March 13, 2024 • 54 mins
On October 30, 1810, Sacagawea was in her home in St. Louis when she received a call from the future…
In this episode, Sacagawea will share the details of being kidnapped and taken from her family as a 12-year-old. She’ll talk about Lewis and Clark and why they needed a native American woman with a newborn on their expedition. And, how she was forced to marry after her husband either purchased her or won her in a poker game.
Start the episode now to join the conversation.
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Robin Pease’s portrayal of Sacagawea will change the way you feel about this amazing woman and her story forever. Robin brings to life the strength and resilience of this historical figure without ignoring the fact that Sacagawea’s life was tragic. This is a masterful interpretation that will leave a lasting impression on all who listen.
Learn more at:
womeninhistoryohio.com/sacajawea.html
kulturekids.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:28):
I'm Tony Dean.
And today we'll be callinghistory to speak with Sacagawea.
She'll be answering our call on October30th, 18, 10 at the age of 24, just
a few years after the completionof the Lewis and Clark expedition.
So little is known about Sacagaweaand almost nothing was written.
In fact, even her death was disputed.
, She either died two years after thisconversation in 1812 of sickness.
(00:53):
or she lived another 72 yearsto be an old woman after leaving
a repressive husband that.
Most likely one her in a poker game.
And then.
She may have marriedsomeone in the command.
She tried.
Lewis and Clark described heras courageous, determined and
indispensable, but wrote littleabout her emotional state.
In the next two episodes, you're goingto learn about the tragic circumstances
(01:17):
that caused her to guard her feelingsand opinions for her entire life
yet.
It is no wonder that she is revered andseen as a hero after being kidnapped
at the age of 12, and then basicallythrown into a canoe to travel across the
United States with an infant in her arms.
An infant that in the end, very likelysaved every person's life on that trip.
(01:38):
She overcame incredible odds andfound a way to survive, regardless
of what challenges life threw at herladies and gentlemen, fellow history,
lovers, and pickers of berrieseverywhere I give you sacagawea
Hello.
Is that you?
Sacagawea.
Yes, I am Sakagawea.
Well,
(01:58):
so excited to speak with you.
My name is Tony Dean and I'm talking toyou from the future in the 21st century.
The device that you're holding inyour hand is called a smartphone and
it allows us to speak as if you andI were five feet from one another.
It also allows me to share a record of ourconversation with people around the world.
I was hoping I could ask yousome questions today, but before
(02:20):
I do, I understand this isa very strange introduction.
Can I answer any questionsthat you might have first?
the first question that Iwanted to ask you is, are you
sure you want to talk with me?
Men rarely talk with me and no onehas ever asked me my story or about my
thoughts, feelings, my needs, my wants.
And so this is very strange.
(02:43):
Well, I'll tell you that.
It's as strange for you to make astatement like that to me, because
in our time, women see you as a hero.
, women look up to you.
Your face is on money in our time.
Because of the journey that you tookwith Lewis and Clark and the stories
that we hear about, how you aidedin that westward expansion, and the
(03:06):
courage and the fact that you didit with a child, and all of that.
, people in our time look up toyou like you can't imagine.
So I'm surprised to hear you say that.
But I guess the first question thatI'd like to ask you, cause I'm,
we're very interested in your story,is , even though people see you in
that light in, in this time, yourlife didn't exactly start that way.
(03:29):
At a very young age, you were kidnapped.
Is that not right?
Yes, that is very true.
I think I was like 10 or 12winters when I was kidnapped
and taken away from my family.
So that was just thinking about thatnow makes me so sad because I was
away from my family, and I only evergot to see someone in my family once.
(03:53):
For the rest of my life.
So that was terrible.
Do you want me to tellyou how I was kidnapped?
What happened?
Yes, please.
I'd love to hear that story.
Well, I was with my friends.
It was springtime and wewere gathering berries.
, that was one of the things that wedid because we lived in the Bitterroot
Mountains, and the mountains are veryrocky, so we did not grow plants, we
(04:18):
would always just find roots or berries,things that were growing in the ground,
and we would dig them up, and so sinceit was springtime, it was a wonderful
time to get berries, I think we atemore berries than we put in the basket,
and so we They're gathering berries.
And all of a sudden weheard horses coming.
There were lots of horses.
And when we looked, we sawthat it wasn't our people.
(04:40):
It was another nation called the Hadassahsthey were our enemies and they had guns.
We did not have guns.
Our men only had bows and arrows.
So they came on these horsesand it was so frightening.
And for a moment, I just frozebecause I didn't know what to do.
And a friend of mine,jumping fish, she said, run.
(05:01):
And so I started to run.
Behind her and there were gunshots.
I heard bows and arrows going off andthe horses, there was so many people.
I don't even know how many had thatsays there were coming after us.
And, And so I was running as fast asI could and I couldn't keep up with
jumping fish because she was tallerthan me, her legs were longer than mine.
And all of a sudden some.
(05:23):
Warrior on a horse grabbed me and pulledme up on his horse and I saw jumping fish
in the distance and I so wish that I waswith her, but I knew that I was captured.
I knew that they weregoing to take me away.
And I was so scared.
I didn't know.
I didn't know what to do.
(05:44):
He just grabbed me and I stoppedstruggling and There were just
too many Hadassahs and I wasafraid, what would happen to me?
I knew they were going to take meaway from my family and my home.
And I was so afraid and I didn'tknow what they were saying because
they were speaking a languagethat I did not understand.
I was so scared.
Eventually I realized thatsome of our men were killed.
(06:08):
I think there were maybe four of ourmen and some of our women who were shot
with these weapons that they call a gun.
It was just so horrible,and I was so afraid.
Sounds terrible.
So did your tribe not have guns?
No we only had bows and arrows, andthat's one of the reasons we lived in
(06:28):
the mountains, because some of the othertribes had traded with people that they
called the white men, and they had theseweapons called guns, but we did not.
And so, we lived way up in the BitterrootMountains because That way we'd be safe.
We did not have guns.
me
me walk hundreds of miles from my hometo their village near the Knife River.
(06:53):
And that's when I understood thatI was now enslaved to the Hadatsas.
And that I didn't think Iwould ever see my mother.
Again, it was a very strangeworld because the Hadatsas were
so different from the Shoshone.
They were so different, even justlike the houses that they lived
(07:14):
in were different from our houses.
The way that they ate theirfood it was so different.
And I was so lonely.
I did not speak their language.
I had.
I had to learn how to speak theHadatsa language, and I had to learn
how to work and live in the houses.
My people, the Shoshone,we lived in tipis.
(07:36):
And I don't know if you're familiarwith the tipi or not, , . But the
Hadatsas They lived in these things theycalled earth lodges, which had an outer
circle of cottonwood posts and beamsand logs, and they put willow branches
and dried prairie grass and thick sod,forming a huge mound, and it had logs.
(07:57):
They had vertical logs making a doorwayand they had a huge stockade surrounding
the village and outside of that therewere fields with plants growing.
They did not forage like we did.
They grew food to eat since theywere not on rocky soil of the
Bitterroot Mountains like us.
They grew all kinds of thingslike corn, beans, squash.
(08:19):
It was so different from the Shoshoneand they lived in their village.
Whereas the Shoshone, We were nomads.
We would stay in an area.
That's why we lived in tipis.
And then we would follow the animalsfor food or move because of the winter.
And so we would pack up the whole village.
We could pack up a village of tipisin one hour and then put everything on
(08:43):
Travoy, which were long sticks with horsesand dogs and move to another location.
But the Hadatsas was their home.
Stockade surrounding their village.
And so I had to learn a whole new life.
They did not forage.
I had to learn how to plant and harvest.
(09:04):
And I also had to learn the women wouldsing and pray to the corn spirits.
And there were all these new rules.
Like you could never argue near thefields because I was told that would scare
the corn spirits and destroy the crops.
I had to learn how to storeand cook these new foods.
There was so much I had to do,and I was just a little girl.
(09:26):
I was a child,
. I don't even know how you survive something like this.
First of all, I guess Iwant to ask, is this common?
That one tribe would just steal anothertribe's children, or women, or men
for that matter, and enslave them?
I think that has happened before, yes,because eventually when I was with the
(09:47):
Hadatsas, I met other Shoshone women.
who were taken from different villages.
So that happened.
But , it doesn't sound like theShoshones were aggressive in that way.
The Shoshones, were they morepeaceful than the Hadatsus?
, I would say yes, becausewe did not have guns.
(10:07):
And when I was growing up, wejust wanted to live our lives.
We just wanted to, , hunt the bison,get food, get crops, move our village
when it was time because if the animalsmoved we would follow the animals.
, I would say that wewere a peaceful people.
The men would hunt andthe women would forage.
(10:28):
And we just wanted to live our lives.
And we used our bows and arrows to hunt.
Except.
When we were attacked by another nation.
That's why we lived wayup in the mountains.
I had never seen a white man untilI went to the Hadassah village.
I had never seen so many people.
We, it was just our village.
(10:50):
In your village, was thatsomething that people talked about?
, were there, , storiesof the white men coming?
Or, , is there a legend of that?
Or
there were people whowere different from us.
And we knew this because where didthese Hadassahs get these guns from?
, it's just something that Iheard that there were these
(11:10):
other people called white men.
I had never seen one
What would the people in your tribe whatwould they be thinking about the guns?
Because you've mentioned these guns a lot.
To stay away from them and we were scaredof them because we knew that if someone
had them, it was going to bring death.
I see.
To go to the Hidatsu village,you had to travel a lot.
(11:32):
Tell me what that looked like.
I had to walk the warrior who captured me.
I was on his horse for a littlewhile, eventually, when they either
had shot people in my nation.
Or people ran away.
Then we were making ourway back to their village.
(11:52):
I don't know how long it took us to getthere, but it was very far from where we
lived to their village by the Knife River.
It was so far.
It took days and days.
I don't even know how many days it was.
I think I was probably shockand I was so scared.
(12:17):
I didn't, I think I justwent blank in my mind.
And that's something that Idid for the rest of my life.
Pretty much when I was a child in myvillage with my family and my brothers
and my sisters and my friends, That wasa wonderful childhood, but then once
I was captured, it was like peopledidn't ask me how I felt about something
(12:43):
or what I thought or what I wanted.
I had to keep quiet becauseI was now an enslaved person.
So I learned very quicklynot to show any emotion.
Do not show joy or sorrow or fearbecause it was not safe to show emotion.
If my feelings were something that theperson who captured me did not like,
I could be punished, I could be hit.
(13:05):
They could deprive me of food orshelter, who knows what they would do.
So, I learned.
Very quickly, not to show any emotionand keep everything in my head.
, when somebody gets kidnapped like this,it seems like that it would be human
nature for there to be consequences.
(13:26):
That perhaps , the Shoshones of yourtribe, , after the Hidatsus came in
and murdered people and then, andthen took children, it seems that
there would be consequences, thatthey would get a party together and
maybe go out and try to recover you.
Is that, would that be?
Something that a person would expect?
Were you thinking that you might be saved?
I did not think I would be saved becausemy nation, they did not have those guns.
(13:53):
Those guns were very powerful.
How can you fight to regain your familywith a bow and arrow when someone
just points this weapon at you andshoots you and it just brings death?
And destruction.
Boy, the guns.
Once somebody has the guns,everything's different, isn't it?
Yes, it is very different.
(14:14):
So once I was captured I never thoughtthat my family would come and get me.
I don't even know if they knewhow to get to the Hadassah village
because, , we stayed in the mountains.
And the Hadassahs when I walkedall those miles, , we were down
in, I guess it was flat land.
We, we weren't in the mountains.
(14:35):
, when I finally got to their village.
It wasn't anything like themountains because remember I said
that they grew plants, they hadfields, which we did not have.
I don't know if my family wouldeven know how to find them.
Yeah, it's like, they're justcompletely across the world.
Yes,
(14:57):
What are the mountains to your people?
home.
It's home.
throughout all the generations, haveyour people lived in the mountains?
Well, my grandfather told me thatwhen he was young, that we didn't
always live in the mountains.
But when there were nations thatwere aggressive, eventually,
(15:18):
that's where we went.
To be safe.
I see.
So the mountains are home,and the mountains are safety.
Yes.
So as a slave, as an enslaved person,what does that mean when you arrive at the
Hadassah village and you are now enslaved?
Are you somebody's property?
Are you the tribes property?
(15:40):
Or do you have to do the worst jobs?
What does that look like?
Well, they gave me to a womanbecause they're not going to make
me do the work that a man would do.
And so they gave me a place to stay.
They gave me food.
And it was so hard because Idid not speak the language.
(16:00):
And I would not show any emotionbecause , these people did not
love me like my family did, and Ididn't know would they care for me.
So I was quiet, and I tried to learnthe Hadassah language as fast as
I could and eventually I did learnthe language, and I learned it.
(16:21):
a lot of things.
I learned how to make things from woodbecause they worked in the fields.
I learned how to make rakes and bowls.
I made corn.
I had to grind corn that they would grow.
I learned how to plant.
I learned how to, when the plants wouldgrow, I learned how to harvest them.
I learned how to make the, theHadassahs had something called bull
(16:43):
boats for traveling in the riverswhere they had a wooden frame and they
had hide that was stretched over theframe to make the boat watertight.
I learned how to make things from bison.
I learned how to get sinew for thread.
I learned how to makepouches from the stomach.
I tanned hides to make clothes, blankets.
I learned how to make brushes andtools and sleds from hose, from
(17:07):
the bones and cups and ladles.
I made moccasins and pots and pans and somuch more, but I was not allowed to make
baskets or pottery because in that nation,only certain people in their nation
had the right to practice those crafts.
But I worked hard always.
, and I missed my family and my friends.
(17:27):
I kept thinking about how jumpingfish escape being captured and
I wish that I too had escaped.
Time meant nothing to mebut work and loneliness.
Jumping fish escaped.
So she ran and got away.
Is that what
Yes, I think she always, she was so funny.
She would always be running and jumping.
(17:48):
That's how she got the name jumpingfish because that's just how she was.
And she was taller than Iwas, so I could jump, but she
could always jump higher than.
than I could.
She was my friend and I missed her.
When you look back at that situationand you saw her escape, was there
something that , you wished youwould have done different to escape?
(18:10):
Run faster.
I wish I could have run faster.
When the Hadassah came and the warrior wasthere, , I think at one moment I froze.
I wish I didn't freeze.
Maybe if I didn't freeze,I could have gotten away.
I don't know.
You had mentioned uh, you mentionedseveral times white men, what is
(18:30):
your impression of white men and hasthat changed throughout the years?
I really didn't have much to do with them.
, it's not that we becamefriends or anything like that.
It wasn't like that.
I, I was forced to marry a white manand I would say he was the white man
that I had the most to do with , I don'tknow if the Hadatsa sold me to him,
(18:55):
or if he won me in a gambling game.
But just one day they toldme I had to go with him.
And then he said that I was his wife.
I had no choice.
That's how it happened.
Just one day, he just says,Hey you're coming with me.
You're my wife.
And you don't knowanything other than that.
No, and I don't know how it came tobe did he pick me or I don't know.
(19:20):
It's just one day they saidthat you go with him now.
And so that's what I did.
So the man, I think you're talkingabout if I'm saying his name, right?
It's Tucson Charbonneau.
Is that
Yes, Toussaint Charbonneau, hespoke French and Hadatsa.
did not speak French.
I learned some havinglived with him, but yes.
(19:42):
Tell me about him.
What kind of person was he?
Oh, he was a man of shorttemper and not always nice.
Yes.
He was at least 20 winters olderthan me and living with him.
I definitely did not show any emotion.
Because if he did not like somethingthat I said or did, he was known
(20:04):
often to yell at me, and hewould often sometimes strike me.
So I kept my thoughts to myself, and Itried not to speak much, except to Otter
Woman, because I was not his only wife.
He had another wife.
And she was Shoshone.
She was a little bit older than me, butit was so wonderful to be able to speak
(20:26):
my language again because Charbonneauspoke a language called French.
He also spoke some Hadassah,but he did not speak Shoshone.
Now I spoke Hadassah and I spoke Shoshone.
An otter woman spoke Hidatsa andShoshone, so it was so nice because
I could speak to her in our languageand he could not understand us.
(20:47):
She was the only one that I sometimeswould share my thoughts and feelings with.
When you went on the excursion withLewis and Clark, you were the only
woman that you were around duringthose several years, is that correct?
That is right, I was the only woman.
So from time to time throughout your life,it sounds like there have been several
times where you were just yanked out ofthese environments where you had women
(21:11):
that would support you and love you,and then you're just surrounded by men.
That is true.
That doesn't sound very safe.
Well, it was hard.
It was hard.
But I must confess that there wasone time when I was on the, as you
called it, excursion, where I don'tremember what I said, but Charbonneau
(21:35):
just turned around and he justhit me and he was yelling at me.
And Monsieur Clark, he told him to stop.
And he told him not totreat his woman like that.
What happened?
Well, Charbonneau stopped.
Not that he changed his personalityor anything like that, but
he knew not to be mean to me.
(21:58):
Or strike me when he was around Mr.
Clark,
So, did you develop an affection for Mr.
Clark because of this?
I would not say that Iformed an affection to him.
It was.
It's nice that he said that, but Itried to just keep to myself and be
(22:20):
as helpful as I could, because if Iwas helpful, then I would not be hurt.
It's interesting thatyou're saying all this.
I never would have put these piecestogether until you said it, but
Lewis and Clark kept journals.
I know you know well about those.
Maybe you even participated inwriting some of that information.
(22:41):
I don't know, but they kept severaljournals, wrote down everything that
was going on, but the one thing thatthey did not document very well is
what your attitude was about things,how you felt about everything that
was going on, even how you reacted.
And the fact that you, from a youngage, basically had to learn to keep
your emotions inside, that makes sense,because there would have been nothing
(23:03):
for them to write, because you wereintentionally not putting yourself in
a situation where somebody would bejudging you based on your reaction,
because you weren't having one.
I was not important to any of those men.
. And I think the only reason thatthey wanted me to come with them
(23:24):
is they were going across the RockyMountains, and they were going to
Shoshone land, and they needed someonewho spoke Shoshone to ask for horses,
because the mountains were very hard.
And the only way that they could getacross the mountains and not have to
(23:46):
take forever was if they had horses.
And so that's what they wanted mefor is they wanted me to talk to the
Shoshone in the Shoshone language andask for horses and supplies and guides
because no one else spoke that language.
So that's why they wanted me.
(24:07):
When you go back and read some of thesejournals, I would say that the two leaders
of the expedition, Lewis and Clark, itdoesn't appear that they felt that way
at all, that they thought that you werequite able in fact, there were times when
I read something where there were severaltimes that they were unable to find food.
(24:29):
And here you are going out, digging uproots and finding things that they need
, was that not happening on a regular basis?
, I don't think that they knew whenthey took me that, that I had that
skill., all they were thinking aboutwas negotiating with the Shoshone.
They didn't really think about that.
(24:50):
The Shoshone, we lived in the mountains,and , we were not farmers, so I could
always find vegetables and rootsand dig them up, and I knew what was
poisonous and what was poisonous.
Not poisonous that you could eat and Iknew of things that maybe they had never
even heard of and I think later on theyrealized that was important and I was
(25:13):
valuable for that because they justwanted to eat meat all the time, but
you can't just eat meat all the time.
You could get sick.
I had heard that there was thisword, and I'm not sure what it means.
It's scurvy.
That's what they said.
If they did not have some of theplants, they would get scurvy.
(25:34):
I don't know what that is, but Iknow it's not good, and it comes
from just eating meat all the time.
So, as we traveled, I just remembered whatI had learned with my people, and I knew.
How to find that.
And I knew how to dig that up.
I was always doing that.
I think I see what you're saying now,so you were saying initially they
(25:56):
didn't realize how much value youwere going to add to the expedition.
Later on they realized it, butinitially you're just a person
who can speak Shoshone and can getthem the horses so they can , get
through the next phase of their
Yes.
I see.
That makes sense because yeah, believe meand I'm sure you probably know this now.
They definitely found incrediblevalue in everything that you did,
(26:19):
but let's go back a little bit.
Let's go back to your childhoodbecause long before you were on that.
Incredible expedition going West.
And long before you were kidnapped,you grew up as a Shoshone, as you've
said several times, in the mountains.
And this sounds like a wonderful place.
Like I'm listening to you talkabout the mountains and the
(26:41):
people and they're not terriblyaggressive and it sounds wonderful.
You said you had a good childhood.
Tell me about that if you would.
Well, it's not that it was easybecause we had a lot to do.
It was hard , but it was stillgood because we moved a lot.
We were nomads and therewas work to be done.
(27:04):
There was always work to be done,and living in the mountains,
the wintertime it's very cold.
But there were wonderfulthings that I remember.
I remember, I remember myfather hunting some bison.
Have you ever eaten bisontongue or bison hump?
Oh, it's very good.
And so when the men would have that,my father would make sure that I would
get some because it was very tasty.
(27:26):
It was good.
And like I said, picking theberries in the springtime.
Oh my gosh.
The berries were so delicious.
And then my mother showing me how totake camas roots and you could eat
it raw, but you could also cook itand make it into a soup or bread.
And I remember my mother teachingme how to butcher and prepare meat.
(27:46):
And she taught me, I remember her teachingme how to make clothing and moccasins
and how to put up and take down a teepee.
It , it was a lot of work, but.
Work is always easier when you havea family, and people care about you
and love you and even the winterswhen there was a lot of snow and it
was hard, we would always be insidetelling stories or singing and dancing.
(28:12):
It was hard, but when you have afamily, that always makes it easier.
The way that our life is right now,our culture, people really try to get
away a lot of times from hard work.
And I think the hard work ends up being.
Good memories a lot of times because,, you're accomplishing things, , even if
it is something simple as, , preparingfood so that you have food for the
(28:34):
winter or, , something , else hard.
Doesn't make it bad.
A lot of times I think hard makes itgood, but your memories of childhood
they're generally good, right?
Yes, they are good.
My, my family was good to me.
I had friends.
The day that I was captured, we were justpicking berries and we were having fun
and we ate more berries than we gathered.
(28:57):
Someone said, , you better makesure you fill that basket or
your mother won't be happy.
I just I guess I think about thatmore because once I was captured, I
don't have those kinds of memories.
, I don't have those kinds of memories.
Good times with people who love me.
(29:18):
Did your relationship withthe Hidatsus change the longer
that you lived with them?
Did you integrate with their societyand become one of the people there?
Or were you always a slave untilyou were either sold or lost in
a gambling dead as you'd said?
I did talk to some people, some ofthe women, but I was always afraid.
(29:42):
And I knew that anythingcould happen to me.
Which it did when theygave me to Charbonneau.
I had no say.
So I just did whatever I was told.
And I kept my thoughts to myself.
But I just never thought thatthere was someone like my mother.
(30:04):
I want to go back toCharbonneau for a minute.
Does he go by Charbonneau ordoes he go by Toussaint or.
I call him Charbonneau.
Are you married to Charbonneau right now?
Yes,
And where are you living now?
St.
Louis, a place called St.
Louis.
Oh, are you in a house?
It is a house.
We see, we lived in the MandanHidatsa village, the five villages.
(30:28):
But when we went on the expedition,Clark, Monsieur Clark really liked
my son, because I had a baby.
Did I tell you that?
No, but believe me, Iwas going to ask you,
Well,
keep going.
Clark really liked my son.
He was, he called him my dancing boy.
(30:50):
He really liked him a lot,and I must say he did look out
for me as much as he was able.
And since I had the baby, he, you know,he would like to hold the baby or,
I mean, babies can be so wonderful.
And so when we finished, and he wasgoing back home at the end of this
(31:11):
whole adventure, he told Charbonneauthat He would give him land and
animals, and if we came to St.
Louis, he would educate my son.
And so Charbonneau said he'dthink about it, and maybe when
my son was weaned, we would go.
And so eventually my son is fourwinters now, so we went to St.
(31:34):
Louis.
And that's where Charbonneau is right now.
He's meeting with Monsieur Clarkabout farmland and animals.
He was a trapper and fur trader.
And so, he said we were going to go, andthat Monsieur Clark would give us land
and animals, and then we would be farmers.
(31:55):
And so, that's why we are here.
. How do you feel about that,about Clark taking the
responsibility of educating him?
It's hard, because, well,right now we're here.
In St.
Louis, and so my son can be educatedand I can still be part of his life.
I just do not think that Charbonneauis going to like this idea of farming.
(32:20):
He's going to want to goback to the mountains.
I just, I know it.
And.
Having a child less attention onhim, Charbonneau, and more attention
to the child, because the child isyoung and needs, and I just think
that he is going to say that my sonwill stay with Clark and that he
(32:43):
and I will go back to the mountains.
I don't know this for sure,but it's just what I think.
Because he's a trapper by trade.
Yes.
So he's going to want tobe out in the wilderness.
He's not going to belocked into one place.
Well, that's what I think.
Right now, as I said, he is meetingwith Monsieur Clark about this.
(33:06):
farmland and animals.
And I don't know how that's going to go.
It's, as I think about this, and I imagineif this was my son and you have got this
rich tradition of living off the landand, , you actually know how to grow food
and how to find food, how to hunt forfood, how to store food in the winter.
(33:30):
And I wonder if your son , if hewould miss some of that training,
, so some of those traditionswould not get passed to him.
Because if Clark was raising him, butmaybe that would be an advantage because
if the world is changing and it'sgoing the direction that maybe Clark
is going, , where people have guns and,, civilization and all of that, I wonder if
(33:53):
he's better off getting that education.
Do you have thoughts on that?
I wish that my son couldbe raised like a Shoshone.
I wish my son meet my family.
I wish my son could haveall of those things.
I don't really know about this.
education that MonsieurClark is talking about.
(34:17):
I don't understand what that is.
Send him to this thing they call school.
My family learned from ourparents and our siblings.
I don't understand thisthing called school.
Maybe he would learn languages, he wouldlearn more languages because , I speak
(34:38):
Shoshone and Hidatsa, Charbonneau speaksHidatsa and French, we both know some
sign language., so maybe he would learnmore languages and that way probably
meet more people, more white people.
Because that's the worldthat we are in right now.
Your son's name is um,
(35:00):
Charbonneau.
okay,
Charbonneau named him, henamed him after his father.
His father's name was Jean Baptiste.
And so that's how he got his name.
But I called him Pomp.
Well, yeah, that's whatI was going to ask you.
Where did the name Pomp come from?
It's just like a nickname.
Sort of means first son, first born.
And then Clark changed hisname from Pomp to Pompie.
(35:23):
He liked calling himPompie, and my dancing boy.
And then everybody juststarted calling him that.
Where did Dancing Boy come from?
, is it obvious?
Or is there something specific that he
Well, you know how babies, whenthey lay on their back, and they
shake their feet and their arms?
Yeah.
So, and also there was this oneman on the adventure who played
(35:44):
this thing called a fiddle.
Which made this music, and anytime Pompwould hear that, he would shake his arms
and his feet when this person wouldplay this fiddle, everybody would start
dancing and Pomp would start movinghis arms and feet like that as well.
Maybe Pomp is at heart a musician.
Maybe he'll grow up to play music.
(36:06):
I don't know.
Anything is possible, I suppose.
How big is The tribe this your Shoshonetribe before you left the village.
How big?
the village.
Yeah, what's the size the population?
Population?
I don't know what that word means.
Yeah, I apologize.
How many people lived with you?
(36:27):
Was it just your family orwere there lots of families?
there were lots of families.
My family, , we had one tipi.
There were, I don't know how many tipis,but there, there were a lot of people.
Remember I said that we were nomads.
And so, We could pack up the wholevillage in an hour, , take down all the
teepees, pack up all of our belongings,put them on the travoy on horses.
(36:48):
, so I don't think it was a lot ofpeople, but it was a good size.
As nomads?
Was it primarily thebuffalo that you followed?
No, not just buffalo, deer, elk,antelope, moose, fox, beaver,
rabbits, pronghorn, squirrels.
, it was any sort of bad the, thebison was the biggest, they were the
(37:13):
biggest, but we wanted to make surewe stayed away from the bears, , that
Monsieur Clark called grizzly bears.
Stay away from the grizzly bears.
It's good advice.
You've mentioned Clark, Mr.
Clark, several times,
You have not said Mr.
Lewis's name a single time.
And I'm curious, , wereyou closer with Clark?
(37:35):
Did you communicate with him more?
I would say yes.
Monsieur Lewis was there, butMonsieur Clark, well, first
of all, Monsieur Clark was sointeresting because his hair was red.
I had never seen anyonewith hair that color.
He had this red hair.
(37:56):
And also, Monsieur Clark had this Iguess he was an enslaved person like
me, this man by the name of York, andhe had skin that was black as night.
I had never seen anyonewith skin like that.
I thought that his skin waspainted on, but he let me touch
his arm, and it was not paint, itwas just the color of his skin.
(38:19):
And the people in the village called himBlack Indian or Big Medicine, because he
was a very big man, he was very strong.
He could dance on his hands,and show feats of strength.
He was Amazing and so powerful, Mr.
Clark said one time that yes, Yorkis amazing and powerful and he said,
(38:42):
imagine how powerful I Clark am ifI control everything about York.
So.
what he said?
Yes, he said that he was powerfulbecause he controlled everything
about York and it, I guess ittouched something in my heart because
Charbonneau controls everything about me.
And like me, York worked veryhard and he had no voice.
(39:05):
Except there was one time thatboth York and I had a voice.
One time, it was the only time,I think, in my whole life, that
anyone had asked my opinion.
There was this time where Monsieur Clarkasked everyone who was there where we
wanted to put our winter camp, whereto build this fort, which was going to
(39:27):
be our home for the next five monthswhile we waited through the winter.
He asked everyone, and we all tooka vote, including York, the black
enslaved man, and me, a woman.
They asked what I thought, andnot only did they ask what I
thought, but they asked me why.
I had that thought.
And I had a good reason, too.
(39:49):
I had a very good reason, because I chosethe location where there was a lot of
wapato, which is a root vegetable, kindof like a potato, where we could eat.
And winter, it's hard tofind food in the ground.
The ground is frozen.
But I knew on this oneparticular location, I could
find those root vegetables.
And so.
(40:09):
I'd said that was where weshould camp, where there is food.
And that was the only time I hadever been asked for my thoughts.
And you, and they actually didlisten to you and you chose that camp
Well, we took a vote.
So everyone voted andeveryone decided there.
They were also, it seemed that therewere more animals there that they
could hunt because winter is veryhard and cold and the ground is frozen
(40:33):
and you can't find as many animals.
And so I couldn't believe they were takinga vote and I was just standing there.
I wasn't going to say anything and theyturned to me and they asked me what I
thought that was one of the best times.
When you're talking about York, theenslaved black man, did you and he get
(40:59):
along because you maybe felt that, , yourstations were similar because neither of
you really had a voice from day to day.
did you have a relationshipwith him at all?
No, I wouldn't say that he spoke English.
He did not speak Hadassah or Shoshone.
So I would see him and I would, oneof the things that I did was listen.
(41:25):
I would listen to everyone because that'sthe only way that I could get information.
No one would come up to me and say, okay,we're doing this or we're going here
so I would watch and I would listen.
And so I, I would see him, but it's not.
That we became friendsor anything like that.
(41:47):
So what were the other men likeon the Lewis and Clark expedition?
, you've got Clark, who's got the redhair which was certainly novel for you.
And you have the blackman with the black skin.
Were, what were the other men like?
I mean, some of them had blue hairor some of them seven feet tall.
, were they rough type people?
(42:07):
Were they easy to deal with?
What would you say to that?
Well, I didn't reallyhave much to do with them.
They were mostly frontiersmen andsoldiers, and they worked very hard.
There, there was so much to do.
, and they were very strong because whenwe got to the great falls, we couldn't.
(42:28):
Get the horses.
The horses were slipping andthese men were very strong.
They could pick up big trees and boatsand carry things up the mountains.
And so they were verystrong and they spoke.
. Most of them spoke English.
There were a couple of French men whospoke French, but I think most of them.
(42:52):
were soldiers.
Because when we were going on thistrip, Lewis and Clark wanted Charbonneau
to come and they wanted me to come.
So we moved into their fort.
But Charbonneau did notlike the terms of the work.
He did not like having duties thattheir men had to do, like standing
(43:12):
guard or doing soldier things.
Charbonneau did not want to do that.
So he tried to tell Mr.
Lewis and Mr.
Clark, what he wanted to do, but Mr.
Lewis and Clark would have none of that.
And they told Charbonneau to go away.
So we left the fort.
Charbonneau thought about itonce we were gone and he really
wanted to go on this trip.
(43:34):
And so a few days later, we cameback to the fort and Charbonneau,
he had to apologize to Mr.
Lewis and Clark.
And he said he wanted to go andhe would do what he was told.
And so they had us moveback into the fort.
to get ready.
And I was surprised that theywanted me to come because I was
having a baby in three months.
(43:54):
Well, yeah.
And what about that?
, it's incredible that here, , if you'resix months pregnant and you've got
three months left to go, I mean, theseare not the easiest months for a woman
to be pregnant and maybe not the besttime to be traveling across the world.
That seems you seem like an odd choice.
Well,
I think you're wondering, did Ihave morning sickness or did I
(44:17):
wake up as the baby kicked insideme or did I crave certain foods?
But as usual, I kept quiet.
I kept quiet.
And they really wanted my Shoshonelanguage skills, and we were staying
there because we were waitingfor the winter to clear before we
(44:37):
started our journey on the MissouriRiver because the river was frozen.
And also there was a lotof preparation to do.
So those three months that I waswaiting to have the baby was time
that they weren't going to be goinganywhere right then there was a lot.
to do.
And there were 40 menpreparing for this journey.
And I was just another person whowas helping get ready for this.
(45:01):
But when it came time to have thebaby, oh, my labor was tedious
and the pain was so violent.
Oh my goodness.
And the strange thing was that these whitemen gave me The rattle of a rattlesnake
mixed with water and I drank it andwithin 10 minutes the baby was born.
(45:23):
I had never heard of having the rattleof a rattlesnake mixed in water to
help speed on the birth of my son.
And I'm guessing at that point you wouldhave done anything to ease the pain.
Yes, it was.
It was very bad.
I will tell you, in this time, that isnot something that we've continued to do.
(45:46):
When a woman is having a baby, we don'tkill a rattlesnake and say, drink this.
So, obviously it helped, but Idon't know if it helps anymore.
So,
if it really helped or if it's justI had been in pain so long and it
was time, so I don't know if therattlesnake really helped, but I
think they were going to write thatdown in those books that they had.
(46:09):
They were going to write that downto see if maybe when they got back.
I can't remember.
I think it was one of the Frenchmen.
Who came up with that idea, I don'treally remember because I was just
in, I was just in a lot of pain.
birth of Pomp while youwere on the expedition.
(46:30):
No, we weren't, we were waiting to go.
When Pomp was born, wewere in Fort Mandan.
They named it after the Mandans.
And because they had come from St.
Louis, down the river.
And they landed here and they were goingto continue to make preparations , and
(46:50):
they had a journey already, and theyhad found some plants and animals
that they were going to send backto their great father, Jefferson.
And then we were going to continuethe journey from Fort Mandan.
But we weren't goingyet when I had the baby.
We were just in preparation stage.
There was a lot of thingsthat they were preparing.
(47:11):
We had to make 300 pair of moccasins.
We had to hew canoes.
because they needed somecanoes from cottonwood logs.
They had to make battleaxes to trade for food.
They were preparing, like I said,the plants and animals to send back
to their great father Jefferson.
And they were also talking to peoplebecause they wanted to get as much
(47:32):
information about what we wouldfind once we started to go west.
And , they were making thisthing that they called map.
Have you ever heard of map?
Yes, I have heard of map.
I had never heard of that, but I guessmaps show directions where we would
to go so that we would not get lost.
So they talked to anybody who they couldtalk to, to find . What we would see
(47:55):
and they would put this down on thesemaps and these maps were on something
called paper and they drew strange shapesthat they could look at and understand
they called it writing, and they saidthey could read this writing they could
understand this writing and it was theirway to keep track of everything now.
We, Shoshone, we neverhad anything like that.
To keep track of our stories inhistory, we would draw pictures
(48:17):
that anyone could understand.
But these maps on paper and these strangeshapes, and they called it writing, was
It was what they would do all the time.
They would also draw somepictures of different things
that they had never seen before.
But there was a lot to do at Fort Mandanbefore we started the second leg of
the journey, I guess you would call it.
(48:40):
Okay.
So now let me get clear on this because Ithink now I understand where I went wrong.
, This was the middle of their journey.
This, it was where, FortMandan was where we lived.
Charbonneau and I, we lived there.
And so they came from St.
Louis and they got to the Mandan Villageand that's when they decided they
were going to winter there and theywere going to, they built this fort
(49:01):
and get information and make things.
Now, I already live there.
So that was not, that was wherethe journey would begin for me.
We were going to leave Fort Mandanand then continue the journey west.
So it was the second leg of their journey.
It is amazing to me that somehow allof these men, these rough men, some
(49:24):
of them soldiers, frontiersmen, thesemen thought, what we need is we need
a newborn child traveling with us.
, you had to be afraid.
Were you?
I don't know.
I don't think I was afraid because,well, we had this thing called a cradle
board, which is, it's made out of wood.
(49:47):
And I guess it's kind of what you wouldcall a backpack that you put the baby in.
And the baby is very happy becausebabies like to be confined.
And also every time I move, , hewould move and babies like that.
They like when you're moving.
And that's just, that's just what Shoshonewomen would do, and Hadassah women too.
(50:09):
All women, I guess.
You always have your baby with you, andit doesn't stop you from living your life,
or doing your chores, or going where youhave to go, doing what you have to do.
And I don't, I don't know.
I don't think they really thoughtabout, was it comfortable for me?
Or would I be happy , taking the baby?
And I don't think I thought that we weregoing quite as far as we went, , they
(50:35):
talked about going to see this big ocean,but I didn't, think how far is that?
How long would it take?
I just didn't think about that.
I just did what I was told.
I guess this makes sense too,because as you're saying your family.
The Shoshone's, they were nomad,they were nomadic and it would have
(50:55):
been no big deal for you guys to say,okay, everybody throw your babies
on your shoulder and grab the stuffand , we're going to go somewhere else.
And nobody probably even said,
how far are we going to go?
Or how long is it going to take?
That was just the way it was.
You just, they said, let's go.
And so you went.
Yes, I think that's true.
But this was further than thiswas further than I ever imagined.
(51:18):
And this was further, our journeywas further than going from my
Shoshone village to when I waskidnapped to the Hadatsa village.
This was further than that.
I don't know how far it was becausewe don't think in those terms.
They talked about how manymiles that doesn't mean
anything to me, it was just far.
(51:41):
You had said twice nowyou've said Father Jefferson.
I think I know who you're talking about,but I'm curious, who's Father Jefferson
that Lewis and Clark were talking about?
That's their great, theycalled him the great father.
He was the man who sentthem on this journey.
And from what I'm not sure Itotally understand because I didn't
(52:02):
speak their language very well.
But apparently this father,Jefferson bought this land.
from the French, from someonewith a very strange name.
I never heard a name like this.
Napoleon?
Have you ever heard of that man?
I have heard of him.
In fact, I've spoken with himrecently using the same device
(52:24):
that I'm speaking to you with.
And the purchase that they're,they were talking about in our
time, we call that the Louisiana
yes, Yes.
Yeah.
couldn't remember what it was called, butI knew there was some sort of purchase.
But it strikes me very strangebecause all these white men come to
this land And then they say they ownit and they're buying it, giving,
(52:48):
trading things to, to own this land.
And I just don't understand thatbecause nobody owns the land.
I didn't understand how that could be.
You live there, you share the land,but I just did not understand that.
it is so hard to imagine being 12years old and you're out picking
(53:09):
berries with your friend jumping fish.
And then in a moment,your life changes forever.
You're thrown on the back of ahorse and taken from your family.
How many people would buckle underthe pressure and not survive yet.
Sacagawea.
I found a way, despite all odds.
In the next episode, you're going tohear how Lewis and Clark expedition
was an opportunity for Sakakawea toreturn to her home and what happened
(53:34):
when she actually did go home.
She'll also share some of theadventurous stories that happened
along the journey where she.
Nearly drowned.
And could have beeneaten by a grizzly bear.
I'm glad you're enjoying this podcast.
If you haven't yet subscribed now, andwe'll see you at the next episode of the
calling history podcast with part two.
Sacagawea
I'm Tony Dean.
And today we'll be callinghistory to speak with Sacagawea.
She'll be answering our call on October30th, 18, 10 at the age of 24, just
a few years after the completionof the Lewis and Clark expedition.
So little is known about Sacagaweaand almost nothing was written.
In fact, even her death was disputed.
, She either died two years after thisconversation in 1812 of sickness.
(00:53):
or she lived another 72 yearsto be an old woman after leaving
a repressive husband that.
Most likely one her in a poker game.
And then.
She may have marriedsomeone in the command.
She tried.
Lewis and Clark described heras courageous, determined and
indispensable, but wrote littleabout her emotional state.
In the next two episodes, you're goingto learn about the tragic circumstances
(01:17):
that caused her to guard her feelingsand opinions for her entire life
yet.
It is no wonder that she is revered andseen as a hero after being kidnapped
at the age of 12, and then basicallythrown into a canoe to travel across the
United States with an infant in her arms.
An infant that in the end, very likelysaved every person's life on that trip.
(01:38):
She overcame incredible odds andfound a way to survive, regardless
of what challenges life threw at herladies and gentlemen, fellow history,
lovers, and pickers of berrieseverywhere I give you sacagawea
Hello.
Is that you?
Sacagawea.
Yes, I am Sakagawea.
Well,
(01:58):
so excited to speak with you.
My name is Tony Dean and I'm talking toyou from the future in the 21st century.
The device that you're holding inyour hand is called a smartphone and
it allows us to speak as if you andI were five feet from one another.
It also allows me to share a record of ourconversation with people around the world.
I was hoping I could ask yousome questions today, but before
(02:20):
I do, I understand this isa very strange introduction.
Can I answer any questionsthat you might have first?
the first question that Iwanted to ask you is, are you
sure you want to talk with me?
Men rarely talk with me and no onehas ever asked me my story or about my
thoughts, feelings, my needs, my wants.
And so this is very strange.
(02:43):
Well, I'll tell you that.
It's as strange for you to make astatement like that to me, because
in our time, women see you as a hero.
, women look up to you.
Your face is on money in our time.
Because of the journey that you tookwith Lewis and Clark and the stories
that we hear about, how you aidedin that westward expansion, and the
(03:06):
courage and the fact that you didit with a child, and all of that.
, people in our time look up toyou like you can't imagine.
So I'm surprised to hear you say that.
But I guess the first question thatI'd like to ask you, cause I'm,
we're very interested in your story,is , even though people see you in
that light in, in this time, yourlife didn't exactly start that way.
(03:29):
At a very young age, you were kidnapped.
Is that not right?
Yes, that is very true.
I think I was like 10 or 12winters when I was kidnapped
and taken away from my family.
So that was just thinking about thatnow makes me so sad because I was
away from my family, and I only evergot to see someone in my family once.
(03:53):
For the rest of my life.
So that was terrible.
Do you want me to tellyou how I was kidnapped?
What happened?
Yes, please.
I'd love to hear that story.
Well, I was with my friends.
It was springtime and wewere gathering berries.
, that was one of the things that wedid because we lived in the Bitterroot
Mountains, and the mountains are veryrocky, so we did not grow plants, we
(04:18):
would always just find roots or berries,things that were growing in the ground,
and we would dig them up, and so sinceit was springtime, it was a wonderful
time to get berries, I think we atemore berries than we put in the basket,
and so we They're gathering berries.
And all of a sudden weheard horses coming.
There were lots of horses.
And when we looked, we sawthat it wasn't our people.
(04:40):
It was another nation called the Hadassahsthey were our enemies and they had guns.
We did not have guns.
Our men only had bows and arrows.
So they came on these horsesand it was so frightening.
And for a moment, I just frozebecause I didn't know what to do.
And a friend of mine,jumping fish, she said, run.
(05:01):
And so I started to run.
Behind her and there were gunshots.
I heard bows and arrows going off andthe horses, there was so many people.
I don't even know how many had thatsays there were coming after us.
And, And so I was running as fast asI could and I couldn't keep up with
jumping fish because she was tallerthan me, her legs were longer than mine.
And all of a sudden some.
(05:23):
Warrior on a horse grabbed me and pulledme up on his horse and I saw jumping fish
in the distance and I so wish that I waswith her, but I knew that I was captured.
I knew that they weregoing to take me away.
And I was so scared.
I didn't know.
I didn't know what to do.
(05:44):
He just grabbed me and I stoppedstruggling and There were just
too many Hadassahs and I wasafraid, what would happen to me?
I knew they were going to take meaway from my family and my home.
And I was so afraid and I didn'tknow what they were saying because
they were speaking a languagethat I did not understand.
I was so scared.
Eventually I realized thatsome of our men were killed.
(06:08):
I think there were maybe four of ourmen and some of our women who were shot
with these weapons that they call a gun.
It was just so horrible,and I was so afraid.
Sounds terrible.
So did your tribe not have guns?
No we only had bows and arrows, andthat's one of the reasons we lived in
(06:28):
the mountains, because some of the othertribes had traded with people that they
called the white men, and they had theseweapons called guns, but we did not.
And so, we lived way up in the BitterrootMountains because That way we'd be safe.
We did not have guns.
me
me walk hundreds of miles from my hometo their village near the Knife River.
(06:53):
And that's when I understood thatI was now enslaved to the Hadatsas.
And that I didn't think Iwould ever see my mother.
Again, it was a very strangeworld because the Hadatsas were
so different from the Shoshone.
They were so different, even justlike the houses that they lived
(07:14):
in were different from our houses.
The way that they ate theirfood it was so different.
And I was so lonely.
I did not speak their language.
I had.
I had to learn how to speak theHadatsa language, and I had to learn
how to work and live in the houses.
My people, the Shoshone,we lived in tipis.
(07:36):
And I don't know if you're familiarwith the tipi or not, , . But the
Hadatsas They lived in these things theycalled earth lodges, which had an outer
circle of cottonwood posts and beamsand logs, and they put willow branches
and dried prairie grass and thick sod,forming a huge mound, and it had logs.
(07:57):
They had vertical logs making a doorwayand they had a huge stockade surrounding
the village and outside of that therewere fields with plants growing.
They did not forage like we did.
They grew food to eat since theywere not on rocky soil of the
Bitterroot Mountains like us.
They grew all kinds of thingslike corn, beans, squash.
(08:19):
It was so different from the Shoshoneand they lived in their village.
Whereas the Shoshone, We were nomads.
We would stay in an area.
That's why we lived in tipis.
And then we would follow the animalsfor food or move because of the winter.
And so we would pack up the whole village.
We could pack up a village of tipisin one hour and then put everything on
(08:43):
Travoy, which were long sticks with horsesand dogs and move to another location.
But the Hadatsas was their home.
Stockade surrounding their village.
And so I had to learn a whole new life.
They did not forage.
I had to learn how to plant and harvest.
(09:04):
And I also had to learn the women wouldsing and pray to the corn spirits.
And there were all these new rules.
Like you could never argue near thefields because I was told that would scare
the corn spirits and destroy the crops.
I had to learn how to storeand cook these new foods.
There was so much I had to do,and I was just a little girl.
(09:26):
I was a child,
. I don't even know how you survive something like this.
First of all, I guess Iwant to ask, is this common?
That one tribe would just steal anothertribe's children, or women, or men
for that matter, and enslave them?
I think that has happened before, yes,because eventually when I was with the
(09:47):
Hadatsas, I met other Shoshone women.
who were taken from different villages.
So that happened.
But , it doesn't sound like theShoshones were aggressive in that way.
The Shoshones, were they morepeaceful than the Hadatsus?
, I would say yes, becausewe did not have guns.
(10:07):
And when I was growing up, wejust wanted to live our lives.
We just wanted to, , hunt the bison,get food, get crops, move our village
when it was time because if the animalsmoved we would follow the animals.
, I would say that wewere a peaceful people.
The men would hunt andthe women would forage.
(10:28):
And we just wanted to live our lives.
And we used our bows and arrows to hunt.
Except.
When we were attacked by another nation.
That's why we lived wayup in the mountains.
I had never seen a white man untilI went to the Hadassah village.
I had never seen so many people.
We, it was just our village.
(10:50):
In your village, was thatsomething that people talked about?
, were there, , storiesof the white men coming?
Or, , is there a legend of that?
Or
there were people whowere different from us.
And we knew this because where didthese Hadassahs get these guns from?
, it's just something that Iheard that there were these
(11:10):
other people called white men.
I had never seen one
What would the people in your tribe whatwould they be thinking about the guns?
Because you've mentioned these guns a lot.
To stay away from them and we were scaredof them because we knew that if someone
had them, it was going to bring death.
I see.
To go to the Hidatsu village,you had to travel a lot.
(11:32):
Tell me what that looked like.
I had to walk the warrior who captured me.
I was on his horse for a littlewhile, eventually, when they either
had shot people in my nation.
Or people ran away.
Then we were making ourway back to their village.
(11:52):
I don't know how long it took us to getthere, but it was very far from where we
lived to their village by the Knife River.
It was so far.
It took days and days.
I don't even know how many days it was.
I think I was probably shockand I was so scared.
(12:17):
I didn't, I think I justwent blank in my mind.
And that's something that Idid for the rest of my life.
Pretty much when I was a child in myvillage with my family and my brothers
and my sisters and my friends, That wasa wonderful childhood, but then once
I was captured, it was like peopledidn't ask me how I felt about something
(12:43):
or what I thought or what I wanted.
I had to keep quiet becauseI was now an enslaved person.
So I learned very quicklynot to show any emotion.
Do not show joy or sorrow or fearbecause it was not safe to show emotion.
If my feelings were something that theperson who captured me did not like,
I could be punished, I could be hit.
(13:05):
They could deprive me of food orshelter, who knows what they would do.
So, I learned.
Very quickly, not to show any emotionand keep everything in my head.
, when somebody gets kidnapped like this,it seems like that it would be human
nature for there to be consequences.
(13:26):
That perhaps , the Shoshones of yourtribe, , after the Hidatsus came in
and murdered people and then, andthen took children, it seems that
there would be consequences, thatthey would get a party together and
maybe go out and try to recover you.
Is that, would that be?
Something that a person would expect?
Were you thinking that you might be saved?
I did not think I would be saved becausemy nation, they did not have those guns.
(13:53):
Those guns were very powerful.
How can you fight to regain your familywith a bow and arrow when someone
just points this weapon at you andshoots you and it just brings death?
And destruction.
Boy, the guns.
Once somebody has the guns,everything's different, isn't it?
Yes, it is very different.
(14:14):
So once I was captured I never thoughtthat my family would come and get me.
I don't even know if they knewhow to get to the Hadassah village
because, , we stayed in the mountains.
And the Hadassahs when I walkedall those miles, , we were down
in, I guess it was flat land.
We, we weren't in the mountains.
(14:35):
, when I finally got to their village.
It wasn't anything like themountains because remember I said
that they grew plants, they hadfields, which we did not have.
I don't know if my family wouldeven know how to find them.
Yeah, it's like, they're justcompletely across the world.
Yes,
(14:57):
What are the mountains to your people?
home.
It's home.
throughout all the generations, haveyour people lived in the mountains?
Well, my grandfather told me thatwhen he was young, that we didn't
always live in the mountains.
But when there were nations thatwere aggressive, eventually,
(15:18):
that's where we went.
To be safe.
I see.
So the mountains are home,and the mountains are safety.
Yes.
So as a slave, as an enslaved person,what does that mean when you arrive at the
Hadassah village and you are now enslaved?
Are you somebody's property?
Are you the tribes property?
(15:40):
Or do you have to do the worst jobs?
What does that look like?
Well, they gave me to a womanbecause they're not going to make
me do the work that a man would do.
And so they gave me a place to stay.
They gave me food.
And it was so hard because Idid not speak the language.
(16:00):
And I would not show any emotionbecause , these people did not
love me like my family did, and Ididn't know would they care for me.
So I was quiet, and I tried to learnthe Hadassah language as fast as
I could and eventually I did learnthe language, and I learned it.
(16:21):
a lot of things.
I learned how to make things from woodbecause they worked in the fields.
I learned how to make rakes and bowls.
I made corn.
I had to grind corn that they would grow.
I learned how to plant.
I learned how to, when the plants wouldgrow, I learned how to harvest them.
I learned how to make the, theHadassahs had something called bull
(16:43):
boats for traveling in the riverswhere they had a wooden frame and they
had hide that was stretched over theframe to make the boat watertight.
I learned how to make things from bison.
I learned how to get sinew for thread.
I learned how to makepouches from the stomach.
I tanned hides to make clothes, blankets.
I learned how to make brushes andtools and sleds from hose, from
(17:07):
the bones and cups and ladles.
I made moccasins and pots and pans and somuch more, but I was not allowed to make
baskets or pottery because in that nation,only certain people in their nation
had the right to practice those crafts.
But I worked hard always.
, and I missed my family and my friends.
(17:27):
I kept thinking about how jumpingfish escape being captured and
I wish that I too had escaped.
Time meant nothing to mebut work and loneliness.
Jumping fish escaped.
So she ran and got away.
Is that what
Yes, I think she always, she was so funny.
She would always be running and jumping.
(17:48):
That's how she got the name jumpingfish because that's just how she was.
And she was taller than Iwas, so I could jump, but she
could always jump higher than.
than I could.
She was my friend and I missed her.
When you look back at that situationand you saw her escape, was there
something that , you wished youwould have done different to escape?
(18:10):
Run faster.
I wish I could have run faster.
When the Hadassah came and the warrior wasthere, , I think at one moment I froze.
I wish I didn't freeze.
Maybe if I didn't freeze,I could have gotten away.
I don't know.
You had mentioned uh, you mentionedseveral times white men, what is
(18:30):
your impression of white men and hasthat changed throughout the years?
I really didn't have much to do with them.
, it's not that we becamefriends or anything like that.
It wasn't like that.
I, I was forced to marry a white manand I would say he was the white man
that I had the most to do with , I don'tknow if the Hadatsa sold me to him,
(18:55):
or if he won me in a gambling game.
But just one day they toldme I had to go with him.
And then he said that I was his wife.
I had no choice.
That's how it happened.
Just one day, he just says,Hey you're coming with me.
You're my wife.
And you don't knowanything other than that.
No, and I don't know how it came tobe did he pick me or I don't know.
(19:20):
It's just one day they saidthat you go with him now.
And so that's what I did.
So the man, I think you're talkingabout if I'm saying his name, right?
It's Tucson Charbonneau.
Is that
Yes, Toussaint Charbonneau, hespoke French and Hadatsa.
did not speak French.
I learned some havinglived with him, but yes.
(19:42):
Tell me about him.
What kind of person was he?
Oh, he was a man of shorttemper and not always nice.
Yes.
He was at least 20 winters olderthan me and living with him.
I definitely did not show any emotion.
Because if he did not like somethingthat I said or did, he was known
(20:04):
often to yell at me, and hewould often sometimes strike me.
So I kept my thoughts to myself, and Itried not to speak much, except to Otter
Woman, because I was not his only wife.
He had another wife.
And she was Shoshone.
She was a little bit older than me, butit was so wonderful to be able to speak
(20:26):
my language again because Charbonneauspoke a language called French.
He also spoke some Hadassah,but he did not speak Shoshone.
Now I spoke Hadassah and I spoke Shoshone.
An otter woman spoke Hidatsa andShoshone, so it was so nice because
I could speak to her in our languageand he could not understand us.
(20:47):
She was the only one that I sometimeswould share my thoughts and feelings with.
When you went on the excursion withLewis and Clark, you were the only
woman that you were around duringthose several years, is that correct?
That is right, I was the only woman.
So from time to time throughout your life,it sounds like there have been several
times where you were just yanked out ofthese environments where you had women
(21:11):
that would support you and love you,and then you're just surrounded by men.
That is true.
That doesn't sound very safe.
Well, it was hard.
It was hard.
But I must confess that there wasone time when I was on the, as you
called it, excursion, where I don'tremember what I said, but Charbonneau
(21:35):
just turned around and he justhit me and he was yelling at me.
And Monsieur Clark, he told him to stop.
And he told him not totreat his woman like that.
What happened?
Well, Charbonneau stopped.
Not that he changed his personalityor anything like that, but
he knew not to be mean to me.
(21:58):
Or strike me when he was around Mr.
Clark,
So, did you develop an affection for Mr.
Clark because of this?
I would not say that Iformed an affection to him.
It was.
It's nice that he said that, but Itried to just keep to myself and be
(22:20):
as helpful as I could, because if Iwas helpful, then I would not be hurt.
It's interesting thatyou're saying all this.
I never would have put these piecestogether until you said it, but
Lewis and Clark kept journals.
I know you know well about those.
Maybe you even participated inwriting some of that information.
(22:41):
I don't know, but they kept severaljournals, wrote down everything that
was going on, but the one thing thatthey did not document very well is
what your attitude was about things,how you felt about everything that
was going on, even how you reacted.
And the fact that you, from a youngage, basically had to learn to keep
your emotions inside, that makes sense,because there would have been nothing
(23:03):
for them to write, because you wereintentionally not putting yourself in
a situation where somebody would bejudging you based on your reaction,
because you weren't having one.
I was not important to any of those men.
. And I think the only reason thatthey wanted me to come with them
(23:24):
is they were going across the RockyMountains, and they were going to
Shoshone land, and they needed someonewho spoke Shoshone to ask for horses,
because the mountains were very hard.
And the only way that they could getacross the mountains and not have to
(23:46):
take forever was if they had horses.
And so that's what they wanted mefor is they wanted me to talk to the
Shoshone in the Shoshone language andask for horses and supplies and guides
because no one else spoke that language.
So that's why they wanted me.
(24:07):
When you go back and read some of thesejournals, I would say that the two leaders
of the expedition, Lewis and Clark, itdoesn't appear that they felt that way
at all, that they thought that you werequite able in fact, there were times when
I read something where there were severaltimes that they were unable to find food.
(24:29):
And here you are going out, digging uproots and finding things that they need
, was that not happening on a regular basis?
, I don't think that they knew whenthey took me that, that I had that
skill., all they were thinking aboutwas negotiating with the Shoshone.
They didn't really think about that.
(24:50):
The Shoshone, we lived in the mountains,and , we were not farmers, so I could
always find vegetables and rootsand dig them up, and I knew what was
poisonous and what was poisonous.
Not poisonous that you could eat and Iknew of things that maybe they had never
even heard of and I think later on theyrealized that was important and I was
(25:13):
valuable for that because they justwanted to eat meat all the time, but
you can't just eat meat all the time.
You could get sick.
I had heard that there was thisword, and I'm not sure what it means.
It's scurvy.
That's what they said.
If they did not have some of theplants, they would get scurvy.
(25:34):
I don't know what that is, but Iknow it's not good, and it comes
from just eating meat all the time.
So, as we traveled, I just remembered whatI had learned with my people, and I knew.
How to find that.
And I knew how to dig that up.
I was always doing that.
I think I see what you're saying now,so you were saying initially they
(25:56):
didn't realize how much value youwere going to add to the expedition.
Later on they realized it, butinitially you're just a person
who can speak Shoshone and can getthem the horses so they can , get
through the next phase of their
Yes.
I see.
That makes sense because yeah, believe meand I'm sure you probably know this now.
They definitely found incrediblevalue in everything that you did,
(26:19):
but let's go back a little bit.
Let's go back to your childhoodbecause long before you were on that.
Incredible expedition going West.
And long before you were kidnapped,you grew up as a Shoshone, as you've
said several times, in the mountains.
And this sounds like a wonderful place.
Like I'm listening to you talkabout the mountains and the
(26:41):
people and they're not terriblyaggressive and it sounds wonderful.
You said you had a good childhood.
Tell me about that if you would.
Well, it's not that it was easybecause we had a lot to do.
It was hard , but it was stillgood because we moved a lot.
We were nomads and therewas work to be done.
(27:04):
There was always work to be done,and living in the mountains,
the wintertime it's very cold.
But there were wonderfulthings that I remember.
I remember, I remember myfather hunting some bison.
Have you ever eaten bisontongue or bison hump?
Oh, it's very good.
And so when the men would have that,my father would make sure that I would
get some because it was very tasty.
(27:26):
It was good.
And like I said, picking theberries in the springtime.
Oh my gosh.
The berries were so delicious.
And then my mother showing me how totake camas roots and you could eat
it raw, but you could also cook itand make it into a soup or bread.
And I remember my mother teachingme how to butcher and prepare meat.
(27:46):
And she taught me, I remember her teachingme how to make clothing and moccasins
and how to put up and take down a teepee.
It , it was a lot of work, but.
Work is always easier when you havea family, and people care about you
and love you and even the winterswhen there was a lot of snow and it
was hard, we would always be insidetelling stories or singing and dancing.
(28:12):
It was hard, but when you have afamily, that always makes it easier.
The way that our life is right now,our culture, people really try to get
away a lot of times from hard work.
And I think the hard work ends up being.
Good memories a lot of times because,, you're accomplishing things, , even if
it is something simple as, , preparingfood so that you have food for the
(28:34):
winter or, , something , else hard.
Doesn't make it bad.
A lot of times I think hard makes itgood, but your memories of childhood
they're generally good, right?
Yes, they are good.
My, my family was good to me.
I had friends.
The day that I was captured, we were justpicking berries and we were having fun
and we ate more berries than we gathered.
(28:57):
Someone said, , you better makesure you fill that basket or
your mother won't be happy.
I just I guess I think about thatmore because once I was captured, I
don't have those kinds of memories.
, I don't have those kinds of memories.
Good times with people who love me.
(29:18):
Did your relationship withthe Hidatsus change the longer
that you lived with them?
Did you integrate with their societyand become one of the people there?
Or were you always a slave untilyou were either sold or lost in
a gambling dead as you'd said?
I did talk to some people, some ofthe women, but I was always afraid.
(29:42):
And I knew that anythingcould happen to me.
Which it did when theygave me to Charbonneau.
I had no say.
So I just did whatever I was told.
And I kept my thoughts to myself.
But I just never thought thatthere was someone like my mother.
(30:04):
I want to go back toCharbonneau for a minute.
Does he go by Charbonneau ordoes he go by Toussaint or.
I call him Charbonneau.
Are you married to Charbonneau right now?
Yes,
And where are you living now?
St.
Louis, a place called St.
Louis.
Oh, are you in a house?
It is a house.
We see, we lived in the MandanHidatsa village, the five villages.
(30:28):
But when we went on the expedition,Clark, Monsieur Clark really liked
my son, because I had a baby.
Did I tell you that?
No, but believe me, Iwas going to ask you,
Well,
keep going.
Clark really liked my son.
He was, he called him my dancing boy.
(30:50):
He really liked him a lot,and I must say he did look out
for me as much as he was able.
And since I had the baby, he, you know,he would like to hold the baby or,
I mean, babies can be so wonderful.
And so when we finished, and he wasgoing back home at the end of this
(31:11):
whole adventure, he told Charbonneauthat He would give him land and
animals, and if we came to St.
Louis, he would educate my son.
And so Charbonneau said he'dthink about it, and maybe when
my son was weaned, we would go.
And so eventually my son is fourwinters now, so we went to St.
(31:34):
Louis.
And that's where Charbonneau is right now.
He's meeting with Monsieur Clarkabout farmland and animals.
He was a trapper and fur trader.
And so, he said we were going to go, andthat Monsieur Clark would give us land
and animals, and then we would be farmers.
(31:55):
And so, that's why we are here.
. How do you feel about that,about Clark taking the
responsibility of educating him?
It's hard, because, well,right now we're here.
In St.
Louis, and so my son can be educatedand I can still be part of his life.
I just do not think that Charbonneauis going to like this idea of farming.
(32:20):
He's going to want to goback to the mountains.
I just, I know it.
And.
Having a child less attention onhim, Charbonneau, and more attention
to the child, because the child isyoung and needs, and I just think
that he is going to say that my sonwill stay with Clark and that he
(32:43):
and I will go back to the mountains.
I don't know this for sure,but it's just what I think.
Because he's a trapper by trade.
Yes.
So he's going to want tobe out in the wilderness.
He's not going to belocked into one place.
Well, that's what I think.
Right now, as I said, he is meetingwith Monsieur Clark about this.
(33:06):
farmland and animals.
And I don't know how that's going to go.
It's, as I think about this, and I imagineif this was my son and you have got this
rich tradition of living off the landand, , you actually know how to grow food
and how to find food, how to hunt forfood, how to store food in the winter.
(33:30):
And I wonder if your son , if hewould miss some of that training,
, so some of those traditionswould not get passed to him.
Because if Clark was raising him, butmaybe that would be an advantage because
if the world is changing and it'sgoing the direction that maybe Clark
is going, , where people have guns and,, civilization and all of that, I wonder if
(33:53):
he's better off getting that education.
Do you have thoughts on that?
I wish that my son couldbe raised like a Shoshone.
I wish my son meet my family.
I wish my son could haveall of those things.
I don't really know about this.
education that MonsieurClark is talking about.
(34:17):
I don't understand what that is.
Send him to this thing they call school.
My family learned from ourparents and our siblings.
I don't understand thisthing called school.
Maybe he would learn languages, he wouldlearn more languages because , I speak
(34:38):
Shoshone and Hidatsa, Charbonneau speaksHidatsa and French, we both know some
sign language., so maybe he would learnmore languages and that way probably
meet more people, more white people.
Because that's the worldthat we are in right now.
Your son's name is um,
(35:00):
Charbonneau.
okay,
Charbonneau named him, henamed him after his father.
His father's name was Jean Baptiste.
And so that's how he got his name.
But I called him Pomp.
Well, yeah, that's whatI was going to ask you.
Where did the name Pomp come from?
It's just like a nickname.
Sort of means first son, first born.
And then Clark changed hisname from Pomp to Pompie.
(35:23):
He liked calling himPompie, and my dancing boy.
And then everybody juststarted calling him that.
Where did Dancing Boy come from?
, is it obvious?
Or is there something specific that he
Well, you know how babies, whenthey lay on their back, and they
shake their feet and their arms?
Yeah.
So, and also there was this oneman on the adventure who played
(35:44):
this thing called a fiddle.
Which made this music, and anytime Pompwould hear that, he would shake his arms
and his feet when this person wouldplay this fiddle, everybody would start
dancing and Pomp would start movinghis arms and feet like that as well.
Maybe Pomp is at heart a musician.
Maybe he'll grow up to play music.
(36:06):
I don't know.
Anything is possible, I suppose.
How big is The tribe this your Shoshonetribe before you left the village.
How big?
the village.
Yeah, what's the size the population?
Population?
I don't know what that word means.
Yeah, I apologize.
How many people lived with you?
(36:27):
Was it just your family orwere there lots of families?
there were lots of families.
My family, , we had one tipi.
There were, I don't know how many tipis,but there, there were a lot of people.
Remember I said that we were nomads.
And so, We could pack up the wholevillage in an hour, , take down all the
teepees, pack up all of our belongings,put them on the travoy on horses.
(36:48):
, so I don't think it was a lot ofpeople, but it was a good size.
As nomads?
Was it primarily thebuffalo that you followed?
No, not just buffalo, deer, elk,antelope, moose, fox, beaver,
rabbits, pronghorn, squirrels.
, it was any sort of bad the, thebison was the biggest, they were the
(37:13):
biggest, but we wanted to make surewe stayed away from the bears, , that
Monsieur Clark called grizzly bears.
Stay away from the grizzly bears.
It's good advice.
You've mentioned Clark, Mr.
Clark, several times,
You have not said Mr.
Lewis's name a single time.
And I'm curious, , wereyou closer with Clark?
(37:35):
Did you communicate with him more?
I would say yes.
Monsieur Lewis was there, butMonsieur Clark, well, first
of all, Monsieur Clark was sointeresting because his hair was red.
I had never seen anyonewith hair that color.
He had this red hair.
(37:56):
And also, Monsieur Clark had this Iguess he was an enslaved person like
me, this man by the name of York, andhe had skin that was black as night.
I had never seen anyonewith skin like that.
I thought that his skin waspainted on, but he let me touch
his arm, and it was not paint, itwas just the color of his skin.
(38:19):
And the people in the village called himBlack Indian or Big Medicine, because he
was a very big man, he was very strong.
He could dance on his hands,and show feats of strength.
He was Amazing and so powerful, Mr.
Clark said one time that yes, Yorkis amazing and powerful and he said,
(38:42):
imagine how powerful I Clark am ifI control everything about York.
So.
what he said?
Yes, he said that he was powerfulbecause he controlled everything
about York and it, I guess ittouched something in my heart because
Charbonneau controls everything about me.
And like me, York worked veryhard and he had no voice.
(39:05):
Except there was one time thatboth York and I had a voice.
One time, it was the only time,I think, in my whole life, that
anyone had asked my opinion.
There was this time where Monsieur Clarkasked everyone who was there where we
wanted to put our winter camp, whereto build this fort, which was going to
(39:27):
be our home for the next five monthswhile we waited through the winter.
He asked everyone, and we all tooka vote, including York, the black
enslaved man, and me, a woman.
They asked what I thought, andnot only did they ask what I
thought, but they asked me why.
I had that thought.
And I had a good reason, too.
(39:49):
I had a very good reason, because I chosethe location where there was a lot of
wapato, which is a root vegetable, kindof like a potato, where we could eat.
And winter, it's hard tofind food in the ground.
The ground is frozen.
But I knew on this oneparticular location, I could
find those root vegetables.
And so.
(40:09):
I'd said that was where weshould camp, where there is food.
And that was the only time I hadever been asked for my thoughts.
And you, and they actually didlisten to you and you chose that camp
Well, we took a vote.
So everyone voted andeveryone decided there.
They were also, it seemed that therewere more animals there that they
could hunt because winter is veryhard and cold and the ground is frozen
(40:33):
and you can't find as many animals.
And so I couldn't believe they were takinga vote and I was just standing there.
I wasn't going to say anything and theyturned to me and they asked me what I
thought that was one of the best times.
When you're talking about York, theenslaved black man, did you and he get
(40:59):
along because you maybe felt that, , yourstations were similar because neither of
you really had a voice from day to day.
did you have a relationshipwith him at all?
No, I wouldn't say that he spoke English.
He did not speak Hadassah or Shoshone.
So I would see him and I would, oneof the things that I did was listen.
(41:25):
I would listen to everyone because that'sthe only way that I could get information.
No one would come up to me and say, okay,we're doing this or we're going here
so I would watch and I would listen.
And so I, I would see him, but it's not.
That we became friendsor anything like that.
(41:47):
So what were the other men likeon the Lewis and Clark expedition?
, you've got Clark, who's got the redhair which was certainly novel for you.
And you have the blackman with the black skin.
Were, what were the other men like?
I mean, some of them had blue hairor some of them seven feet tall.
, were they rough type people?
(42:07):
Were they easy to deal with?
What would you say to that?
Well, I didn't reallyhave much to do with them.
They were mostly frontiersmen andsoldiers, and they worked very hard.
There, there was so much to do.
, and they were very strong because whenwe got to the great falls, we couldn't.
(42:28):
Get the horses.
The horses were slipping andthese men were very strong.
They could pick up big trees and boatsand carry things up the mountains.
And so they were verystrong and they spoke.
. Most of them spoke English.
There were a couple of French men whospoke French, but I think most of them.
(42:52):
were soldiers.
Because when we were going on thistrip, Lewis and Clark wanted Charbonneau
to come and they wanted me to come.
So we moved into their fort.
But Charbonneau did notlike the terms of the work.
He did not like having duties thattheir men had to do, like standing
(43:12):
guard or doing soldier things.
Charbonneau did not want to do that.
So he tried to tell Mr.
Lewis and Mr.
Clark, what he wanted to do, but Mr.
Lewis and Clark would have none of that.
And they told Charbonneau to go away.
So we left the fort.
Charbonneau thought about itonce we were gone and he really
wanted to go on this trip.
(43:34):
And so a few days later, we cameback to the fort and Charbonneau,
he had to apologize to Mr.
Lewis and Clark.
And he said he wanted to go andhe would do what he was told.
And so they had us moveback into the fort.
to get ready.
And I was surprised that theywanted me to come because I was
having a baby in three months.
(43:54):
Well, yeah.
And what about that?
, it's incredible that here, , if you'resix months pregnant and you've got
three months left to go, I mean, theseare not the easiest months for a woman
to be pregnant and maybe not the besttime to be traveling across the world.
That seems you seem like an odd choice.
Well,
I think you're wondering, did Ihave morning sickness or did I
(44:17):
wake up as the baby kicked insideme or did I crave certain foods?
But as usual, I kept quiet.
I kept quiet.
And they really wanted my Shoshonelanguage skills, and we were staying
there because we were waitingfor the winter to clear before we
(44:37):
started our journey on the MissouriRiver because the river was frozen.
And also there was a lotof preparation to do.
So those three months that I waswaiting to have the baby was time
that they weren't going to be goinganywhere right then there was a lot.
to do.
And there were 40 menpreparing for this journey.
And I was just another person whowas helping get ready for this.
(45:01):
But when it came time to have thebaby, oh, my labor was tedious
and the pain was so violent.
Oh my goodness.
And the strange thing was that these whitemen gave me The rattle of a rattlesnake
mixed with water and I drank it andwithin 10 minutes the baby was born.
(45:23):
I had never heard of having the rattleof a rattlesnake mixed in water to
help speed on the birth of my son.
And I'm guessing at that point you wouldhave done anything to ease the pain.
Yes, it was.
It was very bad.
I will tell you, in this time, that isnot something that we've continued to do.
(45:46):
When a woman is having a baby, we don'tkill a rattlesnake and say, drink this.
So, obviously it helped, but Idon't know if it helps anymore.
So,
if it really helped or if it's justI had been in pain so long and it
was time, so I don't know if therattlesnake really helped, but I
think they were going to write thatdown in those books that they had.
(46:09):
They were going to write that downto see if maybe when they got back.
I can't remember.
I think it was one of the Frenchmen.
Who came up with that idea, I don'treally remember because I was just
in, I was just in a lot of pain.
birth of Pomp while youwere on the expedition.
(46:30):
No, we weren't, we were waiting to go.
When Pomp was born, wewere in Fort Mandan.
They named it after the Mandans.
And because they had come from St.
Louis, down the river.
And they landed here and they were goingto continue to make preparations , and
(46:50):
they had a journey already, and theyhad found some plants and animals
that they were going to send backto their great father, Jefferson.
And then we were going to continuethe journey from Fort Mandan.
But we weren't goingyet when I had the baby.
We were just in preparation stage.
There was a lot of thingsthat they were preparing.
(47:11):
We had to make 300 pair of moccasins.
We had to hew canoes.
because they needed somecanoes from cottonwood logs.
They had to make battleaxes to trade for food.
They were preparing, like I said,the plants and animals to send back
to their great father Jefferson.
And they were also talking to peoplebecause they wanted to get as much
(47:32):
information about what we wouldfind once we started to go west.
And , they were making thisthing that they called map.
Have you ever heard of map?
Yes, I have heard of map.
I had never heard of that, but I guessmaps show directions where we would
to go so that we would not get lost.
So they talked to anybody who they couldtalk to, to find . What we would see
(47:55):
and they would put this down on thesemaps and these maps were on something
called paper and they drew strange shapesthat they could look at and understand
they called it writing, and they saidthey could read this writing they could
understand this writing and it was theirway to keep track of everything now.
We, Shoshone, we neverhad anything like that.
To keep track of our stories inhistory, we would draw pictures
(48:17):
that anyone could understand.
But these maps on paper and these strangeshapes, and they called it writing, was
It was what they would do all the time.
They would also draw somepictures of different things
that they had never seen before.
But there was a lot to do at Fort Mandanbefore we started the second leg of
the journey, I guess you would call it.
(48:40):
Okay.
So now let me get clear on this because Ithink now I understand where I went wrong.
, This was the middle of their journey.
This, it was where, FortMandan was where we lived.
Charbonneau and I, we lived there.
And so they came from St.
Louis and they got to the Mandan Villageand that's when they decided they
were going to winter there and theywere going to, they built this fort
(49:01):
and get information and make things.
Now, I already live there.
So that was not, that was wherethe journey would begin for me.
We were going to leave Fort Mandanand then continue the journey west.
So it was the second leg of their journey.
It is amazing to me that somehow allof these men, these rough men, some
(49:24):
of them soldiers, frontiersmen, thesemen thought, what we need is we need
a newborn child traveling with us.
, you had to be afraid.
Were you?
I don't know.
I don't think I was afraid because,well, we had this thing called a cradle
board, which is, it's made out of wood.
(49:47):
And I guess it's kind of what you wouldcall a backpack that you put the baby in.
And the baby is very happy becausebabies like to be confined.
And also every time I move, , hewould move and babies like that.
They like when you're moving.
And that's just, that's just what Shoshonewomen would do, and Hadassah women too.
(50:09):
All women, I guess.
You always have your baby with you, andit doesn't stop you from living your life,
or doing your chores, or going where youhave to go, doing what you have to do.
And I don't, I don't know.
I don't think they really thoughtabout, was it comfortable for me?
Or would I be happy , taking the baby?
And I don't think I thought that we weregoing quite as far as we went, , they
(50:35):
talked about going to see this big ocean,but I didn't, think how far is that?
How long would it take?
I just didn't think about that.
I just did what I was told.
I guess this makes sense too,because as you're saying your family.
The Shoshone's, they were nomad,they were nomadic and it would have
(50:55):
been no big deal for you guys to say,okay, everybody throw your babies
on your shoulder and grab the stuffand , we're going to go somewhere else.
And nobody probably even said,
how far are we going to go?
Or how long is it going to take?
That was just the way it was.
You just, they said, let's go.
And so you went.
Yes, I think that's true.
But this was further than thiswas further than I ever imagined.
(51:18):
And this was further, our journeywas further than going from my
Shoshone village to when I waskidnapped to the Hadatsa village.
This was further than that.
I don't know how far it was becausewe don't think in those terms.
They talked about how manymiles that doesn't mean
anything to me, it was just far.
(51:41):
You had said twice nowyou've said Father Jefferson.
I think I know who you're talking about,but I'm curious, who's Father Jefferson
that Lewis and Clark were talking about?
That's their great, theycalled him the great father.
He was the man who sentthem on this journey.
And from what I'm not sure Itotally understand because I didn't
(52:02):
speak their language very well.
But apparently this father,Jefferson bought this land.
from the French, from someonewith a very strange name.
I never heard a name like this.
Napoleon?
Have you ever heard of that man?
I have heard of him.
In fact, I've spoken with himrecently using the same device
(52:24):
that I'm speaking to you with.
And the purchase that they're,they were talking about in our
time, we call that the Louisiana
yes, Yes.
Yeah.
couldn't remember what it was called, butI knew there was some sort of purchase.
But it strikes me very strangebecause all these white men come to
this land And then they say they ownit and they're buying it, giving,
(52:48):
trading things to, to own this land.
And I just don't understand thatbecause nobody owns the land.
I didn't understand how that could be.
You live there, you share the land,but I just did not understand that.
it is so hard to imagine being 12years old and you're out picking
(53:09):
berries with your friend jumping fish.
And then in a moment,your life changes forever.
You're thrown on the back of ahorse and taken from your family.
How many people would buckle underthe pressure and not survive yet.
Sacagawea.
I found a way, despite all odds.
In the next episode, you're going tohear how Lewis and Clark expedition
was an opportunity for Sakakawea toreturn to her home and what happened
(53:34):
when she actually did go home.
She'll also share some of theadventurous stories that happened
along the journey where she.
Nearly drowned.
And could have beeneaten by a grizzly bear.
I'm glad you're enjoying this podcast.
If you haven't yet subscribed now, andwe'll see you at the next episode of the
calling history podcast with part two.
Sacagawea
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