The Mysterious Second Life of Sacagawea

This summer my wife and I vacationed in Wyoming and passed a cemetery claiming to have the grave of Sacagawea (pronounced like “Chicago Wee-uh) near Fort Washakie, Wyoming. This Shoshone woman buried on the Wind River Reservation died April 9, 1884. However, if you look up Sacagawea’s death, it is officially recorded as December 20, 1812, near Mobridge, South Dakota. So, who is buried in Wyoming?

Although the story of Sacagawea has enjoyed a resurgence over the past few decades, especially since the Sacagawea, or gold dollar coin, was first minted in 2000 and has been minted every year since, actual documentation on Sacagawea is sparse.

On the 200th anniversary of her official death, Christopher Klein with the History Channel, wrote: “Two markers in two states tell two very different tales. In a cemetery on the Wind River Indian Reservation outside of Fort Washakie, Wyoming, a large granite tombstone boldly proclaims the site as the final resting spot of Sacagawea. An inscription on the grave gives the date of her death as April 9, 1884. Approximately 600 miles to the northeast, however, another marker near Mobridge, South Dakota, states that she died on December 20, 1812, and was buried nearby.

Sacagawea grave near Ft. Washakie, Wyoming

“… Indeed, in April 1884, an elderly Shoshone woman named Porivo was laid to rest. The old lady, whose death certificate listed her name only as “Bazil’s Mother” and gave her age as 100, had moved to the reservation in the 1870s and told others that she was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. In the early 1900s historian Grace Raymond Hebard supported the notion, published in her 1933 book Sacajaewa, that Porivo was indeed Sacagawea. In 1925, Dr. Charles A. Eastman investigated the claim for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and vouched for its validity after speaking with numerous Shoshone who had remembered the old woman and her stories about traveling with the Corps of Discovery. According to the tribe’s oral tradition, Sacagawea had fled her French-Canadian husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, lived among the Comanche in Oklahoma in the 1840s, made her way to Wyoming in the 1860s and settled with her fellow Shoshone at the Wind River Indian Reservation the following decade.”

Is it plausible that Sacagawea’s might flee from her husband? While living among the Hidatsa people, Toussaint Charbonneau acquired Sacagawea from them. The Hidatsa had captured Sacagawea on one of their annual raiding and hunting parties from the Shoshone. When Charbonneau married Sacagawea in 1804, he was already married to “Otter Woman”, another Shoshone woman.

In 1804, when Lewis and Clark came to the area to recruit help for the Corps of discovery, Charbonneau was asked to join the expedition as a translator. although Charbonneau could speak French and some Hidatsa, it was evident that Lewis and Clark were more enthusiastic about his Shoshone wives joining expedition.

Toussaint Charbonneau

On February 11, 1805, Sacagawea gave birth to a son they named Jean-Baptiste. William Clark nicknamed the baby Pomp, meaning first born in Shoshone. [Wikipedia:] “Charbonneau’s performance during on the expedition was mixed: Meriwether Lewis called him “a man of no peculiar merit”, One of the most well-known anecdotes about Charbonneau is the incident with the “white pirogue (a native boat).” On May 14, 1805, the pirogue guided by Charbonneau was hit by a gust of wind and he lost control. Charbonneau panicked and nearly capsized the boat, which would have meant the loss of valuable equipment and papers. It was only with the help of his wife, Sacagawea, that these important items were saved. Meriwether Lewis was irate, writing that Charbonneau was “perhaps the most timid waterman in the world.” Charbonneau was also known for his short temper with his wives. On August 14, 1805, he struck Sacagawea in a fit of anger and was reprimanded by Clark. This occasion in addition to the rape incident earlier in his life gave Charbonneau a bad reputation.“

[regarding the rape incident] “MacDonell wrote on May 30, 1795: “Tousst. Charbonneau was stabbed at the Manitou-a-banc end of the Portage la Prairie, Manigoba in the act of committing a Rape upon her Daughter by an old Saultier woman with a Canoe Awl—a fate he highly deserved for his brutality— It was with difficulty he could walk back over the portage.” So, it seems quite likely that Sacagawea might want to flee from her husband given the opportunity.

Painting depicting Lewis & Clark expedition.

From the C. Klein article: “The journal of John C. Luttig, a clerk at the Fort Manuel Lisa trading post in present-day South Dakota, contains this entry written on the night of December 20, 1812: “This evening the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake [Shoshone] squaw, died of a putrid fever. She was good and the best woman in the fort. Aged about 25 years. She left a fine infant girl.” Luttig didn’t formally identify the woman as Sacagawea, but she certainly fit the description. Sacagawea had been thought to be a teenager on her trip with the Corps of Discovery in 1805 and 1806, she had just given birth to a daughter, Lisette, at the fort and she was married to Charbonneau.

“Charbonneau, however, had more than one wife. Had Luttig identified the correct one? It appears so. Sometime between 1825 and 1828, Clark made a note in his cashbook of the whereabouts of his fellow expedition members. Next to “Secarjawea,” the explorer wrote “Dead.” Was he incorrect or misinformed? It’s unlikely given that in 1813 Clark legally adopted Sacagawea’s two children, Jean Baptiste and Lisette. Given Clark’s relationship with the children, he likely would have known whether Sacagawea was alive, and her early death would logically explain his adoptions of her son and daughter.”

However, An 1811 journal entry made by Henry Brackenridge, a fur dealer at Fort Manuel Lisa Trading Post on the Missouri River, recorded that Sacagawea “… had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country.” This would indicate that Sacagawea was certainly considering returning to her family, the Shoshone.

As further proof that Sacagawea died in 1812, Butterfield writes: “An adoption document made in the Orphans Court Records in St. Louis, Missouri, states, ‘On August 11, 1813, William Clark became the guardian of ‘Tousant Charbonneau, a boy about ten years, and Lizette Charbonneau, a girl about one year old.’ For a Missouri State Court at the time, to designate a child as orphaned and to allow an adoption, both parents had to be confirmed dead in court papers.”

When 15 men were killed in an Indian attack on Fort Lisa, John Luttig and Sacagawea’s young daughter were among the survivors. He reported that Toussaint Charbonneau was killed at this time, but he actually is known to have lived to at least age 80. So, was Luttig (see above) also wrong about the death of Sacagewea? If she died in North Dakota, where is her grave? The marker only claims that she was buried nearby.

It is a great mystery that may never be completely resolved. Porivo, Bazil’s Mother, is linked to Sacagawea based on her claim to have been on the Lewis and Clark expedition and her marriage to Toussant Charbonneau. Who else could this woman be? If not Sacagawea, could it be that “Otter Woman”, Charbonneau’s other Shoshone wife, who was also on the expedition, is actually the woman buried in Wyoming?

#NativeAmericanAntiquity #Sacagawea #Wyoming