|
In 1803, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson commissioned army officers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to find a suitable route of travel from the Mississippi River settlement of St. Louis westward to the Pacific Ocean. Sacagawea (sometimes spelled Sacajawea) was a young Shoshoni Indian woman who accompanied the expedition on its journey.
Kidnapped in the Rockies as a young girl by an Indian raiding party, Sacagawea had been transported to an Indian settlement near what is now Bismarck, North Dakota. There, she was later given in marriage to a French Canadian trader named Charbonneau. When Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau as an interpreter, Sacagawea was about 16 and had just given birth to a son, who would also become part of the epic journey.
Although Sacagawea had no official role in the expedition, she quickly proved herself more courageous, dependable, and useful than her husband. Her greatest moment came when, on reaching the Rockies, she was reunited with a community of her tribe and enabled the explorers to negotiate with her brother, a Shoshoni chief, for horses and guides across the mountains.
While always consistent with the historical record, this book portrays the expedition as it might have appeared to Sacagawea herself. It describes how she might have felt about joining the expedition to and from the Pacific Coast, enduring its hardships and joys, all the while raising her young son and exercising her own courage, intelligence, curiosity and sense of adventure.
Guided Reading Level: M
|
