Storyboard+w.+info.+on+Sacagawea+=)

Top Secret Project Notes on Top Secret Project "I will prove that their is a great woman behind every man."

My adventure story will solve the problem of bringing greater appreciation and understanding of the important role Sacagawea played in the success of the expedition of Lewis and Clark. For example, without an interpreter, communication with hostile tribes would have been impossible. Additionally, her skills as a guide helped bring Lewis and Clark to their destination.


 * Good Afternoon, I am Sacagawea. People believe that I joined the Expedition because my so-called-husband, Charbonneau, had been hired as an interpreter. But that is not exactly true. Lewis and Clark wanted __me__ as their interpreter, and I decided to bring Charbonneau along.
 * I don't mean to sound concieted, but I was the ultimate working mom. I was carrying my newborn baby on my back for the entire year I traveled with Lewis and Clark, and I was only 17 years old.
 * The saying on the board usually goes: behind every successful man is a great women. I guess Charbonneau was a "successful" man, but that is only because he had me.
 * Charbonneau could be very selfish and wanted more than Lewis and Clark were willing to give him. He said he wouldn't go on the Expedition because they wouldn't give him everything. But when I told him that he was making a mistake by not going on the Expedition with us, he apologized and we all agreed that he would come.
 * I was glad to go on the Expedition with the Corps because often I was mistreated by Charbonneau. Although I was not paid for my sevices I was treated respectfully by the Corps and I had a vote when the expedition decided where to camp or in which direction to go.
 * When I was about 12 years old, I was kidnapped by a war party of Hidatsa Indians -- enemies of my people, the Shoshones. I was taken from my Rocky Mountain homeland, located in today’s Idaho, to the Hidatsa-Mandan villages near modern Bismarck, North Dakota. There, I was later sold as a slave to Charbonneau. He was a French-Canadian fur trader who claimed me and another Shoshone woman as his “wives.”
 * In November 1804, the Corps of Discovery arrived at the Hidatsa-Mandan villages and soon built a fort nearby. In the American Fort Mandan on February 11, 1805, I gave birth to my son Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, who would soon become America’s youngest explorer.
 * Captain Clark wrote that the “great object was to make every letter sound” in recording Indian words in their journals. The pronunciation of my name is now incorrectly pronounced as “Sacajawea” even though that does not match “Sah-cah' gah-we-ah,” the way that the captains recorded my name. In fact, my name -- made by joining the Hidatsa words for bird (“sacaga”) and woman (“wea”) -- was written 17 times by the explorers in their journals and on their maps, and each time it was spelled with a “g” in the third syllable.
 * The Shoshones possessed horses that the expedition needed to cross the Bitterroot Mountains. The captains felt that because of my Shoshone heritage, I could be important in trading for horses when the Corps reached the western mountains and the Shoshones. I did not speak English, but I spoke Shoshone and Hidatsa. Charbonneau spoke Hidatsa and French. We kind of became an intepreter team.
 * As Clark explained in his journals, Charbonneau was hired “as an interpreter through his wife,” which was referring to me. If and when the expedition met the Shoshones, I would talk with them, then translate to Hidatsa for Charbonneau, who would translate to French. Francois Labiche spoke French and English, and would make the final translation so that the two English-speaking captains would understand.
 * My son who Captain Clark affectionately named “Pomp” or “Pompy” for his “little dancing boy,” rode with me in the boats and on my back when we traveled on horseback. My activities as a member of the Corps included digging for roots, collecting edible plants and picking berries; all of these were used as food and sometimes, as medicine.
 * On May 14, 1805, the boat I was riding in was hit by a high wind and nearly capsized. I recovered many important papers and supplies that would otherwise have been lost, and my calmness earned the compliments of the captains.
 * On August 12, 1805, Captain Lewis and three men scouted 75 miles ahead of the expedition’s main party, crossing the Continental Divide at today’s Lemhi Pass. The next day, they found a group of Shoshones. Not only did they prove to be my band, but their leader, Chief Cameahwait, turned out to be none other than my brother.
 * On August 17, after five years of separation, me and Cameahwait had an emotional reunion. Then, through our intepreting chain of the captains, Labiche, Charbonneau, and me, the expedition was able to purchase the horses it needed.
 * I turned out to be incredibly valuable to the Corps as it traveled westward, through the territories of many new tribes. Some of these Indians, prepared to defend their lands, had never seen white men before.
 * As Clark noted on October 19, 1805, the Indians were inclined to believe that the whites were friendly when they saw me. A war party never traveled with a woman -- especially a woman with a baby. During council meetings between Indian chiefs and the Corps where Shoshone was spoke, I was used and valued as an interpreter.
 * On November 24, 1805, when the expedition reached the place where the Columbia River emptied into the Pacific Ocean, the captains held a vote among all the members to decide where to settle for the winter. My vote, as well as the vote of the Clark’s manservant York, were counted equally with those of the captains and the men. As a result of the election, the Corps stayed at a site near present-day Astoria, Oregon, in Fort Clatsop, which we constructed and inhabited during the winter of 1805-1806.
 * While at Fort Clatsop, local Indians told us of a whale that had been stranded on a beach some miles to the south. Clark assembled a group of men to find the whale and possibly obtain some whale oil and blubber, which could be used to feed the Corps. I had yet to see the ocean, and after willfully asking Clark, I was allowed to accompany the group to the sea.
 * During the expedition’s return journey, as they passed through my homeland, I proved a valuable guide. I remembered Shoshone trails from my childhood, and Clark praised me as his “pilot.” The most important trail I recalled, which Clark described as “a large road passing through a gap in the mountain,” led to the Yellowstone River. Today, it is known as Bozeman Pass, Montana.
 * The Corps returned to the Hidatsa-Mandan villages on August 14, 1806, marking the end of the trip for me, Charbonneau and our boy, Jean Baptiste. When the trip was over, I recieved nothing, but Charbonneau was given $500.33 and 320 acres of land. I felt that this was unfair, but I was a good sport about it, and Charbonneau shared themoney and land with me.
 * Six years after the expedition, I gave birth to a daughter, Lisette. On December 22, 1812, I died at age 25 due to what later medical researchers believed was a serious illness I had suffered most of my adult life. My condition may have been aggravated by Lisette’s birth. At the time of my death, I was with Charbonneau at Fort Manuel, a Missouri Fur Company trading post in present-day South Dakota.
 * Eight months after my death, Clark legally adopted my two children, Jean Baptiste and Lisette. Baptiste was educated by Clark in St. Louis, and then, at age 18, was sent to Europe with a German prince. It is not known whether Lisette survived past infancy.

During most of the 20th century, several generations of Americans have believed a theory that originated in 1907 by Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, Librarian, University of Wyoming. According to Dr. Hebard’s theory, a person who lived to age 100 on the Wind River Indian Reservation was the Sacagawea of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Alleged to have been “Sacajawea,” which was interpreted to mean “boat launcher,” that woman died and was buried on the reservation on April 9, 1884. Dr. Hebard formalized her theory in her 1932 book, Sacagawea: A Guide and Intepreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The only written documents that have been found positively identifying that elderly woman are the listing of her name on a November 1, 1877 census roll of the Wind River Shoshone and Bannock Indians, and the woman’s April 9, 1884 death certificate. Both of these official documents clearly record her name as “Bazil’s Mother.” At age 100 in 1884, Bazil’s Mother would have been born in 1784, making her 21 years old in 1805 -- the year Sacagawea set out with Lewis and Clark. Most 20th century books, encyclopedias, and movies have perpetuated this theory, creating the mistaken identity of the Wind River woman.