Welcome to All Things PNW—AKA things Heidi obsesses over and needs a captive audience to talk about. 😊 So here we are.
For my first post, I’d love to spend a little time with one of my favorite (and maybe least understood) women of American history: Sacagawea.
Courtesy U.S. National Parks
Sacagawea and Jean Baptiste, Salmon, Idaho.
Sculpture by Agnes Vincen Talbot. NPS photo, public domain.
Sacagawea doesn’t belong only to the Pacific Northwest, of course. But the Corps of Discovery forever changed the culture—and soon the landscape—of the Columbia River region. So I claim dibs on a mini Sacagawea history lesson.
First, a disclaimer: Sacagawea’s true story is still passionately debated. Even her name is debated. How to pronounce it. What it means. In Hidatsa, Sacagawea means Bird Woman, but in Shoshone her name translates as Canoe Launcher.
Much of what we know comes from the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, accounts shaped by the perspectives, translations, and prejudices of the men who wrote them. Then upon returning home, the journals were edited.
Modern Historians now look to Native oral histories and tribal traditions. The MHA Sacagawea Project Board, representing the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples, is working to preserve and clarify her story. You can read more here.
What do we know?
Sacagawea was young, probably only sixteen or seventeen when she traveled west with Lewis and Clark. According to the commonly told account, she had been taken from her people during a raid as a child and later married Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader possibly thirty years her senior. 🙁
And then—because apparently this adventure wasn’t difficult enough—she had a baby. Sacagawea gave birth to her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, on February 11, 1805, at Fort Mandan.
Here is one of those historical details you simply cannot make up.
Her labor was long and painful, and Captain Lewis recorded one of the men in their group suggested that she be given a small amount of crushed rattlesnake rattle mixed with water in hopes of speeding things along. Of course someone had one, she took it, and ten minutes later, the baby was born. Hmmm.
Two months later, Sacagawea headed west with the expedition, carrying tiny Jean Baptiste. Sixteen years old. A newborn. The Rocky Mountains. Thirty-some armed soldiers and frontiersmen. Sounds relaxing.
Then came one of those moments that makes my novelist brain go absolutely crazy.
When the expedition reached the Shoshone in 1805, Sacagawea discovered that their chief, Cameahwait, was her brother. Can you imagine? She had been taken away as a child. Years had passed. She had married and become a mother—and suddenly there he was.
The Corps desperately needed horses to cross the mountains, and Sacagawea’s connection with the Shoshone helped establish trust.
Remember playing telephone as a kid? That's kind of what they did...
During negotiations, a message might travel from Lewis in English, to François Labiche in French, to Charbonneau in Hidatsa, to Sacagawea in Shoshone—and then all the way back again. Try negotiating for horses that way. But they did it, probably more because of Sacagawea's connection to the tribe, then the telephone game.
But by October 1805, the Corps was descending the Columbia River toward the Pacific.
Imagine seeing a large group of armed strangers approaching in canoes—and then noticing a young woman carrying a baby among them. That mattered.
In fact, Clark recorded an encounter in which a PNW tribe who had initially hidden in fear became less afraid after seeing Sacagawea and her child. Her presence meant peace.
“the sight of This Indian woman, wife to one of our interprs. confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter”
I love that. Sometimes simply her being there changed the conversation.
Eventually the Corps reached Fort Clatsop, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, where they spent the winter of 1805–06.
Reconstruction of Fort Clatsop, winter encampment of the Corps of Discovery,
Lewis and Clark National Historical Park.
National Park Service photo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Have you been to Astoria in winter? This is not Palm Springs, folks.
In fact, Patrick Gass complained that during their months there, they experienced only twelve rain-free days. And only six with any sunshine. Rain. Mud. Wet clothes. Smoke. Illness. And Sacagawea had a baby.
And then—because apparently this adventure wasn’t difficult enough—she had a baby. Sacagawea gave birth to her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, on February 11, 1805, at Fort Mandan.
Here is one of those historical details you simply cannot make up.
Her labor was long and painful, and Captain Lewis recorded one of the men in their group suggested that she be given a small amount of crushed rattlesnake rattle mixed with water in hopes of speeding things along. Of course someone had one, she took it, and ten minutes later, the baby was born. Hmmm.
Two months later, Sacagawea headed west with the expedition, carrying tiny Jean Baptiste. Sixteen years old. A newborn. The Rocky Mountains. Thirty-some armed soldiers and frontiersmen. Sounds relaxing.
Then came one of those moments that makes my novelist brain go absolutely crazy.
When the expedition reached the Shoshone in 1805, Sacagawea discovered that their chief, Cameahwait, was her brother. Can you imagine? She had been taken away as a child. Years had passed. She had married and become a mother—and suddenly there he was.
The Corps desperately needed horses to cross the mountains, and Sacagawea’s connection with the Shoshone helped establish trust.
Remember playing telephone as a kid? That's kind of what they did...
During negotiations, a message might travel from Lewis in English, to François Labiche in French, to Charbonneau in Hidatsa, to Sacagawea in Shoshone—and then all the way back again. Try negotiating for horses that way. But they did it, probably more because of Sacagawea's connection to the tribe, then the telephone game.
But by October 1805, the Corps was descending the Columbia River toward the Pacific.
Imagine seeing a large group of armed strangers approaching in canoes—and then noticing a young woman carrying a baby among them. That mattered.
In fact, Clark recorded an encounter in which a PNW tribe who had initially hidden in fear became less afraid after seeing Sacagawea and her child. Her presence meant peace.
“the sight of This Indian woman, wife to one of our interprs. confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter”
I love that. Sometimes simply her being there changed the conversation.
Eventually the Corps reached Fort Clatsop, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, where they spent the winter of 1805–06.
Reconstruction of Fort Clatsop, winter encampment of the Corps of Discovery,
Lewis and Clark National Historical Park.
National Park Service photo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Have you been to Astoria in winter? This is not Palm Springs, folks.
In fact, Patrick Gass complained that during their months there, they experienced only twelve rain-free days. And only six with any sunshine. Rain. Mud. Wet clothes. Smoke. Illness. And Sacagawea had a baby.
She was T. O. U. G. H.
After the expedition, Sacagawea’s story becomes frustratingly murky.
The traditional documentary account says she died at Fort Manuel in 1812, at about twenty-five. But some Native oral traditions tell a different story: the woman who died may have been Sacagawea’s sister—also one of Charbonneau’s wives—and Sacagawea may have lived many more years, with additional children and grandchildren.
More than two hundred years later, we still don’t know exactly how her story ended.
But her son, Jean Baptiste, had quite a life of his own. Educated in St. Louis, he spent years in Europe before returning West as a guide, interpreter, and mountain man. He died in eastern Oregon in 1866.
Here's one final fun fact: Seaman.
I have decided this is how Sacagawea and baby Jean Baptiste survived the whole ordeal... they had a dog.
Seaman with Lewis and Clark, St. Charles, Missouri.
Dr. David Goodrich/NOAA Photo Library,
via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
Seaman was Meriwether Lewis’s enormous Newfoundland who crossed the continent with the Corps. Funny story: Someone even tried to steal him near the Columbia River on the return journey. He chased away bison and bears. But how did they get him in those canoes?
Finally, this is what stays with me most about Sacagawea. History can debate her name, her family, even the length of her life. Huge pieces of who she was have simply disappeared from the written record.
But she was never unknown to God.
He knew the frightened child taken from home. He knew the young woman carrying her baby across mountains and rivers. He knew every loss, every reunion, every ordinary day that no explorer thought important enough to write down.
And He knew the rest of her story—the parts history lost.
So many lives vanish from the pages of history. But never from the heart of the One who made us.
Until next time,
After the expedition, Sacagawea’s story becomes frustratingly murky.
The traditional documentary account says she died at Fort Manuel in 1812, at about twenty-five. But some Native oral traditions tell a different story: the woman who died may have been Sacagawea’s sister—also one of Charbonneau’s wives—and Sacagawea may have lived many more years, with additional children and grandchildren.
More than two hundred years later, we still don’t know exactly how her story ended.
But her son, Jean Baptiste, had quite a life of his own. Educated in St. Louis, he spent years in Europe before returning West as a guide, interpreter, and mountain man. He died in eastern Oregon in 1866.
Here's one final fun fact: Seaman.
I have decided this is how Sacagawea and baby Jean Baptiste survived the whole ordeal... they had a dog.
Seaman with Lewis and Clark, St. Charles, Missouri.
Dr. David Goodrich/NOAA Photo Library,
via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
Seaman was Meriwether Lewis’s enormous Newfoundland who crossed the continent with the Corps. Funny story: Someone even tried to steal him near the Columbia River on the return journey. He chased away bison and bears. But how did they get him in those canoes?
Finally, this is what stays with me most about Sacagawea. History can debate her name, her family, even the length of her life. Huge pieces of who she was have simply disappeared from the written record.
But she was never unknown to God.
He knew the frightened child taken from home. He knew the young woman carrying her baby across mountains and rivers. He knew every loss, every reunion, every ordinary day that no explorer thought important enough to write down.
And He knew the rest of her story—the parts history lost.
So many lives vanish from the pages of history. But never from the heart of the One who made us.
Until next time,
Heidi
Psalm 19:14
Heidi Ennis writes faith-filled historical fiction set along the Columbia River, where faith, hope, and love unfold in the rugged wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. Inspired by real history and the wild beauty of the region she calls home, she writes stories filled with danger, courage, faith, and unexpected love.
When she’s not writing, Heidi is usually exploring forest trails and river valleys with coffee in hand and a dog or two nearby, gathering bits of Pacific Northwest history for her next story.
Follow Heidi for new releases, sneak peeks, and stories that lift the heart.
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