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Sacagawea was born around 1790 in the eastern part of what is now Idaho. She was one of the Lemhi Shoshone, or Snake People. They spent much of the year traveling in small groups.
Each group consisted of an extended family. For the most part, the Shoshone stayed in the mountains. That’s because whenever they wandered onto the plains, bigger, stronger groups of Crow and Blackfeet attacked them. The Shoshone were mostly peaceful, and because they had no contact with Europeans, they had almost no guns.
◀ The Shoshone were often on the go, searching for food, which was never plentiful. In spring, some hunted deer, antelope, and bear. They also gathered edible berries, nuts, and roots. Other bands fished the Snake River for salmon. By midsummer, groups with horses went east to Montana and Wyoming to hunt buffalo. During the winter, the Shoshone settled in villages and lived off this food.
▲Before the Shoshone got horses, they lived in huts of woven grass placed over young trees that they had bent into shape. Their clothing was made of bark. Their containers were woven baskets. Horses made it possible for the Shoshone to hunt buffalo. Then they began to use buffalo skins for making tepees, clothing, and containers.
▲ In the fall of 1800, when Sacagawea was around 10 years old, her group was camped near the three forks of the Missouri River. Suddenly, a band of Hidatsa (also called Minataree) attacked. The Shoshone had bows and arrows, but the Hidatsa had rifles. Sacagawea and others were captured. They were taken back to the Hidatsa villages near present-day Stanton, North Dakota.
◀ Sacagawea probably lived with the family of the warrior who had captured her. His mother and sisters would have taught her basic skills: how to grind corn, dye porcupine quills, and sew clothing out of animal skins.
▲ Sacagawea’s new life among the Hidatsa was a huge change from her early upbringing. The Shoshone moved their tepees from place to place in search of food. The Hidatsa lived in earth lodges in settled villages. They grew corn and squash. So while the Shoshone sometimes went hungry, the Hidatsa had plenty of food. Also, the Shoshone had no contact with Europeans. But the Hidatsa and neighboring Mandan villages were a gathering spot for Native American and European traders.
◀ Within a few years of arriving at the Hidatsa village, Sacagawea was sold or lost in a gambling wager to Toussaint Charbonneau. He was a French-Canadian trader who had taken more than one young Indian woman as his wife. The marriage was not about love. Charbonneau had the typical fur trader’s attitude toward Indian women: he thought they were very good workers.
