Introduction
Sacajawea is important is US history because she helped with the Lewis and Clark expedition called the Corps of Discovery. She helped with translating with the Native American tribes, identifying plants and geography, and saving valuable journals, instruments, and medicines when a boat tipped over. It was a sign that the Corp of Discovery was a peaceful group to other tribes since they brought along a woman and especially a woman, Sacagawea, and her baby, Jean Baptiste.
About Sacagawea
Childhood
Sacagawea was born into the Lemhi Shoshone tribe in today’s southeastern Idaho area in 1788 or 1789 according to History.com. She was the daughter of the Chief. She was educated about local plants, berries, and roots. The …show more content…
Though some history says she was won in a game of chance (Alder). He was much older than Sacagewea, being in his forties and he already had a wife and son. He bought Sacajawea to be his second wife from the Hidatsa. Sacagawea lived with her new family in the Hidatsa village. Soon after Sacajawea was sold, the Corps of Discovery expedition arrived at the Hidatsa Village where she lived. “In 1804 two white explorers, Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and their Corps of Discovery, of some forty solders, frontiersmen, and boatmen, were sent by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the Missouri river and to find a route to the Pacific Ocean”(Alder). These men were responsible for recording what they saw by drawing maps, and pictures of new plants and animals and learning from the Native Americans. They stayed near the Hidatsa village for five months through the winter and built Fort Mandan (Erdrich). During the winter, they hired Charbonneau and his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea to assist with the expedition. In February1805, Sacajawea gave birth to a son named Jean Baptist Carbonneau. In April 1805, before Jean Baptist was 2 month old, Sacajawea started her journey off with her husband Charbonneau, and the Corp of Discovery westward going up the Missouri river. Today there are many pictures and statues of her …show more content…
Their supplies ran low and they had to kill one of the colts for food. In November 1805, they voted on where to setup winter camp and since Clark thought so much of Sacagawea, she got to vote also (Erdrich). They could hear distant rubbling of the Pacific Ocean waves. As they were on their journey, they heard from some Native Americans that a whale had washed up on shore. Sacajawea really wanted to go to see the ocean and asked to join Clark’s small group in January 1806. But when they got to the Pacific Ocean, they found the whale was stripped of meat and blubber by the Tillamook people. The skeleton was as big as twenty men. They traded with the nearby Tillamook people to bring blubber back for their