Who Was Sacagawea?

At the age of 17 and toting her infant son, Sacagawea was instrumental to the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early 1800s. Learn more about her life in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff Lauren Bobebam here. Her image was immortalized on
the Golden Dollar in the year two thousand and She's
recognizable by her forward looking gaze and the baby she
carries on her back. She's been described as an interpreter
for the Lewis and Clark expedition, but relatively little is

(00:24):
known about Chicago Weea, despite the fact that she's one
of the few women ever depicted on US currency. And yes,
that's closer to a correct pronunciation than saka Joweyah. Although
Chicago Weea was from the Shoshone people, her name is
given in the Hidatsa language and has been interpreted to
mean bird woman or crow woman. We spoke with Caroline Gilman,

(00:48):
author of Lewis and Clark Across the Divide. She said
she was a native woman who was thrust into history
when she accompanied Lewis and Clark. There are a lot
of things that have been claimed for her that you
really can't say. We do know that Chicago Wia crossed
the continental divide at the age of seventeen while toting
her infant son. She also crossed cultures and played a

(01:11):
role in the success of the expedition and perhaps unknowingly,
in manifest destiny. Blemisha Shone Icago Weoh was born around
seventeen eighty eight in modern day Idaho. Twelve years later,
she was captured by the gun possessing Hidatsa tribe took
her to the Hidatsa man Dance settlement near what's now

(01:32):
North Dakota. The settlement was an international trading center, and
she lived with the Hidatsa, the reason her name is
thought to be from that language, for a few years
until a French Canadian fur trader by the name of
Toussaint Charboneau took her as a wife. In this case,
wife is a relative term, and she was one of two.

(01:52):
According to James Ring Adams, senior historian at the History
and Culture Unit at the National Museum of the American
Indian Smithsonian, her role in the relationship was likely more
as a consort a. Some accounts state that the marriage
was an economic deal on behalf of her adoptive family,
or even that she was one in a card game.
Whatever the case, Charbonneau was about thirty seven years old

(02:16):
to her sixteen, and Chicagoea was pregnant by the time
Merywether Lewis and William Clark arrived in the area. The
Lewis and Clark Expedition had begun in eighteen o three,
when President Thomas Jefferson sent out the Cores of Discovery
to explore the land that the US government gained from
the Louisiana purchase. It's important to remember that the land

(02:37):
deal with France included a lot more than today's eponymous state.
The territory stretched from roughly the Canadian border to the
Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to Colorado,
nearly doubling the size of the United States at the time.
Charbonneau offered his services as interpreter to Lewis and Clark.
For offering that he had two wives from near the

(02:59):
Continental vide he got the job, and Chicago Weea was
chosen to accompany him on the expedition. Gilman suggests that
Lewis and Clark might have wanted to bring Chicago Wea
more than her husband, because they were looking for a
Shoshony translator. Sharboneau only spoke Hidatsa and French, but you
couldn't hire a woman you had to hire her husband.

(03:22):
Lewis and Clark had a generally low opinion of Charbonneau.
In fact, Lewis later described him as a quote man
of no peculiar merit. By contrast, Chicago Wea proved to
be an advantageous member of the expedition. In the beginning,
Lewis and Clark were interested in her tribal connections because
her Shshony people straddled the continental divide and it was

(03:43):
crucial for them to cross it. Adams said it turned
out even better than they expected. When the expedition first
encountered the Shohony, Lewis was leading, and after an initial
contact with an older woman, was approached by a band
of about sixty shoshone on horseback, who became friendly enough.
But when Clark's group met up with him a day

(04:04):
or so later, Chicago Weea was with him, and one
of the Shoshonee women recognized her as the girl who
had been kidnapped many years before. The leader of the
band turned out to be her brother. An alliance was
formed between the expedition and the band, which then provided
horses and guides. Because of instance like this, Lewis and
Clark developed more and more respect for Chicago Weea. Simply

(04:28):
having a woman with an infant signaled to those who
they encountered along the way that they were not a
war party. Tellingly, by the time they reached the Pacific coast,
she got a vote in deciding whether or not the
expedition would stay there for the winter of eighteen o
five into eighteen o six, and when the group returned
to Fort Mandan and North Dakota, Lewis and Clark recorded
paying both the interpreter Charbonneau and the interpretress Chicago Wea.

(04:54):
Adams said her work to the expedition became more and
more evident as it went on. Her role the success
of the expedition deserves all the legendary status that it has.
After the expedition, Chicago Wea remained with Charbonneau, but we
don't know much else, and she may have traveled to St.
Louis with Charbonneau to deliver her son, John Baptiste, to Clark,

(05:16):
who had offered to raise him and provide him with
an education. She had a second child, a daughter, who
she named Lizette, just months later, though Chicago Wea died
after suffering from what was recorded as a putrid fever.
A popular myth of the Wind River Indian Reservation in
Wyoming says that chicago Weea lived there into her nineties

(05:37):
and was buried at Fort Washaki, but that's been debunked.
According to adams A, most reports show that she died
in eighteen twelve. There are few documentary mentions of Chicagoea,
says Gilman. A traveler who met her, commented that she
was a sweet person, but offers just one sentence. A
fur trader recorded her death in eighteen twelve and said

(06:00):
she was the best woman at the fort. Everyone who
discussed her had something good to say about her. Adams
describes the Lewis and Clark expedition as overly successful. It
was billed as a scientific exploration to learn about the
newly acquired territory, which was largely unknown to colonists from
England at the time. Jefferson hypothesized that the expedition might

(06:23):
encounter mammoths or mastodons. It served a political purpose to
to solidify the U. S government's claim to the area. Clearly,
the expedition had far reaching ramifications, and Kagoa played a
part in its success. However, Lewis and Clark attached little
importance to her role. It was Nicholas Biddle who edited

(06:45):
their journals for publication and interviewed Clark. Much of what
is known about Chicago Weah comes from the Biddle interview
rather than the journals, and Skagoa has an enhanced role
in the eighteen fourteen published version because Biddle immediately saw
that the public would be interested in her. Gilman said
She's been used to symbolize various things over the years.

(07:08):
She explains that, for one, Chicago Wea has been adopted
as Native American women like Pocahontas, have been as a
symbol of the amity with which indigenous people's collaborated with
European colonists, as a sort of justification for the colonizer's actions.
Because Native people, and particularly women, collaborated with them, these

(07:28):
figures symbolize the union of two different cultures and become
symbolic founders. Gilman said, they all become mythic, and that's
what's actually going on for Icagoa. She is for the
West what Pocahontas is for the East, and Gilman points
out she's not just a figurative mother, but a literal
mother figure She may be seen by some as a

(07:51):
Lama lynch A style collaborationist, someone who was a facilitator
of an invasion. Lam lynch A was the Mexican woman
who played a key role in the Spanish conquest of
the Aztec Empire by her Non Cortez. But Gilman points
out that Lewis and Clark were not on a military
expedition in the way that Cortes was, so those accusations

(08:13):
shouldn't be leveled against her. Gilman said, I would like
people to empathize with her. She was a person who
found herself in a situation where she could contribute to history,
and she lived up to the expectations that were placed
on her. She showed remarkable fortitude and perseverance throughout the
whole experience. Today's episode was written by Carrie Whitney and

(08:39):
produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots
of other topics, visit how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff
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