Sacajawea

**Sacajawea **  Sacajawea was a Shoshone Indian who guided and acted as interpreter and negotiator for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition. She traveled with them from North Dakota to the Oregon coast and back.

Lewis and Clark met Sacajawea when they were camped for the winter at Fort Mandan in North Dakota. As a young girl, Sacajawea was kidnapped by the Hidatsa Indians and was later sold to the French-Canadian fur trader Toussaint Charbonneau, which she later became his wife. Charbonneau and Sacajawea, pregnant at the time, was hired to help guide the Lewis and Clark expedition. Sacajawea gave birth to a boy and carried him along the whole journey.

Later, William Clark took care of her son because of Charbonneau being abusive. The rest of her life is not clear. Some say she went on and married a few more times and had more children and some say she died shortly after giving birth to a second child. All that is clear is that Clark documented her death in 1812.