GAIL DRAKE: The amazing story of a courageous teenage explorer

One of the most extraordinary women in American history was born in the mountains of Idaho around 1788 into the Lemhi Shoshone tribe. She was a victim of child trafficking, and her subsequent courage and selflessness benefited our country at a crucial time in ways often overlooked. Her adventure began in November 1804.

When she was 12 years old, Sacagawea was kidnapped by Hidatsa warriors and transported to North Dakota. A year later, she was sold into a non-consensual marriage to a fur trapper from Quebec. Toussaint Charbonneau bought her and another teenage girl, reportedly having won her in gambling.

America at that time was a chain of former English colonies settled along the Atlantic seaboard. Napoleon of France had lost interest in a North American empire and needed money to fight the British. The French-controlled Mississippi River basin and its tributaries offered valuable ports for the U.S., and President Thomas Jefferson had long been interested in exploring and acquiring this vast unknown region.

So for $15 million dollars, Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory in 1803, doubling the size of the United States. He commissioned the Corps of Discovery and appointed Army Captain Meriwether Lewis as its leader. Lewis invited his friend, William Clark, as co-leader. Jefferson’s goals included finding “the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent,” building trade relationship with Indian tribes, and documenting the land’s geography, ecology and culture.

In 1804, the Corps settled at Fort Mandan in Missouri and recruited team members. Recognizing the need for translators with the various tribal nations, they hired trapper Charbonneau. Clark’s journal recorded that a “French man by Name Chabonah who Speaks the Big Belley language … we engaged him … and … one of his wives to interpret the Snake language.” His teenage wife, Sacagawea, was pregnant with her first child. Lewis recorded the birth of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on Feb. 11, 1805, who they nicknamed “Pompy.”

The team launched in April 1805 and headed up the Missouri River to its headwaters in dugout canoes, poling against the current or pulling via ropes from shore. On May 14, a canoe capsized and Sacagawea quickly rescued several fallen items, including Clark’s journals and records.

In August, the corps met a Shoshone tribe and requested to trade horses to cross the Rocky Mountains. Sacagawea translated and discovered that the tribe’s leader, Cameahwait, was her long-lost brother. Lewis’ journal recorded: “The Indian woman … proved to be a sister of the Chief Cameahwait. The meeting of those people was really affecting, particularly between Sacah-gar-we-ah and an Indian woman who had been taken prisoner at the same time with her”.

The Shoshones housed them through the winter, then traded horses and provided guides across the mountains. When the party crested the first mountain peaks, they discovered the vastness of the Rockies. Crossing the mountains took longer than expected, and food supplies ran low. Sacagawea helped find and cook camas roots to feed the fainting party members. As the parties followed the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, Sacagawea traded her beaded belt so Clark could purchase a fur coat made of sea otter skin. When the corps reached the Pacific in Oregon, all members of the expedition, including Sacagawea, voted on the location for their winter fort.

On the return trip, Sacagawea provided directions for alternate routes. On July 6, 1806, Clark recorded that “the Indian woman … said we would discover a gap in the mountains in our direction” (present day Gibbons Pass). On July 13, she advised Clark to cross into Yellowstone River basin at what is now known as Bozeman Pass.

Throughout their travels, the presence of an Indian woman and baby provided safe passage as it identified the team as not being a war party. “The wife of Shabono our interpreter, we find reconciles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions a woman with a party of men is a token of peace.” In total, they had walked and traveled by water more than 8,000 miles over 2 1/2 years.

Lewis and Clark grew in their fondness for baby Jean Baptist and their respect for his mother. In their letter to Charbonneau, they wrote, “Your woman who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatiguing rout to the Pacific Ocean and back deserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that rout than we had in our power to give her. As to your little Son (my boy Pomp), you well know my fondness of him and my anxiety to take him and raise him as my own child.”

After the expedition, Sacagawea and her husband lived among the Hidatsa before settling into St. Louis. In 1809 they entrusted their child to Clark, who enrolled little Jean in boarding school. Most Indian historians record that Sacagawea died in 1812 of illness, while others suggest she returned to the Shoshone Reservation and lived to old age. Her wind-swept grave rests in Fort Washakie, Wyo.

Sacagawea overcomer and endured every deprivation of this important American trek while caring for her baby. Her presence and skills ensured the success of that expedition.

Sacagawea Charbonneau: Lemhi Shoshone, translator for Lewis & Clark Expedition. An American hero. Lest we forget.