Sacagawea

Sacagawea would like to travel back from the Pacific, to the park where her statue resides, in Bismarck, North Dakota

The Corps of Discovery
In 1997 Congress authorized the Treasury Department to put a new dollar coin into circulation because the supply of Susan B. Anthony dollar coins was dwindling. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin stipulated to the Dollar Coin Design Advisory Committee (DCDAC) that the image on the new coin had to be a notable woman whose legend withstood the test of time. In 1998 the committee recommended that Sacagawea’s image grace the front of the new coin.

Who was Sacagawea, and why does her legend live on?
In 1803 the United States bought the 828,000-square-mile Louisiana territory from France. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the continental U.S. and presented President Thomas Jefferson with a vast unexplored wilderness. Jefferson requested money from Congress to fund an expedition that would seek trade routes, befriend the western tribes of Native Americans, and study various aspects of the West, including its geography, botany, and climate. He chose Meriwether Lewis, his personal secretary, as the expedition’s leader. Lewis chose his friend William Clark, a noted frontiersman, to help him. They and 27 others became the permanent members of the expedition, officially called the Corps of Discovery.

A Young Woman of Many Talents
In late 1804 Lewis and Clark hired Toussaint Charbonneau as a guide. It’s evident from their journals that Charbonneau failed to impress either Lewis or Clark. They did, however, recognize the importance of Charbonneau’s wife, Sacagawea, a young Shoshoni Indian woman. They insisted that she and her baby, Jean Baptiste, accompany the group. Not only could Sacagawea provide invaluable help in communicating and dealing with the Shoshoni (she spoke Shoshoni, Minitari, and French), but her presence would make a clear statement to the Indians that the Corps might encounter: The Corps must not be a threat because war parties do not travel with a woman and child. Sacagawea’s expertise in reading the landscape,understanding rivers, finding food, gathering plants, and maintaining a clear head stood out during the expedition. At one point while the Corps was navigating a river, a sudden storm washed numerous items overboard. Sacagawea alone had the presence of mind to retrieve the items—including the now-famous journals of the trip—from the water.

Remarkable Reunion
In the summer of 1805, Lewis wrote in his journal: "[the] Indian woman recognizes the country and assures us that this is the river on which her relations live...this peice of information has cheered the sperits of the party..." Near the present Idaho-Montana border, Lewis expected to see the Pacific Ocean. Instead, he faced the Rocky Mountains. Realizing the expedition would be delayed—or doomed—without horses to navigate the mountains, he attempted to negotiate with a band of Shoshoni, to no avail. Lewis then requested Sacagawea’s assistance. She discovered during the course of the negotiations that the Shoshoni chief, Cameahwait, was her brother whom she had not seen since they were children. With Sacagawea’s skillful help, Lewis explained his mission, received horses from Cameahwait, and the rest is...history.