Closed Captions Audio Described

Amy Mossett (Mandan) discusses Sacagawea's life with the Mandan and Hidatsa, her relationship with William Clark, and her son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. She addresses misconceptions about Sacagawea's name, ancestry, descendants, and death, while emphasizing the Mandan role in her story and the importance of oral tradition in preserving tribal history.

Transcript

0:02 On behalf of the National Park Service, I would like to welcome you to the core of Discovery 2. This traveling exhibit is making its way across the United States following the route taken by Willis and Clark 200 years ago. Our next program here intend to any Voices is going to be a program telling me a little bit about the story of Chicago win and our presenter for that is going to be Amy Mosset. She is a national consultant regarding Chicago.
0:25 I'm going to turn the story over and stage over to her now.
0:31 Thank you so much for being here and uh I want to thank the National Park Service and all of the staff from the National Park Service for traveling along this journey with us and for being such an important part of this whole bicentennial commemoration and having a venue that we can come to in all communities, no matter what size, to present
0:56 the Lewis and Clark story. My name is Well, actually, I, I guess my name could be mentioned in a couple of different ways. I am Nan and Hirasa. I am from the northern swing. I live uh in in Hirasa community today. But my ancestors met Lewis and Clark 200 years ago,
1:20 and from our village. Lewis and Clark would obtain one of the greatest resources.
1:30 One of the greatest assets that you could never place a value on, that was Dalia. She joined the Lewis and Clark expedition from the village on the south side of the 9th River in present-day North Dakota. And the Knife River that Saad Ruina lived in, that nife River village that she lived in was called Awadira, and it was on the south bank. It was the middle village.
1:53 It was the center village of those three hiraza villages that Louisson Park would travel to occasionally when they came to visit our Gada leaders. My manga relatives lived 7 miles down the river where the where the Night River meets the Missouri River. And in the Mandan villages, there were two villages at the time when Mary Little Lewis and William Clark came to our part of the world. And remember, the Mangan,
2:18 once powerful, once the wealthiest, most powerful nations on the northern plains had been reduced to a mere 2000 people, with 1000 people inhabiting each of those villages on either side of the Missouri River, and Fort Manan would be built in the vicinity of those villages. And we would actually be named for my Nan ancestors, Fort Manda.
2:43 My man I wrote is called me
2:48 still go hey. And my name in the traditional Gadza language and it's due the Gerada through the Gada clan that I actually received my traditional name in Geradza. My name is Gina,
3:00 and our names come from, I think a lot of the traditional names are similar to the people in this part of the world because your names come from your way of life and they, our names come from medicine bundles. They don't just give you. Names it actually comes from medicine bundles and only certain people can give names and because we were an agricultural people, much like the people in this area that Lewis and Clark encountered,
3:23 our names came from bundles that were associated with gardening, for example, and my name is Gaza and the man is translated into English as a squash blossom and that's the yellow flower that blooms on. On the squashes that we are growing still today, but I'm not here to talk about myself. I was here yesterday for some time and had a chance to visit with people
3:47 and I talked about this incredible young woman who lived with my ancestors at Aladura. I'm here to talk about Sagagua, and there are so many things that can be said about this woman, but today I'm only going to talk about 4 things. I'm going to talk about her relationship with William Clark. There are many mysteries and a lot of speculation about
4:11 Sagagalia's relationship with William Clark as compared to her relationship, for example, with Marywea Lewis. So I'm gonna talk about her relationship with William Clark. I'm going to talk about Sagagalia's relatives, her descendants. I'm going to talk about Sigaguilla's name. Sagagua, that name that we still know her by today,
4:36 and then I'm going to talk just very, very briefly about Sagagua's death. And all these things that I'm talking about today have for so long been filled with so much controversy and so many myths have ri have risen from the story of Sagagua. She's, she's an incredible woman. She is the most celebrated woman in all of American history.
5:00 And yet we know so little about her. Let's get right to the story about Sagar Lua and William Clark. And the reason I want to talk about this is people often wonder, there's a lot of speculation about her relationship with William Clark. I, I even had somebody ask me if that little boy, John Baptiste, that little boy that William Clark so fondly referred to as my boy Pa.
5:26 Some people have actually asked if that little boy was the son of William Clark. Well, you need to know that not only was William Clark nowhere near that area when that little boy was born, he was also not anywhere near that area when that little boy was conceived. That little boy, Jean Baptiste Chardonna, was born
5:49 in the afternoon of February 11th, 1805. He was born at Fort Nanda.
5:57 William Clark was not there, but then the father of the child was not there either. Jaa, or to start Chaonna, the husband of Saad Loa, had gone out hunting. William Clark was also out on this hunting party, but you know who was there? Mary with the Lewis. Mary with the Lewis actually assisted or presided over in the absence of all of the midwives that would have been there to assist
6:21 in the delivery of this child had said we have been back at the village. William Clark, he was sort of the, the medical expert. He was the man who knew about medicine and remedies and treatments of the day. His mother, Lucy Marks was an herbalist. His stepfather was a medical doctor. And before they came out here on this journey, Mary with the studied under the finest doctors to learn about medicine,
6:46 and he would be the man mostly responsible. For delivering or for treating people. William Clark could do that also later on, especially out to the west. But during Sibagalia's birth, William Clark presided over that birth along with another French Canadian fur trader who had been living with my man and relatives whose name was Renee Chasson. You know,
7:10 when this little boy was born, you really need to think back about his name. There's just this ongoing debate over what culture influenced Sinagravia more than the others. The Shoshone claimed that Sagagua, remember now Sagagua was born Shoshone. She was Shoshone by birth. And at the age of about 1011 years old,
7:33 Mayada ancestors on one of the hunting trips to the west in the middle of what is now Montana, captured her and some other young Shoan children, and only two of those young people were brought back. It was Sagalia and another woman, another young child, actually, not a woman, a young girl who was only a couple of years older than her. Well, Sagawiya
7:57 lived in our village and
8:02 Her culture changed somewhat. She had been born to the Shoshone and culturated in the Shoshone culture up until the time she was 1011 years old, and then she grew into womanhood in this Hiraza village and so the Gerada will tell you, well, it was more the the Gerada culture that influenced her decisions because now she was a woman. But you know,
8:26 when this little boy was born, he was not given a Shoshone name. This little boy whose mother had grown into womanhood now in a Gaza village was not given a Gerada name. This little boy was named after his French Canadian grandfather who was a fur trader from Montreal, Canada. This little boy was called Jean Baptiste Chardon.
8:49 He was named after his grandfather, who was still living in Montreal.
8:56 So this child was not the child of William Clark. But William Clark loved this little boy, he loved him so much that when this expedition ended on August 17 in 1806, after they had traveled all the way to the West Coast and returned to our part of the country, William Clark had to say goodbye to this little boy, this little boy who he had watched practically every day,
9:20 the 1st 19 months of his life. Any of you who have children. know that in the first year of the child's life, so many things happen to that child. They go from this little tiny bundle. To a person, they develop a personality. They start learning to say words, they begin, they, they do all kinds of things.
9:45 They learn how to walk, they learn how to talk, they laugh, they smile. William Clark watched that happen with this little boy, the entire first year of his life and almost all the way into the second year. He was very fond of this little boy. And why William Clark and not Mary Leda Lewis? Well, remember there were two pirogues that headed to the west and the Charbona family traveled in that white pirogue.
10:10 They traveled in that white pirogue with William Clark. And the Charbau family remained in close proximity, not just physical but emotional, everything else, very close to William Clark.
10:26 On many occasions, I would guess. That William Clark would observe this little guy, Jean Baptiste. On many occasions when a child is getting older and older and they're starting to toddle and they're very curious and they wander off away from their mother or they start hanging too far over the side, perhaps in that boat he was riding in. And my guess is that it wasn't Sadandovia who constantly watched that little boy.
10:51 There were many men in this expedition. And William Clark, I think, watched over that little boy just as closely as his own father to Sa Charbonne. And if he was ever hanging too far over the side of that boat and if William Clark was right there, my guess is that William Clark would have been the guy who reached out and grabbed that little boy. And I think one of the most difficult things for William Clark was to say goodbye to Jacque Baptiste,
11:16 to San Chavino, and Saada. And on August 17th, 1806, he asked them if he could take that little boy back to Saint Louis and educate him. He promised that he would raise Jean Baptiste like his own son, but this little boy was only 19 months old. And the Chardonmaul family, I'm sure were flattered that William Clark, this man who they held in very high esteem
11:41 because of all that he had done for them, this man was offering to educate their son in a place that was much more comfortable and a lot less dangerous than the place they were living in right then. But because he was only 19 months old, the Chardonna family decided he would have to stay at A deja with his mother and father, and they promised when he was older,
12:04 they would bring him to Saint Louis, and they did.
12:09 In the fall of 1809, when the car or not the part of Discovery, but after Meriwether Lewis had hired 100 soldiers to open the Missouri River back up and return. White Kyle, a manda leader who had traveled south in the, in the fall or in the late summer of 1806. White Kyle was this part of this Indian delegation that they convinced to
12:32 go back to meet the President of the United States. They had to return him. That was the promise. When White Kyle agreed that he would go south with the Corps of Discovery in August of 1806, he told them, I will go with you only if you return me in one year. They tried to keep their word. They tried to return him in the fall of 1807, but the Eviara, our enemies, the enemies of the Mandan and the Hiraza, the Sioux,
12:57 the enemies of the Mandan and Gaza would not let anyone back up through that river. And so like Kyle had to go back to Saint Louis and realizing how important that trade was on the Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis had these soldiers hired and they returned Wayle to this village. And then that time, probably by October, November of 1809, when they returned to Saint Louis,
13:22 the Chardonna family went with them, and we know they went with them because that little boy Jean Baptiste Chardinel, now 4.5 years old, was baptized in Saint Louis at the old Cathedral right there by the Mississippi River. A visiting Jesuit priest was in town, and he baptized the son of Toussaint Charbonne and Siad Rua. The godfather.
13:45 But this little boy was none other than Augusthoto, the founder of Saint Louis, and that baptismal record, which you can still see today is written entirely in French. And not long after that, this little boy would then begin his education under the guidance of William Clark. And by the time he was a young man, he would be speaking 6 or 7 different languages.
14:11 And because now Mary or William Clark was the superintendent or the commissioner for Indian territory, and he was, he was engaged in business dealing with all of the matters of the Indians and people had to go to his office to get permission to go up and engage in trade with the Indians, and they would often need a guide and a scout and an interpreter and who other. Would they get referred than Jean Baptiste Chardonna.
14:36 He served as a scout and a guide and an interpreter up and down the Missouri River, out to the west. He befriended people of all nationalities, all cultures, many different walks of life. He even was befriended by a prince who came here from Germany, wanting to travel to the west to visit Indian cultures before they disappeared. His name was Duke Paul.
15:02 He was the prince at Wittenberg.
15:06 And he's so His relationship with Jean Baptiste grew. He took him back to Germany and so for 6 years, the son of Sada Julia lived as a guest in the royal household at von Mergenheim.
15:22 And then he returned to this country, and he continued to travel into the West. He went west during the Mexican Wars. He was a scout and a guide. For General Stephen Carney, the step son-in-law of William Clark. John Bapti showed him a travel to the west during the gold rush. He traveled north into Oregon. And then he told friends in 1866,
15:46 he was now 61 years old. He said he longed to go back out onto the plains to visit his relatives, and he started that journey where he didn't make it out of Oregon because when he got to the Jordan Valley, he came down with pneumonia.
16:03 He died and he was buried at a place called the Inski Station.
16:09 Your present day Danner Oregon. And that was really part of the life for a real brief history of the life of Jean Baptiste Charnel, this young man that William Clark called my boy Pa. And speaking of Pop, where did that name come from? Pop.
16:28 The Shoshani will tell you that that name means Something about a lot of black hair. Well, you know, every Indian baby 200 years ago and today has a lot of black hair. And so the Gerada on the other hand, say that ho was a pope or bunpei is the hiraa word and it means
16:52 Something about a stinky little boy. Well, I'm not gonna say all little boys were stinky little boys. We don't call all the little boys, but there's a lullaby, there's a lullaby that was some that uses this word that's similar to that. But you know, again, I don't think that word or that name pop came from a hoshoni word, and I don't think it came
17:17 from a Hirasa word. I think it came from William Clark. This little boy was called Pompeii. He called him Pompei. It was actually a rather common slave. As was Toby, which was the name given to that showing man who helped to guide them over the mountains. It's also as common as that other slave name, Jamie,
17:40 that nickname that was given to Sigaa by William Clark. But that of course takes us into this whole issue of slavery because these people were not seen as slaves. In the purest sense, when you think about what slavery was, but they were just so common names that were just so commonly accepted at the time 200 years ago. Pop is not if that's the word. Pop
18:07 is not a shown word, but you know, William Clarton named the landmark after this young boy. In July of 1806 when they were traveling back and Meriwether Lewis had taken the Missouri River and gone north, William Clark and the Chardonna family were on the Yellowstone, traveling back east, and they were now past present day Billings, Montana, and they came to this huge sandstone outcropping,
18:31 a place that the Crow people called a place where the mountain lion sleeps. And that huge sandstone outcropping is where William Clark carved his name deep into that sandstone, and you can still see it today. It's all covered, it's protected, and it's probably the only physical evidence that remains today for the Lesson Park expedition.
18:56 And that sandstone landmark was named for Sidali's son. It was called Pompey's Col. Today it is known as Pompey's Pillar, a National Historic Landmark.
19:10 William Clark loved that little boy. Jean Depti Charbonne. But did you want to?
19:18 And did she love him? I think she did. I think Saba loved William Clark because if you look at the relationship between the two of them, I think she loved him the way any young woman would love an older brother or a relative who protected him, her. And if you think about all the times and all of the
19:42 events that occurred in this expedition or throughout this journey, you can see time and again how William Clark protected Saada. When they were traveling to the west. And on May 14th of 1805 when that caps that white pirogue that they were traveling capsized when the wind caught the sail and it rocked it way to one side and the water was rushing over the side of that boat.
20:07 There were some expert expert French boatmen in that river and it's true that Toussaint Chardonna was a Frenchman, but he was not a Water man, this man was afraid of water. He panicked. He had actually been in control of this boat at the time, and William Clark and Mary Brother Lewis were out there on the shore walking along when they saw this whole incident, this episode taking place,
20:30 and I'm sure they were thinking about the cargo that was in that boat, precious cargo, things that they did not want to lose. And all this, and all this commotion with all the yelling going on and people trying to bail out that boat with kettles and everything else they could find, Sagarwil was sitting in the back of that piro, and you know when it walked, it just hung to the side and the water was rushing in.
20:53 Pierre Cuat eventually pulled the gun and threatened to stop Chardonna and told him if he didn't get control of himself and that boat that he would shoot him. Well, you know, he would never have shot him, but he was threatening him. He was trying to bring this man back to his senses. And in all this commotion, there was Saanvia, this young teenage Indian woman at the back of the boat.
21:17 Her son was probably in his cradleboard on her back, and there were items that had drifted overboard, some of the lighter things and as they floated past, she grabbed them and she pulled them back into the boat. And both captains, even Marriwether Lewis who usually didn't have many. great things to say about Saga, or he was mostly indifferent toward her.
21:41 He praised her for her courage and her fortitude and only days after that, on May 20th, 1805, they named a river after her or a tributary of the river after her out there in Montana. And I think I am convinced that this is the first time that Meriwether Lewis ever wrote her name. He wrote it exactly the way he heard it, Saada,
22:06 and he wrote the translation of that name right beside it, Bird, and they called that river Bir Holder's River, and the journey continued on and in June, Sadanguila became very, very sick. And William Clark cared for her. William Clark employed the most common treatment of the day because Marywe Lewis was gone again. He was sort of the doctor,
22:31 but the most common treatment of that day, of course, was to meet somebody, to make an incision in the vein in her arm, and just let the blood leave the body so that your body could create new healthy blood. And this was by June 10th or 11th when he bled her. And she got worse. And he knew that he had to do something drastic to help her so a day or so later, he
22:56 let her again and she was now near death. And a few days later it was William Clark who carried her, and he put her in the back of that white pillow out of the sun to protect her because she was burning up with fever, she was dehydrated. And finally it was William Meriwether Lewis when they returned who administered opium bark and those kinds of medical treatments and she recovered.
23:24 As they continue to travel to the west. On one of these days that same month at the end of June. This huge storm was brewing out there. You can see it in the sky, and William Clark knew and again remember the Chardonau family was in the white pirogue and William Clark needed to get that boat off the water because just in looking at the clouds, you knew, you knew what kind of weather you were in for. And they got this boat off the water.
23:49 They were going to seek shelter in a ravine, but by this time the rain was already coming down out of the sky, and then all of a sudden there came the hail. And along with the hail and the rain, the water was, was causing a mudslide and rocks were coming down off of the hills, and before you knew it, the water was swirling up around their feet. And just not Char we know, this man who we know was a very timid water man,
24:13 was the first guy of Billy Bean. And I'm sure that as he was climbing up the hill, he probably thought maybe he, he came back to his senses a little bit and thought, oh, my wife, and turns back around and reaches for Sugar, who was cleaning to her little boy. But it was William Clark who was behind her, and he was pushing her up the ravine, getting her out of harm's way.
24:38 And that day, William Clark lost one of his measuring devices, but it was a rather large compass-like thing, and after that storm subsided, they were able to go back and recover it. But Saada that day lost John Baptiste's cradle board. They did not recover that. It washed away. Did they replace it? No, of course not, because he was growing,
25:03 he no longer needed a cradle board, and the journey continued to the west.
25:10 They were now in Shoshone country at the end of August and imagine this. I have a hard time imagining her husband. We've heard many things about Sasha, but we've heard of what a scoundrel and what a rascal he was. But he struck his wife. There they were right in her own homeland, among her people that night at supper time, he struck his wife, we don't know why,
25:33 but it was William Clark who severely admonished this man treated his wife that day. And Mary or Toussaint Chardonna knew from that point on after being rebuked by William Clark for what he did, that for the remainder of that journey, he was expected to treat his wife with respect and dignity. And that stuff that that's what he did from that point on,
25:57 especially when they were in the presence of William Clark. And the journey continued to the west and when we were out on the Pacific Ocean, imagine this. It was, I think, in January. Well, first, let's go back to November. It's not long after they had arrived out on the West Coast. Sabaa.
26:17 She was caring for her child. That was, that was probably the main, the most important role, the most important thing that, that was on her mind from day to day. But they had been on the north side of the Columbia River. They had been checking out the place, traveling up and down the river, trying to determine where they would build their winter quarters. It was November of 1805, and by the end of November, they needed to make a decision
26:40 on which side of that Columbia River they should winter on. The Chinook were on the north side of the Columbia River and the, the Chinook invited them to winter with them, to engage in trade with them. The Chinook were very savvy traders. They had been trading with, with all kinds of non-I people that were coming to their territory by boat. They wanted to trade with Lewis and Clark, but the
27:03 land on the other side of the river on the south side of the river was a little richer in elk meat. And they knew by this time that they needed this elk, they needed the elk for meat, but they also needed those elk hides for clothing because by this time, their military uniforms would become very tattered and worn.
27:25 They would have to make many pairs of democracy for that journey home. And they needed to make this decision and so they, they decided to have sort of a vote, and there's a big debate on whether this was really a vote or whether it was just an opinion poll, but they recorded the opinions of all the people in that expedition. Everyone was able to provide some input on this decision. Everyone, including New York,
27:49 William Clark's black servant, every adult member in this expedition, including Sagagalia, this young Indian woman who was probably not yet 18 years old. They all sort of voted to stay on the south side of the Columbia River. A couple of months later, Sabari was hearing the stories about a huge gigantic creature
28:13 that had come out of the great waters. And the men had ventured on down the coast and they came back and they were talking about this huge thing which to her sounded kind of like a fish creature, and she knew living out there in western Montana what a salmon looked like. She knew how big a salmon could get. And over there at the Knife River, I mean, it's not a very big river,
28:37 but we had fish in there. There were. capital
28:43 They, they don't get too big in that river. There were little catfish that everyone called bullheads or something like that, but they were really small. And she had seen these fish, but this fish that they were talking about was gigantic, and she was determined that she wanted to go and see that animal or that creature.
29:04 And I'm sure that Mary Willow Lewis and William Clark were quite amused. That she was so insistent, and this is probably the one time that she really asserted herself and told them that I have come this far, and if you don't let me go out there to see that animal, that fish creature, it would be very hard for me to have to go all the way back home without seeing it.
29:30 Well, She did go see that animal, and I often think about the stories that she told my ancestors when she got back to the villages.
29:41 Imagine her telling the women sitting around inside the Earth lodge that she had seen the sea creature. First of all, even trying to explain to them what the ocean looked like because we had no ocean out here on the plains and trying to explain to them that if you look out into the horizon for as long as you can see, it was water. Nothing else. It was all water. It was the ocean.
30:06 That would be hard to imagine, I think. But then to tell them that this creature had come out of the ocean and it was something like a fish, but it was so big, it was bigger. that
30:20 And I'm sure that the women sitting around inside that earth lodge on the fire were probably rolling their eyes, but then she probably told them that this creature was so big that it could not fit inside this earth lodge. Well, needless to say, I'm sure that the diarrhea has some real serious credibility problems after that.
30:42 We talk about fish stories we have back then too. But we
30:48 was out in the west at Christmas time. And at Christmas time, they were exchanging gifts. The men were sort of celebrating Christmas or commemorating that day, and we don't have.
31:00 But Saga we have presented William Clark with a gift. She gave him about 2 dozen measel tails.
31:10 Which is really rather interesting because we don't have Christmas. We don't know if she gave anything to anyone else. I don't think she gave anything to Mary Lewis.
31:22 I rather doubt if she gave any anything to Saint Charreon, but she cared very much for William Clark when she gave him this gift. And on another occasion, she gave him this little morsel of bread that she had been saving for her son for a very long time. It was a bread that was made with flour, I think. And I think William Clark noted in his journals that
31:45 she must have been carrying it with her for quite some time because of, you know, it was kind of not that tasty, but just the idea that this was the first morsel of bread that he had eaten for a very long time. And so I gave that to him. And then there's this story about the blue beaded belt.
32:06 It wasn't William Park who wanted that belt. It was Mary with the Lewis. You didn't actually ask for the belt, but Sugar we had a blue beaded belt. And of all the beads that William Clark and A with the Lewis brought up the river, they did not bring enough blue beads.
32:24 And you hear the story about how the women in all of these tribes love blue beads. Why? They had other colored beans. They had white beads, they had red beads, they had all these different colored beads. So what was the big thing about blue beads?
32:40 Why were they so valuable? We know blue. Blue is, it's a primary color. It's one of the first colors that you see. It is the color most easily. Distinguishable to the human eye because on the light spectrum it sort of has the shortest wavelength and so you see blue first.
33:05 But out there in nature, when you walk outside and you look at the sky, and in the summer, the sky is just the most beautiful blue.
33:14 Different shades of blue. But out there in the environment, blue is one of those colors that you can't touch.
33:24 And for many of us, we could not replicate that color. And when we colored porcupine quills to decorate our husband's buffalo robes, and when we decorated porcupine quills to decorate our moccasins or our, our teepees or however we use that, we could not make blue. We could make yellow from the cottonwood and goldenrod and sunflower,
33:48 we could make brown from the rushes, we could make red from all of these different plants, dogwood.
33:57 Well Purple, we have the most brilliant shades of purple from some, from, from choke cherries and all, we had pink. But we did not have glue. And when they brought these beads and they were blue, they were a treasure. And so Goda took off that blue belt and she gave it to her husband, who gave that belt to to Marriwether Lewis,
34:22 because there was a coat out there, a sealskin or a sea otter jacket or a shirt that Marywea Lewis wanted. And the only way that Indian men out there would trade it. As if he, if never was offered more.
34:39 And the only, the only way that trade was finally negotiated was with photography as rebut.
34:46 Well, they did give her something in exchange. They gave her a wool coat. It
34:56 So God who we all loved William Clark. And she had a special place in her heart, because this man protected her and he protected her son. And you know how we are whenever there's somebody of prominence who watches out for our children and provides them with an opportunity that we could never give them. Our children are always more important than we are. William Clark
35:20 found that place in Sabaria's heart for all the things that he did for her. He protected her more than any man. In her entire life, there was no man in that Shoshone village that saved her when she was captured at the age of 12. There was no man in the head of the village who could save her or who would protect her if there was somebody who mistreated her perhaps.
35:45 No one protected her the way William Clark did, and because of that, she loved him.
35:52 Sagua's name appears in the Lewis and Clark Journal about. 26 times, it's never written with a J. Sidagua's name was spelled 16 different ways in the Lewis and Clark journals, not once with a J. And in 1814 when Nicholas Biddle edited the Lewis and Clark Journals, he put the J in Sadagua's name. That Jay and her name did not. come from the shabi.
36:17 It did not come from the Gaza. It came from Nicholas Bill, and it is true that on one occasion when, when William Clark recorded in his 1825 account book that Sigaabil was dead, he wrote her name with a G that looked like a J. It doesn't have a dot on the top of it. He also wrote letters to George Rogers Clark, his brother,
36:41 and he spelled George on more than one occasion with a J or a G that looked like a J. And it doesn't really matter because George is George, it's like, it's a soft, it's a soft.
36:55 It could be spelled with a J.
36:59 He also wrote wagon on one occasion with a W A G O N and that G looked like a J. We are not going to change the way we pronounce wagon just because of that. The J and Segagalia's name was an error, but it's an error that has caused people to mispronounce her name for the last over 200 years.
37:22 Sagaga is the Gerada word for her. Wea is almost a universal sewing word for woman. Sagaga wea. Is it God's the word for bird woman. So God we had a
37:36 They showing me before we captured her in 1800. And by now, even Shoi descendants will tell you that they no longer know what that name was.
37:48 But perhaps it doesn't matter because if Sadagua had gone back to that village and stayed there, she would have been given.
37:59 He used to showing me, it would not have been Saca Julia. It would not have been her book. Sibagua died on December 20th in 1812 and she was buried near Fort Manuel on the Missouri River on the west side of the Missouri River near the borders of North and South Dakota. Fort Manuel was a fur trading post
38:21 that was established by the Manu Manuel Lisa Fur Trade Expedition. Meriwether Toussaint Charbonne had traveled back to the north. He had been engaged in trade with his. and Rene song.
38:33 Sawu had been at the fort since about 1811. The fur trade expedition had come up the river in 1811, and she was recorded in Henry Brackenridge's journalist being sickly or frail or ill. And I don't think that she was really sickly. She may have been frail, she may not have been feeling her best, but I think her medical condition was
38:57 Characteristic of any woman who was expecting a child. And when she died, John Ludd, the agent at that court who recorded this entry in his journal that evening in December, also made other comments about her. He talked about what a good woman she was, and he also said she left a very fine infant girl.
39:22 So that wea has people or she has descendants all over this country. There are people among the Lanhai tribe in Idaho who will tell you that they are the descendants of Sabahua, and they are, they are the only true genealogical, biological blood descendants, but they are not direct descendants. They are the descendants of her brother
39:48 Camulate. There are people among the Gava tribe in North Dakota who will tell me that they are descendants of Sinagaria, and they are, but they are not her biological. Descendants. They are her adopted descendants. And there is a man, if you look on this website that the three affiliated tribe maintains right now. There was a man called Bulls Eye,
40:12 a Gada man who said Sagagawea was his grandmother. And she was bullseye is 100% Hiraza. Sagagoa is 100% Shoshani. So how could this woman be Bullseye's grandmother? Every one of the women that Toussaint Charbonau married in. Including the Gerada woman that he was married to before Segagoa,
40:37 Segagua and Otter woman, these two Shoshone women, the Assinamoin woman that Toussain Charbonneau married at Fort Clark in the 1820s. Every one of those women, every wife of Toussaint Charbonau would be the grandmother. Of bully. All of those women shared in common
41:00 the title of mother to all of Toa Charreau's children. And that's the way Things are in our family. It's the way it still is today. But today people are misinterpreted and confusing all of these issues and they're misinterpreting our own history. Sugaba we
41:21 did not die on the Wind River Reservation in 1884 in April. She was not buried on the Wind River Reservation. There was a showing woman who was buried there by a Reverend Fox. The only name in the record on the day that woman was buried was that this woman, she's not even mentioned by name, she was called
41:46 Basil's mother. Sigovia did not have a son named Basil, and Sigovia never traveled to the Wind River Reservation. She had long since been dead before this woman had ever lived.
42:02 The last thing I was going to talk about was We talked about William Clark, we talked about Siddagolia's name just a little bit. We talked about Siaggoa's family. And a little about her death. The one thing I wanted to say about Seaggoa is that when we continue this bicentennial commemoration and we continue to commemorate all of the individuals of the Lewis and Clark expedition and we travel from tribe to tribe to tribe,
42:27 you continue. To hear oral tradition, stories that have been handed down from generation to generation to generation. The one thing that you need to remember about all of the stories that we receive from our elders, these are stories that we don't question. And when your grandparents or your great grandmother is telling you a story, telling a story to a young person,
42:50 that young person does not sit there and say, well, what about this? And how come, how come it's that way? And, and, and that's not the way I heard it or so and so said something different. When your grandparent is telling you a story, you listen because that elder is giving you a gift and you don't question. You don't contradict what they're saying.
43:15 In the case of Siad Gua, all of these stories that we hear today are stories that have been passed down from generation to generation to generation and have mostly gone unquestioned. Which is why there are people among the Comanche tribe of Oklahoma who will tell you that they are the descendants of Sadaa, that she did travel to their part of the world,
43:40 that she did meet a Comanche man, and that she did have Comanche children and that they did give her the name Lost woman, and they truly believe that. And when you talk to the people among the Lenha Shoshonei tribe, their stories about Saga we are filled with passion and conviction because that is what they have been taught to believe. And when you listen to Moai's descendants,
44:03 they honestly believe that they are the descendants of Sagagoa, whether they are biologically or not. There are oral traditions of Sagagovia not only among those three tribes, but among the Lakota. The black feet, the crow, the mes purse.
44:24 My ancestors at Adua
44:27 had many stories and oral traditions of cigagovia, and the one thing I want to say about Segagoa is that we all gathered together in National Statuary Hall in Washington DC last October. And along with the state of North Dakota, we dedicated our state's second statue.
44:46 The National Statuary Hall. It was a statue of Sagagulia. The woman who posed for that statue was a Teraza woman. Her name was Nick. Her descendants all live on the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota. And some people questioned why, if you know this was a Shoshone woman, why did you have a Geradza woman's image going to the nation's capital
45:10 to represent this woman? Well, there are several reasons, we have no idea what Sead Rubio looked like. And if Mary with the Lewis, this man who could describe an event or or the uh the river or an animal so vividly that you could close your eyes and actually see that creature. He would describe birds,
45:32 the sound of a bird so vividly that you could almost hear the sound of that bird, but he never told us what Sagaw looked like. He could tell you the wingspan on that condor and the length of the feathers, the size and the color of its beak, its height from the ground. We don't know how tall Sagaga was because nobody described her. There has never been a painting,
45:57 a photo, or a description of this incredible young woman. But we sent this image of, of a Hiraa woman to Washington DC because we decided. What better image than that of a Ganza woman? Because had it not been for Sababua's life in this Gerada village, she would never have met
46:22 this French Canadian fur trader Toussaint Chardonna. She would never have had this little boy, Jean Baptiste Charbonne. She would never have met Marriwether Lewis or William Clark. Had it not been for her life in this Gerada community in what is now North Dakota, she never would have been part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. But most importantly, think of that name Sagagulia.
46:48 We gave that name to her. And the one thing that we are proud of in North Dakota, all of us descendants of our dura at Gerada village, had it not been for her life with us, there is not a soul in the entire universe who would have ever heard of this woman that we called Saada.
47:12 Thank you so very much.
47:22 We are going to, um, I just answer a couple of questions here, but before, before we, before we uh take any questions, I just want to again thank my friends Bud Clark, descendant of William Clark. uh, Bud and I have had just an incredible journey. Sharing this story and one of the stories that I, when we were in, we were, we have been to the nation's capital on a number
47:47 of occasions just because of this whole Lois and Clark thing and in 2001 in January, when William Clark was finally given his, his commission or he was finally acknowledged as um. A captain, um, Bud Clark and his brother John accepted that citation or they accepted that certificate from President Bill Clinton.
48:11 And at the same time, York and Sega Guillo were both given honorary uh commissions or honorary recognition as sergeants. They were honorary sergeants in the army, and I sat right beside Bud Clark. I was able to, I was, I was invited to accept the citation along with Roseanne. from the Shoshone tribe, but I got to sit right beside Bud Clark in the
48:35 front row in the east room at the White House, and it's memories like that, you will never forget those, those times, and Bud was laughing at me because I was just dragging him from room to room and we were taking pictures in the red room. in the East Room and all of the um guards in the White House thought it was kind of nuts and um but we had, I mean it was a memorable time and Scott Mandrell
48:59 is just an incredible person. I was telling somebody earlier today that he has been with this thing. He, he rode his horse to where was it? Harper's Ferry. From, from DC to Pittsburgh and I was telling somebody about that this morning, but we are um looking forward to, to your arrival on the northern Plains in North Dakota. We will make sure there's a lot of wood for the fires.
49:22 And we will see you there and I wanna thank you for what you did here today with the Omaha tribe. Um, we've been, I've been working with tribes all along the Lewis trail and what, what took place here this morning, a presentation to the chairman here, uh, for the Omaha Nation and all of the people in this community was incredible, and I just want to say I think that all of you Scott and, um, Bud and the whole horror of discovery,
49:47 rediscovery or the The What do you call your organization again? The rediscovery Corps
49:55 Discovery Expedition of Saint Charles, Missouri. You guys are awesome. Thank you so much.
50:03 We do have time for just a couple of questions. So if you do have a question, go ahead and raise your hand. We have a microphone to pass around so everyone can hear the questions. So go ahead and raise your hand if you have a question.
50:14 All right, Mr. Clark.
50:19 Amy, I just wondered if you've ever had personal contact with descendants of Jean Baptiste. I've had many, um, everywhere I go I get phone calls and emails from people who tell me that they are descendant, well, not actually not of Jean Baptiste but of Toussaint Charbonne. With Jean Baptiste, the only, the only instance that I have ever
50:42 encountered anyone with any information about that was when I was in Germany. And there a woman came up to me and she had done her master's thesis on Jean Baptiste Chardonna, and in the thesis she men she mentions a woman over there in, in Germany or in that part of the country that had a child with Jean Baptiste Charbonne. He lived there for 6 years
51:07 and um the child according to the story, died in infancy. I don't know of any other descendants of Jean Baptiste. We have new information being uncovered every day recently. Sodabi, of course, had two other children, Lisette and perhaps another child, and there have been that.
51:29 baptismal and death records, and there have been two death records found just recently for two girls. We don't know if either of those, well, the oldest of the girls died at 21 Lasette. We don't know if she had any children.
51:47 Because that on her death certificate, her name was written as Lisette Charbonne means she would have been married. Have you heard of any descendants from Jean Baptiste? I'm sure by 2006 they will be coming out of the woodwork. I have, um, no matter where I go, I meet somebody who tells me they are a descendant of Toussa Charbonne, and I believe it.
52:10 Uh
52:14 Do you think that the incredible interest in Lewis and Clark will be sustained for 2 years and beyond? Um, I'm thinking of the journey back down, of course, back to Saint Louis, everybody was going pretty fast, but, uh, what do you see 2 years from now and beyond? I think that what's happened is that when this ends in 2006 in September of 2006,
52:37 I really don't think it's going to end. I think that right now we are all so involved in building legacies and creating partnerships, and I think that all of these legacies and all of the partnerships will get stronger all the time and they will be lasting. And that, that's what this whole, I think that's the most important part of the whole bicentennial commemoration is that this is not just one big party
53:01 that's going to end in 2000. This is a time for us. It's an opportunity for us to build lasting relationships between communities, between Native Americans and non-Indian entities, between all the governmental entities. I mean there are major, major partnerships that are being established right now that that have never existed in the past. They're not going to end in September of 2006.
53:26 They're going to be continued and the interest in Lewis and Clark and American history, this is just going to spark more interest, I think in American history. I mean, we are already talking to people who want to continue this because in 2007, they have to have a ball at the White House because white Kyo,
53:45 the tribal leader, was there and they're already talking to us about. And I'm not gonna say dragging this thing on, but I mean continuing it, and he was out at Monticello and then of course David Thompson, the fur trader, was up in this part of the country and they're already working on plans to commemorate that. And at the last Trail Heritage Foundation meeting I was at, they were, they are looking at commemorating the next 100 years, so no,
54:09 we're not going to stop at any quicker. Well, uh, on behalf of the National Park Service and our traveling corps of Discovery 2 exhibit, I would like to thank Amy Amy Mosset for coming and sharing her story with Chicago. We with us today and joining me in thanking her. Thank you.
54:31 Our next program here in the 10.
54:35 Director Allen.
54:40 Work out.

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Amy Mossett on Sacagawea and the Mandan Nation

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