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<youtube>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnT0k9wdDZo</youtube> [[File:Sacagaweastatue.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|A bronze statue recognizing Sacagawea.]]__NOTOC__Sacagawea(aka Sacajawea), whose name means "bird woman" in Hidatsa," was a young Shoshone woman integral to the Lewis and Clark expedition. In fact, likely, Lewis and Clark would not have been able to complete their mission without Sacagawea's assistance. She is a common figure in Western history and the subject of countless articles and books.
Admin moved page Who exactly was Sacagawea? to Who exactly was Sacagawea
Nevertheless, few of us know much about this remarkable woman, save for a few details during her trek across the continent. Much of what we know about Sacagawea has been filtered through the lens of others. As an indigenous woman who was captured and sold into slavery, her involvement in the Corps of Discovery is likely the only thing that stopped her from being lost to the annals of history.
Little is known about Sacagawea after the expedition. According to some accounts, in 1811, a traveler was described as looking alone and wearing white women’s clothes. She gave birth to a daughter about six years after the expedition ended, Lisette, but it is unknown if her daughter survived infancy. Soon after Lisette was born, Sacagawea passed away. She was approximately 25 years old. William Clark legally adopted Sacagawea’s children about eight months after her death. We do know that her son, Jean Baptiste, was educated in St. Louis before going off to Europe at the age of 18.
In a letter Clark later wrote to Charbonneau, he reiterated Sacagawea’s significance to the Corps of Discovery’s success: “Your woman who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatiguing rout[sic] to the Pacific Ocean and back disserved[sic] a greater reward for her attention and services on that route than we had in our power to offer her.”<ref>[[http://nebraskastudies.unl.edu/0400/stories/0401_0107.html|The Voyage of Discovery: Sacagawea]], University of Nebraska, Lincoln.</ref>
====Conclusion====
The knowledge that William and Clark gathered with Sacagawea's help paved the way for other explorers and pioneers to make their way into the region to fulfill their manifest destiny. Perhaps one of the greatest ironies is that the landscape, flora, and fauna that William and Clark described would soon become altered and extinct. This new migration they enabled also ushered in the displacement of countless indigenous people and significantly transformed the environment.
For more information on the Lewis and Clark expedition, feel free to access their digitized journals [https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/ courtesy of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.]
====Reference====
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[[Category:Native American History]] [[Category:Wikis]]
