Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian woman who joined Lewis and Clark's Expedition. In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out across the Louisiana Territory, beginning in present-day Missouri and ending in what is now Oregon.
As a child, Sacagawea was captured and enslaved by the Hidatsa Indians of North Dakota. When she was a teenager, a furtrader named Toussaint Charbonneau purchased Sacagawea from the Hidatsa and became her husband. They both became interpreters for Captains Lewis and Clark.
When the expedition reached the Shoshone homeland in the "Rock Mountains," she helped get the horses needed by the explorers to cross the "tremendous mountains" that lay before them.
Sacagaweaís name came from the Hidatsa language and combines two Indian words: sacaga, meaning bird, and wea, meaning woman. She gave birth of a son (Jean Baptiste,) nicknamed "Pomp," who accompanied his parents on their journey.
A.) Read and learn more
about Sacagawea, from Welcome
to the West.
(Scroll down to People in the West. Then click on Show Contents,
and scroll down to Sacagawea.)
B.) Answer these questions.
1. What do you think that William Clark meant by this statement,
"a woman with a party of men
is a token of peace."
2. How did Sacagawea carry her son on the expedition?
3. Why do you think Sacagawea traveled all the way to the Pacific
with Lewis and Clark, instead of
staying with her brother?
4. Write down four adjectives that describe Sacagawea.
C.) Read over this timeline
at Lewis and Clark's
Historic Trail.
D.) Using the timeline,
describe in your own words Sacagaweaís role
in the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Write at least three sentences.
If, you have time, click
on Journals to read original journals written by Lewis and
Clark.