Opinion: Sacagawea is someone every North Dakotan should know

Wednesday, January 26, 2011  

"On every coin or printed dollar in the United States there is a picture of a famous American hero. But in our 234 years of existence there has only been one child ever depicted on U.S. currency and if you’re a North Dakota resident you should know who that child is.

You see, we have this enormous puddle in the middle of the state that the Army Corps of Engineers created in the late 1950s which is called Lake Sakakawea in honor of a young Indian girl who was inadvertently rented by the Lewis and Clark expedition to lead them over the big hills and valleys west of present day Washburn.

Now it was very nice of the state, so many years later, to name the big pond after her but it would have even been nicer had they actually spelled her name right, as in Sacagawea….which either means “bird woman or “boat puller” depending on whether you prefer the Hidatsa or Shoshone translation…but I digress.

The fact is Sacagawea was born a member of the Shoshone tribe near present day Salmon, Idaho and at the age of 10 or 12, along with several other girls, was kidnapped by a group of Hidatsa and taken to the Hidatsa village near present-day Washburn.

At 13 she was either purchased or the prize in a winning bet made by Quebecer trapper Toussaint Charbonneau who at the same time won another young Shoshone girl by the name of Otter Woman in a two-for-one deal; which for me seems to dispel any rumors of love at first sight, especially since Mr. Charbonneau later went on to purchase plenty of Native American wives in an apparent attempt to single handedly overpopulate the planet."

Get the Story:
Kevin Holten: Sacagawea; talk about a tough woman (The Dickinson Press 1/26)
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