Sacagawea, The Ultimate Working Mother

The Sacagawea Golden Dollar Coin issued in 2000. United States Mint.

The image of Sacagawea as a mother is such an enduring part of her story that she is pictured with her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, on the face of the U.S. Golden Dollar coin first minted in 2000. In February 1805, after a labor that Meriwether Lewis described as “tedious and the pain violent,” Sacagawea gave birth to her first child, who was affectionately nicknamed Pompey by Captain William Clark. For the next year-and-a-half, Sacagawea would carry her child, tied to her back, on one of the most famous journeys in American history.

Popularized, and often mistaken, versions of Sacagawea’s role as a guide on the Expedition about, but one of her most well-documented contributions harkens right back to her role as a mother. Sacagawea and her infant often served as a “white flag” of peace for the expedition. The Corps of Discovery entered potentially hostile territory well-armed but undermanned compared to the Native American tribes they met. Because no war party was ever accompanied by a woman and infant, the response of the Native Americans was curiosity, not aggression. They talked first, and Sacagawea often served as the translator. Not a single member of the party was lost to hostile action, and the Corps’ journals make several mentions of encounters with tribal communities in which the presence of a woman and her child signaled the peaceful nature of their mission.

On October 19, 1805, Captain Clark documented one such meeting, when a group of men from the Expedition encountered the Umatilla while walking along the banks of the Columbia River ahead of the party’s canoes. The men found the people of the village hiding in fear. But this small group of men were quickly followed by the Expedition’s canoes, inside one of which rode Sacagawea and her child. Clark recounts, “as Soon as they Saw the … wife of the interperters … they pointed to her and informed those [still indoors, who] imediately all came out and appeared to assume new life, the sight of This Indian woman … confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter.”

Other stories of Sacagawea’s contributions to the Corps’ success can be found in the pages of the Expedition’s journals. As a skilled gatherer, she helped the men to source food. As an interpreter, she helped the Corps source horses from the Shoshone. And, in one famous instance following a capsized pirogue, Sacagawea saved many of the Expedition’s precious items from being lost forever to the Missouri River. Though the entries that document these contributions make no mention of her child, it is conceivable to think that much of what Sacagawea – the ultimate working mother – was able to do for the Corps, she did with her infant child slung on her back.