya than we knew before. And
(37:58):
Biddle was like, this is a very interesting story right here,
I'm gonna put Chicago away a front and center. So
he kind of brought Chicago way into the foreground for
the first time. But then, almost a century later, as
the UM the women's suffrage movement was starting to gain
momentum Uh, there was a woman named Um Emily no
(38:19):
Eva emery Die who wrote a book about the Lewis
and Clark expedition and said, here's my heroine. Chicago is
a heroine. I'm going to basically use her as an
icon for the suffragette movement. UM. And that's how she
kind of became this this symbol from that point on.
I don't remember what kicked up the spiel, though you
(38:39):
asked a question, you said something, What was it? Do
you remember my spiel about how UM Chicago was kind
of brought out of obscurity by these writers. Oh oh, um,
where where it came? This idea came from that um
she had she had gone on to live a long life. UM.
(39:00):
That first book that was written by Eva emery Die
was picked up by another historian who said, you know what, Um,
I've heard these stories about this woman who went on
to live at the wind River plant Um Reservation. And
I think she's actually Chicago, WEA. And that kind of
kicked off this whole hunt. Yeah, because like you said,
(39:20):
there was I mean, there are numerous, um, numerous people
who wrote down sort of officially that she did die
very young at five years old, including I think Clark
uh in one of his um I think like maybe
a financial leisure leisure ledger. It was a cash book
(39:42):
about like where people like where are they? Where they now?
Basically have they've been paid? And uh, next to her
name he just wrote dead, which not even a face next.
I guess if it's a ledger, you're just trying to
sort of, you know, be cold about it. But that
someone who really cared a lot about her, it seemed
it probably wasn't the right place to wax philosophical, right.
(40:05):
But also some people have said, um, well, no, he
was covering for her because she The legend goes that
she left Sharbonneau ran off to live a life away
from her as an independent woman, right exactly, which really
kind of dovetailed with the suffragette movements, um, push for
women's rights. Um, So that was a great idea that
(40:25):
that that that's what she did, and the idea was
that Clark was covering for her in his little cash
ledgers by saying she was dead, knowing full well she
was alive. Other people are like, who's going to ever
look in Clark's cash ledger? Like Sharponne is ever going
to get his hands on it? That's probably not correct.
And there the whole idea that she went on to
live on the wind River Reservation until age a hundred
(40:47):
when she died in like the eighteen eighties, makes for
a good story. It makes for a great story. And
there was a woman who did live like that. Her
name was Para evo Um, also known as Basil's mother,
who lived to be a hundred and a lot of
people said, no, that's soccagaweya. But that was before more
historical record came out Um, including an account from a
(41:09):
guy who worked for the same fur trading company that
Charbonneau did knew Charbonneau personally and wrote in his journal
had no reason to make anything up. But in December,
I think on December twentie of eighteen twelve, was it
wrote that Charbonneau's wife, uh, he's the one who said
(41:31):
that she had a putrid fever and died and that
she was the best woman in the fort. She was
a good woman and the best woman in the fort.
She was aged about twenty five years, which totally fits
the bill for Chicago auayah. And she left the fine
infant girl. Yes, so once that once that guy's journal
was found, that was basically the nail in the coffin
(41:52):
of the idea that Chicago Aua had had lived to
age a hundred after escaping her captor husband. Yeah, I
think what kind of cool, as you know, even though
there's very little officially recorded about her life, everywhere she
is recorded, it's all glowing praise um. There's not like
one entry where anyone was ever like, boy Cicago and
(42:14):
that baby are really like, what a mistake that was.
By all accounts, she was a boon to the Core
Discovery and a big, big part of its success. Yeah.
And so as a result, Chuck Um Lifetime is in
Lifetime Movie Network. Lifetime. I couldn't find the year, but
they recently conducted a survey of memorials to create the
Lifetime Her Story map, and of I think hundred plus statues,
(42:42):
monuments and memorials that exists in the United States, only
about two hundred, which is around four honor Women, but
of those, two hundred sixteen honor Cicagowa, which means that
she is the most honored woman via monuments and statues
in the entire United States. Amazing. The first one, from
(43:05):
what I read, was by a group of suffragettes in Portland,
Oregon in NT five, And that statue is obviously still
there today, and it is beautiful. And guess who's strapped
to her back in the statue? Um, loss set little
Baptisset's right, you got anything else? No other than and
(43:26):
we should mention. I don't think we know a lot
about what happened to Lasette. Unfortunately she was sort of
lost to history. Yeah, for sure. Um, I guess that's it.
That's it, all right. So since we said that's it,
that means it's time everybody for listener mail. Yeah, we're
gonna do a couple of corrections. A bit of a
maya culpa for me. In a correction, Um, I said
(43:49):
the word redneck a lot entitled the episode about the Clan.
Uh use the word redneck, and uh, you know, I
probably shouldn't have. That's a derogatory term. The name actually
has a different history. I think West Virginia Coal Miners
has something to do with that, and I just wasn't
really being as sensitive enough. I'm not apologizing for for
(44:13):
degrading the clan, but I probably shouldn't use the word
rednecked with such a broadbrush. Think about it. The chuck
that means the clan is so rotten they give Rednecks
a bad name. That's essentially what we're saying here. I
love it. Uh. And then as from that same episode,
we need to address the Robert Bird instant from a
(44:35):
lot of people that, Yeah, so I think we were
talking about Senator Robert Bird sort of being unapologetic about
being in the clan. That was very much not the case.
This is one of the many emails, and this is
from Aaron Patrick Lyons. He him his hey, listen to
the great episode in the KKK, and as usual, did
a bang up job. However, I have to take issue
(44:55):
with Josh's statement indicating the Senator Robert Bird was an
unrepentant Lansman. He was indeed an exalted cyclops or local
leader of the clan in the fifties into the fifties,
but through the seventies and eighties he had a sincere
change of heart regarding race relations and voted for the
Martin Luther King Junior National Holiday, among other legislation in
(45:16):
his very long career. He was deeply embarrassed, embarrassed and
apologetic about his time in the clan UH. And that
is like I said, from Eric Patrick, Aaron Patrick Lyons,
and Cedar Paul's Iowa. We heard from a lot of
people that um, not only did he vote for the
MLK holiday, but apparently did a lot of work for
legislation to UH for equal rights for African Americans. I
(45:40):
totally flubbed that one. To my apologies to Robert Bird's
family for his legacy in that small way, and I'm
glad we got corrected almost immediately right after the episode
came out. It was I can't believe you guys used
redneck so much. You were totally wrong about Robert Burg.
So this this listener mail is perfect. And then there's
one other thing I want to say too about the
neck thing, chuck Um. Somebody pointed out I think it
(46:03):
was on Twitter that using the word redneck it's not
only derogatory towards rednecks, it obfuscated it cover it up.
All of the people who aren't rednecks, who see who
are just kind of everyday normal people who are either
in the clan or subscribe to the clan's ideologies. That
it makes it seem like just this marginal group um
(46:23):
or a marginal thought or fringe thought, when it's really
kind of subscribed to by an alarming number of people
that you know, you live in, work beside, and might
never really guess at just how deep their racism goes.
So I think that's another reason to have a shoot
it as well. Yeah, and you know, I'm not gonna
stick up for myself, but I think when you grow
up in the South, you might feel like you have
(46:46):
a little bit of ownership. So yeah, my apologies to
all the great rednecks of the world. That's right. Sorry
Jeff Foxworthy, Sorry Larry the Cable Guy, who's actually not
really a redneck if you listen to David cross Is
beef with him. Yeah, I mean that's a that's fully
an act, right. Yeah, from what I understand, he created
(47:06):
that persona to get more fans and comedy. That's right.
Uh smart, that's right. And uh, well, I guess since
we started talking about Larry the Cable Guy, that's the
end of this episode and listener mail is petered out.
Uh And if you want to get in touch with
us to correct us or call us out for something
or whatever, um lay it on us, send us an
email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
(47:33):
you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio for
more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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