Dex downplays Sacagawea's significance

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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In this staff report, Dex downplays the contributions of Sacagawea to the Lewis and Clark expedition.

One key function that Dex mentions is that Sacagawea was, “important as a peace symbol”. Symbol shmybol. A female indian with child assured passing Native Americans that the Corps was not a war party: war parties were thought to travel without women and kids. That role, however passive, bears emphasis: I assume that it’s easier to pass through uncharted lands when you’re not constantly under attack.

As noted in the journals, “Sunday, October 13, 1805
The presence of Sacagawea with the expedition convinces all Indian People of the peaceful intentions of their party. Having a woman with the expedition is a sure sign the expedition is not a war party.”

Details, details. At any rate, Dex’s article was a rather entertaining and informative read.

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Actually bib downplays Sacagawea’s significance.

I believe I pretty thoroughly covered the importance of her role as a “living white flag” in the body of the report and repeated the thought in the concluding paragraphs. If that’s not emphasis enough, then I guess I don’t know what is.

There is no way of knowing with absolute certainty how the Corps would have fared without her along. Her role as a peace token may have been the deciding factor in their ultimate success, but I really kind of doubt it.

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Sorry for the wrong attribution, bib.

Now that I have your attention… ( :slight_smile: )

A nontrivial portion of the journey was conducted without Sacagawea’s presence. What was the rate of Indian attack during that leg? If you extrapolated that to the rest of the trip, would it have become a quagmire, as it were?

I’m not asking for a calculation, just a quick rethink. Hm. Perhaps I’m grasping at straws. I would guess that lots of all-male parties crossed the hinterlands during that general time period, although of course the first exploratory expeditions faced some unique challenges.

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Damn! They’ve noticed that bib and I never appear in the same thread together. And that when I take off my glasses and comb my hair to the left, we look remarkably alike.

They’re on to us, bib.

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Maybe if Sacagawea had been along the whole way, there would have been fewer confrontations. I’d go as far as to say probably. But it’s hard to say. There were a lot of friendly relations when Sacagawea was absent, and a couple of confrontations when Sacagawea was present.

The only shooting was with the Blackfoot along the Marias River in Montana. After agreeing to make camp together, the Indians tried to steal some horses in the middle of the night, and Lewis’s party attacked, killing two. The Indians returned fire, but missed. Sacagawea was absent.

The second-most serious confrontation was with the Lakota in South Dakota. They demanded a toll to proceed up the river. The Corps manned their guns, but there was no shooting. Sacagawea was absent.

South of the mouth of the Columbia, on the way back to Fort Clatsop from seeing the beached whale, an Indian tried to lure Pvt. McNeal away and kill him for his blanket. He escaped with help from other Indians. Sacagawea was in the same party as McNeal and was nearby.

Lewis punched an Indian for stealing near the Columbia River, following a series of minor thefts over several days. Sacagawea was present.

There were many friendly or mostly friendly meetings with Indians when Sacagawea was absent: with the Omaha, Osage, Missouri, Oto, Yankton Sioux, Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Shoshone. Sacagawea was present for part of the meetings with the last four tribes, but not for the initial meetings, which were all friendly.

Perhaps even more important in avoiding conflict than Sacagawea’s presence was the fact that the Corps, as long as it remained together, was a formidable fighting force. The expedition was much better armed than any of the Indians they met. Every man in the expedition had a good rifle, while the Indians mostly had a few old muskets among them. As far as the Great Falls of the Missouri, the Corps also had a small cannon. Other than the Blackfoots, there were a few other times when horses were stolen, but the Indians responsible were never seen. Importantly these incidents, like the skirmish with the Blackfoot and McNeal’s troubles, happened when the Corps was split up. As long as the Corps was together it would have been practically suicide to attack them, and none too smart to steal from them. Of the serious confrontations listed above, only the one with the Lakota happened when the Corps was all together, and the Lakota backed down as soon as the guns were manned.

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For anyone really interested in Lewis and Clark, Gary Moulton has edited the original journals in their entirety, published by the University of Nebraska Press. I think there are 13 or 14 volumes.
He has also just released a one volume edition with all the real highlights and none of the repetetive characteristics of the originals

Merrill

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An excellent reference book was written by ANNA LEE WALDO, in 1978 or 1979.entitled “SACAJAWEA”. There are over l300 pages of excellent reading.
Personally I think she was of great benfit to this expedition and an important peace keeper.

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Reference book? Waldo’s book is a novel, as in historical fiction. Based on actual events certainly, but how closely based I don’t know. I have not read it, but I have seen it described as a “bodice-ripper.”

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And welcome to the SDMB, **konkoski2357 **. I hadn’t noticed you were new. I apologize if I came off as hostile in my previous post. I usually give newbies a week or two to gain a false sense of security before I start biting them.

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My favorite reference to Sacagawea in the journals occurs when the Corps had reached the Pacific and was trying to decide where to set up a winter camp. Their current location on the Washington side of the river was exposed to the seemingly endless storms and game was scarce. While the captains favored staying near the ocean so they could make salt for the return journey and on the off chance that they’d meet one of ships which occasionally came to the mouth of the river to trade, some of the men favored heading back up the Columbia, either to Sandy River or the Great Falls, while others favored crossing to the south side of the river where the natives claimed there was plenty of elk to hunt. The captains decided to put it to a vote. While all the men voted for a specific plan, Clark records of Sacagawea’s vote “Janey in favour of a place where there is plenty of potatoes.” (Janey was apparently Clark’s nickname for Sacagawea. The journals refer to several wild edible tubers, such as arrowhead and camas, as potatoes.) The girl had her own priorities.

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After all, she was (sort of) from Idaho. Maybe she actually could forsee the future of the West under American control. :wink:

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“Oh, Sacagawea, GUIDE me to your back door so I can set sail up your chocolate river!”

:smiley:

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OT, but someone mentioned Clark calling her (in his journal) “Janey.” Didn’t Clark, a rather “creative” speller, usually not even try to spell her real name and just referred to her in print as “The Woman,” “The Indian Woman,” “Sharbono’s Wife.”*

IIRC, thirty yers after the mission he attempted her name in a list of Dead/Living from the Corps, spelling it something like “Sec-a-jaw-wia.”

Sir Rhosis

*(Charbonneau? hell, I probably can’t spell the guy’s last name!)

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Of 100 or more mentions of her in all the journals, only a dozen or so give her name. She is more often called “the interpretess,” “our interpreter’s wife,” “the squaw,” “the Snake woman” etc. This is true of all the journal keepers, not just Clark. Clark did spell her name on a few occasions, including at least once on a map (since he named a river after her). As far as I can tell, he called her Janey only twice: once in the “potato” journal entry mentioned above and once in a letter to Charbonneau.

Clark’s list of expedition members and their fates is in his account book for 1825-1828. Here he spelled it “Se car ja we au” and listed her as being dead. This spelling with a j is probably influenced by the Biddle edition of 1814 where her name is consistently spelled Sacajawea.