Sakakawea

July 28, 2009

This statue of Sakakawea was dedicated in 1906 and is located across the street from the Capitol building in Bismark ND. Created by sculptor Leonard Crunell of Chicago for the 100th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition, the statue was unveiled on this site on October 13, 1910.

Professor Robinson in History of North Dakota wrote the following paragraphs about this lady at pages 43 & 44 which are quoted in full:

At Fort Mandan “Lewis and Clark soon learned about Sakakawea, a young Shoshoni woman of seventeen who had been captured in the Rockies by a war party of Hidatsas. Toussaint Charbonneau, a Frenchman living in the Knife River Villages, had bought her. Now Lewis & Clark hired him as an interpreter in order to secures the services of his wife as a guide. The couple moved to Fort Mandan, where, on February 11, 1805, Sakakawea gave birth to ‘a fine boy.’ The baby, Baptiste, was taken along on the journey to the Pacific.

“Finding Sakakawea was a master stroke (for Lewis & Clark). Perhaps no single act contributed so much to the success of the expedition, for she was, according to Lewis, their ‘only dependence for a friendly negociation with the Snake (Shoshoni) Indians on whom we depend for horses to assist us in our portage from the Missouri to the columbia river.’ Clark, especially, came to have a high regard for her, calling her ‘Janey,’ and she -- a gentle, brave, attractive girl -- returned his affection. He later educated Baptiste in St. Louis, and after her death in 1812, he adopted her daughter.

“For her part in the great enterprise, Sakakawea won undying fame with the American public. She has had more memorials dedicated to her than any other American woman: a river, a mountain pass, statues in bronze at St. Louis, Portland and Bismark; a bronze tablet at Three Forks, Montana; a monument at Armstead, Montana; a public fountain at Lewiston ID; and a cement shaft on the Shoshoni Reservation in Wyoming. “

Sakakawea has been the subject of much historical debate. In Hidatsa her name means “Bird Woman,” but in Shoshoni something else. North Dakota has settled the spelling dispute by adopting “Sakakawea.” Did she have an affair with Capt. Clark? That’s been settled with a “NO.” And the time & place of her death has been settled: She died in December 1812 at Fort Manuel on the Missouri River, just south of the North Dakota border.