What Was the Journey Like for Sacagawea?

Sacagawea, pictured here in a 1905 drawing, was the only woman on the Lewis and Clark Expedition and ad a newborn with her. What was that like?

Russell, Charles M., Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Amon G. Carter Collection

When Sacagawea was sixteen years old, she had a baby during a cold North Dakota winter, and her husband, who was thirty years older than she, signed her up to travel across the continent.

Sacagawea knew the Missouri River already—she would have traveled along it when she was twelve and a Hidatsa war party took her (back?) from her Shoshone home in the Rocky Mountains. She would have had at least a passing familiarity with the people and languages along the riverbanks. She knew what food was good to eat and the general relationships of different towns up and down the river.

Did she want to go on this long journey so soon after giving birth? Was she still in pain from the labor? Did she worry that her son might have trouble sleeping or eating as they moved from place to place? Did she breastfeed him to sleep at night by the light of the fire? Did she miss the company of women from her Hidatsa village, or from her Shoshone village, who could have helped her with the difficult first year of motherhood?

By all accounts, Sacagawea’s reunion with her Shoshone friends and relatives was an emotional experience. Did she know, when her husband signed her up for this mission, that they she would get to see her Shoshone family again, get to introduce her baby to them? Did she persuade her husband to sign up so that she would have this opportunity?

Sacagawea was not the only member of the expedition with Indigenous ancestry—Pierre Cruzatte’s mother was Omaha, and George Drouillard’s mother was Shawnee. Like Sacagawea’s baby, their fathers were French-Canadian. The three of them must have known what a critical role they played in the success of this American expedition, bridging cultural divides with some of the many people the group met along the way.

About this article: This article is part of a series called “Pivotal Places: Stories from the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.”