Sacagawea (c. 1790-1812)

Reading about Sacagawea for the first time, immediately peaked my interest. This young Shoshone Indian girl had been most instrumental in the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition which took place from 1804-1808.

Daughter of a Chief, she was kidnapped by a Hidatsa tribe and later purchased and wed by Toussaint Charbonneau, a French Canadian trapper.

Lewis and Clark employed Charbonneau and Sacagawea as a possible useful interpreter combination. The girl spoke Shoshone and Hidatsa, Charbonneau spoke Hidatsa and French, which was translated into English by another member of the Corps: Francois Labiche.
To cross the mountains the expedition would eventually need horses, only to be obtained by negotiation with the Shoshone Indians.

Apart from her succesful negotiations with the Shoshones, her ability to find food, digging up roots, recognizing medicinal herbs, her calm under stressful situations made her indispensible and an almost legendary figure in the American History of the West.

On the way, under the most primitive circumstances she delivered baby Pom, from now on the youngest explorer of the company, loved and adored by all 33 men.

It is the vulnaribility, the tenderness of a newborn baby exposed to the awe-some roughness of nature and its elements, that inspires.
It is the language used by Clark in his diaries, that demonstrates respect, fondness, humanity.
Sacagawea, American historical heroine still revered as mother of men.

Since November 2005, the sculpture SACAGAWEAH I is property of the City of Thousand Oaks, California, U.S.A.

Annemarie Han-Schooneveldt