The place and the event.
Shortly after the Corps of Discovery arrived on the west Pacific coast, it was no coincidence that several members of the tribe presented themselves to Lewis and Clark wearing fine fur garments. These coastal tribes were commercially savvy. They had been trading with foreign sailors for years. They also knew what was on the explorer’s mind other than finding a cross-country trade route.
Therefore, Lewis and Clark were in awe of a particular sea otter shoulder cloak worn by a member of the tribe. But, they did not have enough tradable goods available to obtain it from him. The tribesman also wanted the blue beaded belt worn by the body interpreter’s wife, Sacajawea. Did she willingly give it up for that purchase?
Sacajawea’s adolescence.
Some five years earlier, Sacajawea’s early adolescent life underwent a tumultuous change. When she was a 12-year-old Lemhi Shoshone girl living near the Idaho-Montana border, she was captured by a group of Hidatsa warriors. From there, she was taken to a large Hidatsa-Mandan dual tribal village near the Knife and Missouri rivers in North Dakota, where she was adopted by a Hidatsa family. The practice of capturing children from different tribes was common among the plains tribes at the time.
During the next four years in her new home, she learned the Hidatsa language and worked with the village women in their large orchards. The Hidatsa and Mandan tribes were matrilineal matriarchal farming tribes. That is, the women there owned and inherited the 20-foot-wide earthen-covered cabins and the huge gardens they maintained. They also headed the large clans within these tribes, while the men looked after the village’s defenses and hunting needs. In fact, the women of these two tribes grew so much food, which they stored underground during the winter months, that they readily traded portions of it for the necessary goods of various non-agricultural tribes and of passing French and English trappers. .
During these four short years before marriage and childbearing within her new tribe, Sacagawea, she must have made a favorable impression on the older women there. Her adoptive mother might have been influential in her Hidatsa clan, but no one knows for sure how much. Still, Sacagawea was eventually awarded a blue beaded belt by an influential women’s society there. According to tribal historians, such belts were awarded to those who were hardworking and, perhaps, sensitive and well-grounded. The belt itself might have been three fingers wide, with an extended section dangling at the junction point.
This belt meant a lot to Sacajawea. It meant more to her than mere success through her work. To her, this belt signified acceptance and achievement outside of her own tribal lineage. It was a visible display of her worth as a person. This belt might have further inspired her to become a well-grounded teenager. It was then that she married a French-Canadian fur trader at the age of 16.
Meeting Lewis and Clark
Soon after that, in late 1804, the Corps of Discovery was put up there at her dual village, where she delivered a baby boy on February 11, 1805. Captain Lewis assisted with the delivery. The captains also hired her trapper husband, Touissiant Charbonneau, as an interpreter. She spoke French, Hidatsa, and Mandan, and knew how to sign. It also turned out that Sacagawea, who spoke both Hidatsa and Shoshone, accompanied him and her son on this perilous journey. Her son was less than two months old when they left their town for the west.
During the westward journey, Sacajawea displayed substantial maturity and ability. Lewis and Clark praised her in her journals when she calmly retrieved floating items from the river as the boat she was on began capsizing in a wind storm. She also supplied the body with a lot of wild edibles, and she didn’t think about it. Also, she remembered well the landmarks of the Shoshone country and their language.
Therefore, he helped immensely with the necessary interpretations when the body reached his home tribe before crossing the Rocky Mountains. Furthermore, when the body left this town for the west, she stayed with her fur trapper husband to finish the journey. She and her baby could easily have stayed here among her own people now that her brother was chief of that Shoshone tribe. Instead, she kept her husband and her body.
Going back to the question.
Now, back to the question: did Sacajawea voluntarily donate his belt for the purchase of that cape? Although it is not known for certain, he definitely could have done it at the behest of the corps mission to find a trade route, which he understood. After all, she had been watching the body collect animal and plant specimens, fur, and fur for several months by then.
So during that fascinating moment of selling splendid furs, you could have given Lewis and Clark the go-ahead to add your belt to the trade package. In silence and with tears in his eyes, perhaps? However, he also knew that the coastal tribes knew that the body had a vested interest in the fur industry at the time. That is why these tribes could demand the highly prized cacique beads, like the blue ones on his belt for quality furs.
Furthermore, the day after purchasing that fur cloak, November 21, 1805, Clark noted in his journal that Sacajawea had been given a “coat of blue cloth” to compensate her for the exchanged belt. That blue coat could have been a very ornate one of very fine fabric from a military uniform. For more information on Sacagawea, see the lewisclarkandbeyond Dr. Amy Mossett Bicentennial Presentations and the following sites.
