Recruitment at Fort Mandan
Sacagawea entered the expedition record indirectly, through her husband. On November 4, 1804, the editorial summary records that “A Mr. Chaubonee interpreter for the Gross Ventre nation came to See us, and informed that he came Down with Several Indians from a Hunting expedition up the river.” Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader living among the Hidatsa, presented himself as a potential interpreter — but it was his young Shoshone wife whose linguistic abilities would prove invaluable when the captains reached the Rocky Mountains and needed to negotiate for horses. Sacagawea had been captured years earlier by a Hidatsa raiding party and brought to the Mandan villages.
Birth of Jean Baptiste
On February 11, 1805, Sacagawea gave birth at Fort Mandan to a son, Jean Baptiste, whom Clark would later affectionately nickname “Pomp.” Lewis assisted at the delivery and recorded an unusual remedy: “About five Oclock this evening one of the wives of Chabono was delivered of a fine boy. I was informed that her labour was tedious and the pain violent.” Lewis noted that within ten minutes of administering crushed rattlesnake rattle, the baby was born — though he remained skeptical of the treatment’s efficacy. The infant would travel the entire remaining journey to the Pacific and back.
Departure into Unknown Country
When the expedition departed Fort Mandan on April 7, 1805, Sacagawea, her infant son, and Charbonneau were among the 33 members of the permanent party. Lewis’s famous reflection that day — comparing his “little fleet” to those of Columbus and Cook — placed the young mother and her newborn at the threshold of country “on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden.”
The White Pirogue Incident
On May 14, 1805, a sudden squall nearly capsized the white pirogue, which carried the expedition’s most precious cargo of papers, instruments, and medicines. Clark recorded that “the articles which floated out was nearly all caught by the Squar who was in the rear.” Two days later, on May 16, Lewis paid her one of his highest compliments:
the Indian woman to whom I ascribe equal fortitude and resolution, with any person onboard at the time of the accedent, caught and preserved most of the light articles which were washed overboard
Illness at the Great Falls
In June 1805, near the Great Falls of the Missouri, Sacagawea fell gravely ill. Clark wrote on June 14 that “the Indian woman complaining all night & excessively bad this morning—her case is Somewhat dangerous.” The next day he gave her Peruvian bark internally and externally. By June 16, she was worse, and Clark observed pointedly that she “will take no medisin what ever, untill her husband finding her out of her Senses, easyly provailed on her to take medison, if She dies it will be the fault of her husband.”
Lewis, returning to camp the same day, recorded his concern not only for her welfare but for the expedition’s prospects:
I found the Indian woman extreemly ill and much reduced by her indisposition. this gave me some concern as well for the poor object herself, then with a young child in her arms, as from the consideration of her being our only dependence for a friendly negociation with the Snake Indians on whom we depend for horses
By June 19 she had improved enough to walk out and gather white apples — but ate so heartily of them and dried fish that her fever returned, prompting Lewis to rebuke Charbonneau “severely for suffering her to indulge herself with such food.” By June 20 Lewis noted she was “qute free from pain and fever this morning… she has been walking about and fishing.”
Recognition at the Three Forks
On July 28, 1805, at the Three Forks of the Missouri, Sacagawea recognized the country of her childhood. The editorial summary records Lewis’s note: “Our present camp is precisely on the spot that the Snake Indians were encamped at the time the Minnetares of the Knife river first came in sight of them five years since.” This was the very ground where she had been captured. Her recognition confirmed that the expedition was approaching Shoshone territory.
Reunion with Cameahwait
The most dramatic moment of Sacagawea’s expedition came on August 17, 1805, when she was brought to interpret with the Shoshone band led by Cameahwait — and discovered the chief was her own brother. The editorial entry records: “She instantly jumped up, and ran and embraced him, throwing over him her blanket, and weeping profusely.” The reunion at “Camp Fortunate” secured the horses essential for crossing the Bitterroot Mountains.
Across the Mountains and to the Pacific
Sacagawea’s presence with an infant carried diplomatic weight throughout the journey. Though she is not always named in daily entries during the Bitterroot crossing and Columbia descent, she was present through every hardship — the starvation crossing of the Lolo Trail in September 1805, the descent of the Snake and Columbia, and the wet winter on the Pacific.
The Vote at the Columbia
On November 24, 1805, when the captains polled the Corps about where to winter, Sacagawea’s voice was recorded alongside every other member’s: “Janey in favour of a place where there is plenty of Potas.” Her preference for a site with abundant wapato roots was tallied with the others — a remarkable inclusion for a Native woman in 1805.
Christmas at Fort Clatsop
On December 25, 1805, despite the misery of spoiled elk and exhausted trade goods, the expedition exchanged modest gifts. The editorial summary notes Sacagawea gave Clark two dozen white weasel tails.
The Whale at the Coast
In January 1806, when news arrived of a beached whale, Sacagawea asserted herself in one of the few moments she is recorded as speaking up directly. According to the editorial summary of January 6:
She observed that She had traveled a long way with us to See the great waters, and that now that monstrous fish was also to be Seen, She thought it very hard that She Should not be permitted to See either.
Clark allowed her to join the party that crossed Tillamook Head to view the whale skeleton.
The Return Journey
On the return, Sacagawea continued to contribute. On April 16, 1806, Lewis recorded that Clark “passed the river with the two interpreters, the indian woman and nine men in order to trade with the natives for their horses.” On April 22, when Charbonneau’s horse threw its load and a robe was stolen, Lewis sent her ahead to alert Clark. On May 28, while caring for a sick chief and Sacagawea’s son, Lewis noted that “The Child is also better.”
Guide Through the Bozeman Pass
During Clark’s return down the Yellowstone, Sacagawea’s geographic knowledge again proved decisive. On July 6, 1806, the party crossed mountains she had known as a child. On July 13 she traveled with Clark’s detached party — “Interpreter Shabono his wife & Child and my man york” — and on July 14, when the river bottoms became impassable due to beaver dams, Clark recorded:
here the Squar informed me that there was a large road passing through the upper part of this low plain from Madicins river through the gap which I was Stearing my Course to.
This is the route now known as Bozeman Pass.
On June 25, 1806
Crossing the Bitterroots eastbound, Clark recorded that “the squaw Collected a parcel of roots of which the Shoshones Eat. it is a Small knob root a good deel in flavour and Consistency like the Jerusolem artichok.” Her foraging knowledge supplemented the party’s diet repeatedly.
Farewell at the Mandan Villages
On August 17, 1806, the expedition parted from the Charbonneau family at the Mandan villages. The editorial summary records Clark’s offer: “I offered to take his little Son a butifull promising Child who is 19 months old.” Charbonneau was paid $500.33 and given a horse. Sacagawea received no payment from the government for her services — a fact the journals themselves do not explain or justify. Clark’s offer to educate Jean Baptiste would eventually be accepted; the boy was sent to St. Louis around 1809.
A Note on the Record
The journals rarely record Sacagawea’s own words. She appears most often as “the Indian woman,” “the squar,” “the Interpretess,” “Janey,” or simply as Charbonneau’s wife. What the captains do record — her fortitude in the pirogue crisis, her recognition of homelands, her reunion with her brother, her insistence on seeing the whale, her geographic memory at Bozeman Pass, her vote on the winter quarters, her gift of weasel tails — are glimpses through other men’s eyes. The journals provide no information about her life before her capture or after the farewell at the Mandan villages.
