1970's childrens' television surprisingly not factually complete, poetic license suspected...

 

 

Chances are, if you were a babe of the Seventies like me, your first introduction to Lewis & Clark came from the Saturday morning School House Rock cartoon, "Elbow Room" - one of a series of now classic musical cartoons that sought to educate young viewers on, among other things, the history, mechanics, and ethos of this great nation of ours.  And as the lyrics go:

Lewis and Clark volunteered to go,
Goodbye, good luck, wear your overcoat!
They prepared for good times and for bad (and for bad),
They hired Sacagawea to be their guide.
She led them all across the countryside...

And so I think like most kids of the era, my lasting image of Lewis & Clark was destined to be ingrained as essentially a three-person exposition, with Sacagawea leading the way in a compact canoe.  But I must report that in reading the explorer's journals, it soon becomes apparent this is not an entirely accurate picture...

The expedition was also known in its time as The Corps of Discovery.  Frankly it's a title that I rather admire. Talk about a fitting title for some Seventies educational children's television; not entirely out of place in a line up with The Electric Company and Zoom, I should think.  And Lewis' and Clark's group numbered not just themselves and the Native American woman Sacagawea - as one might think from the cartoon - but actually comprised a somewhat perpetually morphing party that also included the enlistment of some 28 military men, two interpreters, and Clarks' black manservant (or slave), known as York.  Additionally the caravan also episodically accompanied by native guides and escorts along the trail.  Add to that the boats, the weapons, the supplies, and a very large quantity of tradegoods brought along to exchange with the Indians and you have, really, a awful lot of people trekking along with an equally daunting amount of baggage.  

Furthermore, the group traveled initially with seven more soldiers who accomanied them as far as Fort Mandan - now in present day North Dakota - where they spent their first winter among the Mandan Indians there on the upper Missouri river.  Interestingly, when these soldiers parted with the expedition and returned to "civilization" loaded with reports and specimens, they'd been told another attachment would eventually follow.  But Lewis and Clark later decided against sparing any more manpower, and so when no further detachment arrived back East, the expedition was actually and for years suspected lost!

Additionally there was also a group of nine or so men, identified by scholars as "St. Louis Boatman," who helped escort the initially water-bound venture up the Missouri river.  It should be noted that one of the foremost hopes of the expedition was to find a water route that would easily connect the Pacific to the young republic and therefore facilitate the importation of goods from China and the Pacific Rim. (See, even then we were crazy for Chinese exports, though of course back then we were wanting things we couldn't get domestically, not farming off all our own manufacturing to improve a corporation's bottom line).  The ideal was a connecting water route linking the Columbia with the Missouri, and failing that, a predominantly water-based route punctuated with manageably short episodes of land porterage. Of course, the unanticipated magnitude of the Rockies dashed those hopes all to hell...

So it is quite evident that a group that for some time numbered up to sixty does not a ménage à trois  in a canoe make.  But I gather a more exhaustive roll call of participants would make for a fairly tedious Saturday morning cartoon.  Though aside from the simplification, the cartoon - which inarguably reflects what I would call the Bicentennial-consciousness of the 1970s (believe me, it was there - the entire world turned red, white, and blue for a year) - also reflects the Feminist interests of the decade: specifically in the enahanced stature and role attributed to Sacagawea in a story that in decades previous might likely have starred but two very noble white men.  But from reading the journals, I can also report that, while tough-stuff and an undeniable asset to the expedition, Sacagawea actually did not do much in terms of guiding the party as the cartoon reports. Shocking! 

Sacagawea was more than just the face on an inconvenient, highly unpopular piece of currency. 

Sacagawea was born a Shoshone, or Snake Indian, in the area of what is now known as Idaho, around 1788.  As a child she was taken captive and brought to North Dakota by the warring Hidatsa tribe, or - as they are referenced in the journals - the Minnetarees.  Around the age of thirteen she was taken as a wife by the French Canadian Touissant Charbonneau, a Quebec-born explorer and trapper who also served The Corps of Discovery as an interpreter.  Many French Canadians had penetrated the lands of the Northern Plains, establishing trade for animal pelts of which, to the European, the North American continent was unfathomably rich.  Sacagawea was brought along too for her knowledge of the Shoshone tongue, which Lewis and Clark acurately predicted would be beneficial for the success of the mission.  

Sacagawea proved a capable interpreter and was very adept at foraging for edible indigenous plants and roots.  It should also be noted that during the long trek she gave birth to her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, and trekked him to the Pacific and home slung on her back.  But it is interesting that much of her value to the expedition came not from fulfilling any role one might at the time more commonly ascribed to a man, but actually from simply being herself: a woman and a Native American. And here I speak particularly of those fragile moments, in the terra incognita of the Rockies and beyond, when the increasingly ragged band of travelers came into contact with native tribes who had never encountered a white man before, much less a pack of them...

Clark writes on October 19, 1805 (and here I will note that the usage, spelling, and punctuation is his own), of encountering a small settlement of natives in what I think is a pretty fascinating passage that illustrates Sacagawea's diplomatic cachet.  Warning: Unexpected encounters with heretofore unknown races are known to induce panic attacks...

"I deturmined to take the little canoe which was with me and proceed with the three men in it to Lodges,  on my approach not one person was to be seen except three men off in the plains, and they sheared off as I saw approached near the Shore,    I landed in front of five Lodges which was at no great distance from each other, Saw no person   the enterance or Dores of the Lodges wer Shut with the Same materials of which they were built a Mat,  I approached one with a pipe in my hand entered a lodge which was the nearest to me   found 32 persons men, women, and a few children Setting permiscuisly in the Lodge, in the greatest agutation,  Some crying and ringing their hands, others hanging their heads.  I gave my hand to them and made Signs of my friendly disposition and offered the men my pipe to Smok and distributed a few small articles which I had in my pockets,  this measure passified those distressed people verry much,   I then sent one man into each lodge and entered a Second myself the inhabitants the of which I found more fritened than those of the first lodge     I destributed Sundrey small articles amongst them, and Smoked with the men,    I then Set my self on a rock and made signs to the men to come and Smoke with me    not one come out untill the canoes arrived with the 2 chiefs, one of whome spoke aloud, and as was their custome to all we had passed. the Indians came out & Set by me and smoked   They said we came from the clouds &c. &c. and were not men &c. this time Capt. Lewis came down with the canoes in which the Indians were, as Soon as they Saw the Squar [Squaw] wife of the interpreter they pointed to her and informed those who continued yet in the Same position I first found them, they imediately all came out and appeared to assume new life, the sight of This Indian woman, wife to one of our interprs. confirmed those people of our friendly intentions, as no woman ever accompanies a war party of Indians in this quarter..."

So Sacagawea's very presence as not just another Native American but also a woman as well was a currency in itself.  And it should be noted as well that York's presence - as the first black man to explore these territories, and thus the first black man the natives had seen - proved a terrific fascination with the Indians as well.

The literary record Lewis and Clark leave behind illustrates the assertiveness of Sacagawea.  When the party has finally made its way along the Columbia river near the Pacific, the subject of a carcass of a recently beached great whale arises, the bodies of which often exceed one hundred feet in length, and the native Chinnooks are in the process of harvesting their windfall of its blubber.  Meriwether Lewis writes, in his journal entry for Monday, January 6th, 1806: 

"Capt Clark set out after an early breakfast with the party in two canoes as had been contracted the last evening;  Charbono and his Indian woman were also of the party; the Indian woman was very importunate to be permitted to go, and was therefore indulged; she observed that she had traveled a long way with us to see the great waters, and that now that monstrous fish was also to be seen, she thought it very hard she could not be permitted to see either (she had never yet been to the Ocean)."

Well, one can hardly blame her.  We were curious then as we are curious now.