25 Facts About Sacagawea

Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory.

Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition's knowledge of natural history in different regions.

Sacagawea was born c into the Agaidika tribe near present-day Salmon, Idaho.

Sacagawea was held captive at a Hidatsa village near present-day Washburn, North Dakota.

Sacagawea had bought another young Shoshone girl, known as Otter Woman, for a wife.

Charbonneau and Sacagawea moved into the expedition's fort a week later.

On May 14,1805, Sacagawea rescued items that had fallen out of a capsized boat, including the journals and records of Lewis and Clark.

Sacagawea gave birth to a daughter, Lizette Charbonneau, about 1812.

Sacagawea had signed over formal custody of his son to William Clark in 1813.

The last recorded document referring to Sacagawea's life appears in William Clark's original notes written between 1825 and 1826.

Some oral traditions relate that, rather than dying in 1812, Sacagawea left her husband Charbonneau, crossed the Great Plains, and married into a Comanche tribe.

Sacagawea was said to have returned to the Shoshone in 1860 in Wyoming, where she died in 1884.

Sacagawea disliked the way Indians were treated in the missions and left to become a hotel clerk in Auburn, California, once the center of gold rush activity.

Sacagawea was 61 years old, and the trip was too much for him.

Sacagawea became ill with pneumonia and died in a remote area near Danner, Oregon, on May 16,1866.

Wilson argues that Sacagawea became a role model whom suffragists pointed to "with pride".

Sacagawea received even more attention in the 1930s, after publication of a history novel about her.

Sacagawea learned of a Shoshone woman at the Wind River Reservation with the Comanche name Porivo.

Sacagawea found a Comanche woman named Tacutine who said that Porivo was her grandmother.

The belief that Sacagawea lived to old age and died in Wyoming was widely disseminated in the United States through Sacajawea, a biography written by historian Grace Raymond Hebard, a University of Wyoming professor, based on her 30 years of research.

The spelling Sacagawea was established in 1910 by the Bureau of American Ethnology as the proper usage in government documents.

Some fictional accounts speculate that Sacagawea was romantically involved with Lewis or Clark during their expedition.

Sacagawea has since become a popular figure in historical and young adult novels.

Sacagawea was an important member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The USS Sacagawea is one of several United States ships named in her honor.