After reaching the headwaters of the Missouri River by boat, Lewis and Clark needed horses to cross the Rockies. Sacagawea's job was to help them horse-trade with her own people, the Shoshone, or Snake Indians.
November 1804
February 1805
April 1805
May 1805
August 1805
September 1805
January 1806
| Sacagawea's Journey with the Corps of Discovery | |
In August 1805 the expedition entered the lands Sacagawea had known growing up. There, joyfully, she recognized the Shoshone chief as her own brother. She hadn't seen him since her capture five years earlier. In mid-August, when the captains met with the leaders of the Shoshone and called upon Sacagawea's services as a translator, the journals record an amazing coincidence. Sacagawea, who spoke Hidatsa and Shoshone but neither English nor French, was to translate the Shoshone chief's words into Hidatsa for Charbonneau, who was to translate into French for a member of the corps named Labiche, who would translate into English for the captains. They were just about to begin this unwieldy relay when Sacagawea suddenly "jumped up, and ran and embraced" the Shoshone chief, "throwing over him her blanket and weeping profusely." He was, of all people, her long-lost brother. In Their Own Words: "She instantly jumped up, and ran and embraced him . . . After some conversation between them she . . . attempted to interpret for us, but her new situation seemed to overpower her, and she was frequently interrupted by her tears." — Nicholas Biddle, Expedition Chronicler |
