America an Art of History America an Art of History Book
If you lot learned of Sacagawea in your high-schoolhouse history class, it's probable that yous recollect of her as a key function of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Just the common depiction of Sacagawea is thoroughly distorted; many truths about her, and her circumstances, accept either been twisted or left out entirely in order to suit a particular narrative. That is, the trek was meant to exist a heroic, American endeavor, and, as such, it'due south often romanticized past historians.
All the same, romanticizing the colonization of Indigenous peoples and lands is harmful — and using Sacagawea as a symbol of this alleged "heroic" mission is even more than damaging. With this in listen, nosotros're disclosing central aspects of Sacagawea's life in observance of Women'south History Month.
Sacagewea'due south Early Years
Born around 1788 or 1789 into the Lemhi Shoshone band of the Northern Shoshone, Sacagawea was part of the Agaidika people, or "Salmon-eater" Shoshone, and grew up in what is present-mean solar day Idaho. Although some accounts suggest that her proper noun is Hidatsa in origin, with "sacaga" meaning "bird" and "wea" pregnant "woman," many Shoshone people maintain that it's a Shoshone proper name that means "gunkhole launcher" and is pronounced more like "Sacajawea" (via National Women's History Museum).
"Cagaagawia'sh, in Hidatsa, or Birdwoman, in English language, has become an important figure in both American Indian history and identity and as an icon of the women's suffrage movement," Alisha Deegan (Hidatsa/Sahnish), a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in Northward Dakota, and the interpretation and cultural resource program manager at Knife River Indian Villages National Celebrated Site, told Teen Vogue. Deegan goes on to note that, "In that location are many questions about Cagaagawia'sh and her life, but what we do know demonstrates that she was an amazing and strong woman."
Around 1800, when she was just 12 years old or so, Sacagawea and several other young Shoshone girls were kidnapped by Hidatsa warriors and, afterwards, enslaved. Over the next few years, Sacagawea became fluent in the Hidatsa language, a grade of Siouan language spoken in what is now considered nowadays-24-hour interval North Dakota.
It's around this point in her story that details get a bit murkier. Nonetheless, it is known that around 1803 or 1804, Sacagawea was sold equally an enslaved person to, or "won" by, a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau. Along with several other unknown Indigenous girls, Sacagawea was made to be 1 of Charbonneau'due south "wives." Although many history textbooks shy abroad from the truth, playwright and activist Carolyn Gage does not, writing that this was "a formalized child-rape organisation brokered past adults," who also enslaved said child.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased western territory that had been claimed by French colonizers. Known as the Louisiana Buy, this human action almost doubled the size of the United states. At that bespeak, much of the middle of the continent had gone unexplored by white settlers. In order to map a safe road from the East Coast to the Pacific Ocean, Jefferson hired explorer Meriwether Lewis and frontiersman William Clark to lead an trek of roughly 40 men upwards the Missouri.
While spending the winter months at an encampment near the Hidatsa-Mandan villages, Lewis and Clark met Charbonneau, who angled to join the expedition equally an interpreter. The explorers immune Charbonneau to bring together them, but it was clear that they saw Sacagawea, who was simply 16 or 17 years quondam at the time, as more of an asset to their colonialist trek than Charbonneau, who Lewis subsequently called "a man of no peculiar merit" in his writings.
Not but was Sacagawea an interpreter herself, merely she was also meaning at the fourth dimension, and information technology's clear that Lewis and Clark felt the optics of having an Indigenous mother with them — an expedition of mostly white men — was beneficial. That is, the Corps of Discovery likely thought that Indigenous people they encountered wouldn't think of them as a war party if Sacagawea was with them. While Sacagawea'due south abilities (and very presence) were deemed of import by the Corps, it'southward important to notation that she didn't have whatsoever agency over joining or not joining the expedition.
In addition to guiding the Corps of Discovery, Sacagawea was able to identify edible plants, communicate with other Indigenous people they encountered, and, in one case, ensured the survival of the trek's documentation. That is, when a boat almost capsized, Sacagawea nerveless all of the journals, navigational tools, and provisions that might accept otherwise been lost — all while carrying her infant, and Jean-Baptiste (nicknamed "Pompey"), on her back. Indebted to her efforts, Lewis and Clark named the Sacagawea River, which flows through present-day Montana, after her.
In July of 1805, the expedition reached the three forks of the Missouri River, which Sacagawea recognized. Nearly a month afterward, the Corps encountered Shoshone peoples and, in a twist of fate, Sacagawea realized that the chief, Cameahwait, was her blood brother. By that fall, the Corps reached the Pacific Body of water, thanks in large function to the horses the Shoshone people provided them.
Needing a identify to set their winter encampment, the Corps once over again leaned on Sacagawea'southward knowledge. Simply determining where to install Fort Clatsop wasn't the last time Sacagawea'due south insights proved invaluable. In fact, on the return journeying, it was Sacagawea who safely guided the grouping she was with through what's known today as the Bozeman Pass, an deed that caused Clark to note that she had been "a pilot through this country."
Despite the instrumental role she played, Sacagawea was not given whatever compensation; the same was truthful for York, the enslaved Blackness human being who as well made the roundtrip journeying with the Corps. Sacagawea's captor, on the other hand, was given $500 and over 300 acres of land, despite Lewis' dislike of him.
Sacagewea's Legacy Today
There isn't much in the way of written documentation when it comes to Sacagawea's life afterwards the expedition. It is well documented that Sacagawea's son was left in the care of Clark, who was (strangely) eager to oversee the boy's instruction in St. Louis. After that, Sacagawea seemingly went on fur-trading expeditions and gave birth to a daughter, Lisette, in 1812.
When it comes to her death, there's quite a scrap of incertitude, as well. While records from a fur-trading post annotation that she died of typhus in 1812, other accounts indicate that she didn't pass away at just 25 years old. The National Women'south History Museum points to Indigenous oral histories, some of which suggest that "Sacagawea lived for many more years in the Shoshone lands in Wyoming, until her death in 1884."
Cultura Colectiva points out that, "In 1925, Dr. Charles Eastman, an Ethnic medico, was sent by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to wait for the remains of the great Sacagawea." In retracing Sacagawea's steps, Dr. Eastman learned of a Shoshone woman, who went by the name Porivo and lived on a Comanche reservation; Dr. Eastman believed this elderberry to exist Sacagawea.
"Though information technology is known that she separated from the abusive Charbonneau, little else is certain almost the remainder of Sacajawea's life," the Brooklyn Museum notes. "Most Native people believe she died in 1812 at Fort Mandan and is cached somewhere on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation lands, North Dakota, while some evidence states that she lived with the Shoshone tribe for many years subsequently."
In fact, Sacagawea has two "official" burying sites. One, in Corson County, South Dakota, aligns with the story that she died at merely 25 years old. This site, located at Fort Manuel, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 as the final resting place of Sacagawea, simply this completely discounts the oral history nerveless by both Dr. Eastman and Dr. Grace Hebard. The second site is located at Fort Washakie in the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
According to the National Park Service, in that location are more statues dedicated to Sacagawea than any other adult female in American history. Unveiled in 1905, Alice Cooper's Sacagawea and Jean-Baptiste is 1 of the most notable monuments. Often, the sculpture is credited with inspiring now-controversial author Eva Emery Dye, who, in writing, cemented the romanticization and colonialist delineation of Sacagawea.
Additionally, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, perhaps not realizing the full story, saw Sacagawea as a symbol of women'due south independence. And, in 2000, the U.S. Mint aimed to honor her with a aureate dollar money, but printing the likeness of someone who was enslaved by white men on currency is, to say the very to the lowest degree, a problematic option.
But attempts to honor Sacagawea get beyond monuments, misguided coins and named natural landmarks. In fact, she is the just Ethnic adult female represented in feminist artist Judy Chicago's installation The Dinner Political party, which features place settings for prominent, history-making women. "The circumstances surrounding her life have become the stuff of legend, prompting interpretation by historians, writers, and filmmakers," the Brooklyn Museum, which houses The Dinner Political party, notes. "In an era in which women, particularly Native American women, were considered either weak and helpless or dangerous, Sacajawea proved to be an icon of bravery."
In a letter entitled "To the Youth / OUR Future," Canadian First Nations artist George Littlechild ponders Sacagawea's complicated, but important, legacy. "Information technology is a known fact that America glorifies historical figures such equally Lewis and Clark, that they are commemorated for opening up the West to 'Progress,' thus 'Civilizing' ancestral lands," he writes. "They have go cultural icons for their deeds…. In fact what did they truly do for this land known equally America?"
Venerated by some simply rightly despised by others, Lewis, Clark and the whole expedition were harbingers of the destruction, illness, and decease that was yet to come up with the United States' westward expansion. "Information technology is up to us to rewrite the history books," Littlechild writes, "to make modify and above all to have respect for all humanity…" And, in role, that can start with looking beyond whitewashed history to understand historical figures like Sacagawea more honestly.
Source: https://www.reference.com/history/sacagawea-life-story?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740005%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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