Closed Captions Audio Described

An Oto speaker discusses Sacagawea's life in the Mandan villages before the Lewis and Clark Expedition, her role as interpreter and cultural bridge, and her significance to Native American history. She traces Sacagawea's journey west, her son Jean Baptiste's education in St. Louis, and the Oto Nation's own history as a major agricultural and trading center on the Northern Plains before European contact.

Transcript

0:02 welcome everyone to the core of Discovery 2 and the tent of many voices for those of you who are not familiar with our project core of Discovery 2 is a traveling exhibit We are following the same time frame and path as Len clart did 200 years ago we will be visiting communities along the Lou and cl tra within our exhibit we have many things
0:26 to offer over here is our exhibit 10 where you can take a 35 minute audio tour we have our kbo and in the far grass area we pay tribute to the Native American nations that Louis and C encountered along their Journey with our TV and and table set up also today another bonus is that we have the international tribal gam Society with us
0:49 that's people from various Nations T teaching about uh different traditional Native American games so that's a good time over there as well just a few things to remind people of there's no videotaping allowed in the tent of many voices so please put vide tapes away photography is okay today we have a special
1:14 presentation and I'm honored to announce uh Amy Mosen he was a man manaza um member of the three affiliated tribes of North North Dakota she's a national scholar interpretor and consultant on the life and legends of saga she's been invited to the nation's capital on four occasions to honor and celebrate cago in 2001 Amy accepted the mer
1:39 military citation from President Bill Clinton which conferred the status of the honorary Sergeant on Chicago in 2002 Amy was presented with the National Guard bureau's Indian award for her work with national Leon park by sentennial in 2003 she was requested at uh Monell's Foundation she paid tribute
2:03 to Sago waya at the commencement of the national leis and park B Centennial commission at the home of President Thomas Jefferson in Virginia Amy has been interviewed for numerous local National and international television and radio programs as well as her National publications related to her works with L and Clark Chicago waya and the Manda and Hada cultures she was featured as a host of North
2:28 Dakota's Prairie Public excuse me Lewis and Clark Pathways she was the principal Native American adviser for the National Geographics leis and Clark IMX film Journey great journey West and she was one of the only three nationally recognized Scholars interviewed by the National Geographic
2:51 magazine for her feature story on Chicago Amy is a graduate of Minot State University and the University of North Dakota she lives um on the little Missouri river in North Dakota Badlands and resides with her family in twin bees and New Town North Dakota let's
3:16 welcome thank you it's so good to be here with you all this afternoon and I would particularly like to welcome all of the people descended from the tribes that Mary will leis and William Clark encountered on their journey through all of our homelands especially the Kiku and the
3:40 Shi and the people who were dominant in this area when Lis and Clark Trav this part of the world my name is the queen of the that is what Mya family calls me we are descended from a The Village on the south of the KN River and what is now
4:02 the state of North Dakota we live about 1 hour north of the bmar or of the capital in bmar North Dakota today we lived in three Earth LOD Villages when Mary and William Clark provided in our homelands in October of 1804 we had neighbors down the river the Mandan and the Mandan lived on each side
4:27 of the Missouri River one m on the west side one on the east side and Mary with Lewis and William Clark in the Northwest core of Discovery buil their winter quarters about halfway between those two mandam Villages I have relatives in that mandam both of those Mand Villages and my M relatives called me the o to
4:51 the mar Lewis and William Clark embarked from here knowing that they were going to spend the winter with the man in North Dakota of course there was on North Dakota at the time but Mary and William Clark ascended up this River in the fall knowing that they were going to come to this place called North Dakota and
5:14 knowing that they were going to spend the most severe months of the year in what is now North Dakota they would be there from October of 1804 until April of 1805 and you might find it very diff diffult to believe but Maryweather leis M Clark came to that part of the country at that time of the year on
5:38 purpose it wasn't an accident and I often wonder why now people probably wonder why would L come to that part of the world well we in Thea Village always said we think they came to that part of the country because of those menam women I think some people were laughing that
6:03 that wasn't intended to be funny but the man women were agriculturalists you know you hear so much about Thomas Jefferson's Vision to this place called the Louisiana Territory he wanted Mary Lewis and William Clark to venture out into this land that had been purchased by the United States he wanted them to settle this land or to open it up for
6:27 settlement he wanted this land to be F and his ultimate goal was that this part of the world would be the center of international trade but when you look back at the Mandan women they had been farming the land for hundreds of years hundreds of years before Mary with Lewis William Clark or Thomas Jefferson were
6:51 even born the tribes on the Northern CLS were already engaged in international trade they were trading with the British from Canada they were trading with the French from Canada they were training with the French that were traveling up and down the Missouri River and they were engaged in trade with other nations the Lota the ARA the Ain the
7:15 crow the tribes from what is now T and when Mary with leis arrived in our Villages our our our our Earth Liv villages we lived in permanent homes we lived in permanent log homes they were and when Maryweather and William Clark arrived in our Villages they would find islands that had been traded into our
7:39 Villages some things directly other things indirectly but items that have originated from as far south as the of Mexico from as far east as the Great Lakes from as far north as what is now Northern Canada and from as far West as the Pacific Northwest this
8:03 dentalium shell cave did not originate on Northern PLS it came from the northwest coast and when Mary with Lewis and William Park arrived in our Villages it was items like this that they would find but it wasn't the material things and it wasn't all of the Agricultural things that Mary withis and William Clark intended to obtain and acquired
8:26 from us when they came to our Villages it was the information that was coming into our Villages from the West information about the people information about the land the rivers The Falls the animals in particular when they thought about the people they learned about all the people that LE and Clark would Lewis
8:50 and Clark learned about all the people that they would encounter when they left our Villages the man down villages and Trav to the west of things that Mary W Lewis and William Clark probably found rather surprising is that the population of the m and
9:13 villages in those five Villages combined exceeded the population of St Louis the population of our combined manad Anda Villages 200 years ago exceeded the population of Washington City the the population of our Villages
9:36 was about the same as the number of people that gathered on January 18th 2003 on the lawn of Thomas Jefferson's home out there in Montello on that cold Saturday morning and watch the kickoff of the 200 anniversary of the ls Park Expedition 4,500 people we have the largest
10:01 agricultural Community anywhere on the west side of the Mississippi River we were already living what people today call Jefferson dreaming but I I didn't really want to talk so much about me and my Village I want to talk about a woman who lived in our village a woman who today is the most celebrated woman
10:23 in all of American History she came to our village when she was about 12 years old and and by the time Maryweather Lewis and William Clark arrived in our Villages this young woman s was already married to one of the French F traders who had become a permanent inhabitant of our village you probably don't see this a lot in the journals but Mary with
10:47 Lewis and William Clark probably don't give enough credit to all of those French men that were living along the Missouri River with native tribes trading with them for many many years before par ever came up the river when they were in South Dakota and Southern South Dakota there were French men living among the Su and through them Lis and Clark were able to communicate
11:11 when they traveled to the northern part of the river there were Frenchmen living among the Lakota there Lis and Clark to those French men were able to communicate with the tribes when they arrived in the mang Villages they found Gren Stone a French man who for many years had been married to M woman he would become their Mand
11:34 interpreter and help Mary with Lewis communicate with the Manan leaders black cat on the east side of the river and white KY on the west side of the river between October and April and as they traveled up the villages they would meet to Shar another French man who had come down from Canada
11:57 who was now living in our villages married to two young Shon women now what were sh women doing in our village they were capes 200 years ago that's what we did we went to war and one of the things that we did was take captives but our captives were not made into slaves our captives were absorbed by our tribes
12:19 because you see by 200 years ago the population of our people was already declining to the point that we were all related and to bring people in from other tribes to marry to our tribes because you can't marry your relatives the younger Sant sho's wife
12:41 sagia was expecting her first child and this little boy was born on February 11th in 1805 about 5:00 in the afternoon they were now living at for and but you know this little boy was not given his mother had grown into Womanhood in this Village she had been adopted into a
13:06 clan she had been given a name but this little boy was not given a name his mother was a Shon woman but this little boy was not given a Shon name this little boy was named after his French Canadian grandfather who was still living in Montreal Canada and he was called John bapti
13:31 Sho and when this little boy was 55 days old he joined his mother a young Indian woman in her late teens and he joined his father a French Canadian fur Trader in his late 30s they joined Mary with Lewis and William Clark in their early 30s and they embarked on one of the most
13:53 incredible Journeys ever undertaken by any American that time a journey that would forever change the landscape of this entire nation and why would they take this young woman Mary M Lewis and William Clark were so meticulous and seeking out only the right men for this Expedition they
14:16 wanted men who were strong and Hardy and not afraid that they might not return anytime from this journey they wanted men who were single who did not have wives or children that they would be afraid to leave at home they did not want the sons of gentlemen that were not accustomed to difficult
14:39 work so why on Earth would they take a teenage woman who had just given birth to a baby boy s was taken on this Expedition not as a guide but how many times have we seen her poting the West in every image that you see sagia is pointing West or leading the W SOA was
15:03 taken on this Expedition and her purpose was to serve as an interpreter because while Mary with the ls and William Clark were in our village they learned from the hza the hza who traveled regularly to the West as far as the Continental Divide to fight against our enemies because 200 years ago that is what we
15:25 did and our enemy at the time was tribe living out far to the south and west of what is now Montana the black people were also our enemy The Crow were our allies so was taken to serve as an interpreter because while Mary and William clker were at our Villages you
15:49 know that they they learned that they would be Crossing these very treacherous mountains and if they did not have horses there is no way that they were going to get across those mountains before winter they needed to get horses from the Shon and they learned from the Manan Warriors who regularly travel to the West that the Shon had some of the finest forces of any tribe anywhere out
16:13 there on the PLS and they were told if you're able to obtain those horses that is the only way you will get yourself your men and all of your supplies over those mountains and that was the reason s went on this journey was to serve As an interpreter and this is incredible they left Fort M on April 7th of 1805 they traveled all across the entire
16:38 state of Montana how many of you have been to Montana how many of you know how long it takes to get across Montana and that's driving on the interstate with radial tires think about their Journey it took them from April of 1805 until
17:00 August months to get across Montana but that's not the interesting part of this what's very interesting is that during that entire journey across all of those all of that land they did not encounter one single Indian don't you ever wonder why it was probably because this young
17:23 woman was traveling with them and by having cigara and this young child traving freely among them it was very obvious that this was not a war party this didn't appear to be a military Expedition they were traveling through Indian country and it wasn't until August that Mary little and William Clark finally arrived in Shon country
17:47 and sag was brought in to interpret in the Shon language to assist Mary with Lewis and William Clark in obtaining those horses and why they her they needed her because to not Char yes he was an interpreter but he only spoke the souen languages he didn't know anything about
18:10 the languages that you would encounter once you got halfway across Montana all the languages all the way up the River from here North all the way into Mandan cow a c country are all Su when you get beyond the mountains the languages differ they're as different as Chinese and
18:34 Russian to not sharpen all would no longer be serving As an interpreter they needed surviv and how did they communicate when they sat down and they talked to that young leader Cy wa sh leader they spoke first from Mary Lewis in English to leish and he would ask him to ask this young leader if we are able to obtain
18:57 horses from him and leish a French man would speak then in French to T Sho who did not speak read or write English and then in Kaza tant Charo who understood how to speak SE languages he would speak in hiza to Saga who had been living for 5 years among the hi she
19:20 spoke and understood our language and he would tell his young wife you need to ask this young man your brother for was he was speaking in a suen language and then in turn to turn to her brother and they would speak in and as Tekken language completely different not a single word was the same as ours and she would ask him if they were able to acire
19:45 horses and so this long chain of communication would go back and forth from sh and language back TOA a suan language back to French and then to English and they would pull back and forth how many horses do they need and then the message would go back the other way and then they would ask well what are they willing to trade for these horses we
20:09 would like to have guns and then the message would go back and forth we were not giving any guns to any of the tribes at this time and the message went back and forth and they were with the Shon for 2 weeks and by the end of October or by the end of August they got their horses and before they left that in August Mary Lewis was so
20:33 pleased with the assistance of s that he gave a red coat to just not sharo and he asked him to trade it for a horse to make certain that his young wife and child had a good horse that would take her and a few meager GS over those mountains and yes it's true s left she continued on that Journey to the West
20:57 Coast and they back in what is now North Dakota in August of 1806 during this time many things happened William CL became very very fond of sagia and this little boy because the sharo family traveled very closely with William Clark in that white hero William Clark saw this little boy John Baptist Charo grow up from the day
21:21 he was born until he was 19 months old and it wasn't just williiam Clark think about hardship and people say things like this woman imagine her courage and her determination because she went on this long extraordinary Journey thousands of miles she was Ill to the point that she almost died and all that
21:44 time she was caring for this young child John Baptist who by now William Clark was Finly referring to as pompe my little dancing boy when he grew very fond of this little boy and on August 17th in 1806 when it came time to say goodbye to the Charo family William CLK wanted very much for his
22:08 little boy to come back with him to St Louis he offered to not sharpen all many things he said he would give him a place to live he would give him land he said he wanted to take the young boy back to St Louis and educate him and raised him as his own son but this little boy was only 19 months
22:30 old and sag and her husband decided that he was too young and they said when he's older we will bring him to St Louis and we would be honored and pleased to have you educate him and by then you can imagine what they thought of William CLK he was a true leader and in this Expedition he he proved to be a true
22:52 leader he watched out for sag many many times and then William Clark left and he embarked on the J and just as they were heading into what is now South Dakota William Clark wrote a letter back to cassant Charo to this man who did not read her right and in the letter a very long letter you can still read it today on August 20th 1806
23:14 William Clark must have realized the silence in that boat this little boy was no longer toling around or hanging over the side of the boat or wandering off into the trees probably chasing after that big black dog this little boy was not there and the Silence of the little boy's absence must have been almost and he wrote a letter
23:38 back up the river and he said to tant Charo to bring your son to St Louis and bring your wife with you so she can care for him until you arrive and when you arrive in St Louis I will provide you with land I will provide you with a home I will provide you with livestock if you want to serve as an interpreter I can if you wish to travel back to Montreal
24:01 to visit your relatives I will care for your family until you return and he sent that letter up the river with one of the traders that were traveling up the Missouri to our Villages and I don't know God be ever read that letter I I know she didn't read it she did not read her right but I don't know if anyone ever read that to her but I know that somehow she did get that message because
24:26 s and her husband Cho and that little boy did make their way down the river in October of 1809 and in December of 1809 their son John Baptist chardo now 4 and2 years old was baptized near the Mississippi River by a j priest at a place called the old Cathedral his baptismal record is
24:51 currently on exhibit Theiss and his Godfather was none other than August shelto the founder of St Louis and he would begin his education then under William Clark or under the guidance of William Clark and by the time he was a young man he was speaking
25:15 six different languages he would serve as a scout and a guide and an interpreter up and down the Missouri River he would be a scout to General Steven Cary in the Mexican Wars he would travel to Europe and 6 years at M M time a castle 6 years as a guest in the Royal household he would travel West during the Gold Rush he would traveled North
25:39 into Oregon and in 1866 at the age of 61 as he was traveling back out onto the plains he came down with pneumonia he died and he was buried at station in the Jordan Valley near present oreg his rededicated just a couple of years ago and his
26:03 mother there's so little that we know about her with absolute certainty but there are many things that we do know about her we do know that s has become the most celebrated woman in all of American history and when you travel across this country not only on the L Park Trail but throughout many many places you find more rivers and
26:28 land mountaintops pars streams songs poems women's organizations girls organiz girl scout organizations schools websites license plates statues named and in memory of This Woman's
26:49 honor Her Image is on the golden dollar coin this woman was a teenager she was Indian woman there are many tribes today who claim s there are many tribes today who claim descendancy to her the Shi the hza the Kami there are oral histories
27:13 about this woman among the Lakota the N Pur the crow the M the black beast I am not a descendant of but I am a descendant of the village that she left in the fall of
27:32 1804 and returned to in the summer of 1806 my relatives my relatives spoke witha my relatives walked to the garden with sagia they were there when John bti was born and my relatives have many stories about
27:56 sagia they all end with this s was a young girl when she came to our village but she was a young woman when she left and in the spring when the ice broke up on the Missouri River we knew that she would be
28:20 leaving we knew where she was going she was going back to her Homeland she was going back to her birth child which is showing our enemies and we never knew if we would ever see her again but we do know that when she left our Villages that spring she took
28:40 something with her that we had given her it was something sacred it was something very very powerful it was her very own something that she would carry with her not only to the end of her life but into eternity would become part of her immortality it was her name we are
29:04 the from the night Villages and we call her her thank you very much um the K the K tribe are going to come up and we're going to do we're going to open the up for questions and
29:29 answers right now but before we do that or before I start taking questions I want to invite you tomorrow to a panel at 12:00 I'm going to moderate a panel at noon tomorrow if you're able to be here that would be wonderful we have three of the most U knowledgeable um probably recognized National sism part Scholars from Indian Country speaking tomorrow and uh we have
29:54 Roberta Conor who is from the illa um she's from the confederated tribes of the Umatilla she's with works with me on the National Council of listic Cl by sentennial and the circle of tribal advisers we will have um Alan P from the ners tribe the NES we I I shortened my program today because I I have some friends here that I met that I want to
30:17 include in part of this program um I thought it would be more appropriate to do that elen P from the nesp tribe will tell you interesting things because the nesp tribes are the only tribe that welcome Le and Clark into their Village three times not just two like some of us but three times and we also have a very um very dis distinguished guest I think and I'm very honored and I'd like to
30:41 introduce him and I want him to stand up he is the only true descendant of Cameo and chief tendo he is the only descendant of Shaga that we have here this our today and I would like my friend BR AR from the L High sh in the back of the please stand up right and
31:00 and be recognized thank you for being here so please come back tomorrow and hear what we have to say um singers I have a chair um we're going to introduce you here in just a bit let's have a couple of questions here anyone lots of
31:20 questions about have so be presentations this [Music] weekend you know where she died or where she is buried I think most most Scholars and most historians and I believe most of the sh and most of us with the tribe anakota and South Dakota believe that
31:42 she died in 1812 after giving birth to a little girl in the fall probably around August and 3 months later having developed the fever and complications following child birth she died at fortanel on the west side of Missi river near the borders of nor
32:03 [Music] sou did children John bti was in Germany for six years and he it's beli that he had a child in Germany um that died in infancy we don't know about any descendants I
32:27 don't know any end that John Baptist had here in back in this country I don't know a wife he had um Rod might have a different story tomorrow but I don't I'm not aware of any descendants from John Baptist or theep who
32:46 [Music] was any other questions one more at the beginning you were talking about your an you um part of our much of our is
33:10 written down um I guess I guess it's kind of fortunate that the m and were permanent and I think with our tries having been permanent for so long in one place it it wasn't as difficult to trace all of our heritage back but I think if you as Native American person here today to tell you who all their ancestors are
33:34 from that many many many generations they can tell you who they are my mother's name is white juneberries her name is Sal young bear M her father's name was Frank young bear Frank young Bear's father's name was young [Music] beara um his mother's name was um or his
33:57 father name was long arm and long arm's mother was yellow um what was it it was yellow woman yellow woman was her name and yellow woman lived in to get out of the village I also I mean we can retrace our ancestry back to um our relatives who survived the 1837
34:22 small and I think that there were journals kept there were journals from 1738 on and those were the first time our history was being recorded in writing and much of those the 178 journals of course were all written in fren by lover who was in our homeland and in many other places so since that time our history has been recorded so we
34:47 can find much information already recorded and recovered and also through oral history so it's a combination of both what I want to do now we encountered many many cultures and you are going to encounter many many Native American cultures as you travel along the par trail and I think about how sag was young she was a teenager and it must
35:12 have been an extraordinary experience for her to to meet and experience so many different cultures and I think for so many of us who have been working with L by sentenal for this long one of the greatest rewards is is to me only the Planters in the SCH par by Centennial but to meet the Native American descendants of all those people that
35:36 leis and Fark encountered when they travel into throughout our homelands that has been the greatest joy for me the people that are here the Homeland tribes here in Illinois are the shauni and we just met the shauni nation last July great picture my friend from the Shi nation has done an incredible job working with Tom Wonder and Dale Chapman
35:59 bringing the shie back you throughout the rest of this Vice sentennial you will see so many tribes coming back to their homelands and this morning we were in St Charles for that event and the flag song was was sung by the whistling wi singers of the kikoo tribe of Kansas who were removed after the L Park Expedition and it's such an honor for me
36:21 to meet the people from The Kiko tribe and they I'm I'm getting the rest of my time to the k because this is their Homeland this is not my homeland and I would like John Thomas um a leer of the kiko tribal Business Council is going to introduce the drum group and I want to tell you again that I am so pleased to see all of you here it's an honor to
36:44 meet you and it's an honor to be able to meet so many new friends and learn about your culture too thank you so much good

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Amy Mosen on Sacagawea and the Oto Nation

Amy Mosen

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Amy Mosen on Sacagawea and the Oto Nation

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