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In August of 1806, William Clark wrote to Toussaint Charbonneau: “Your woman, who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatiguing route to the Pacific Ocean and back, deserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that route than we had in our power to give her.”
Clark was now living in St. Louis. He was Indian Agent of the Louisiana Territory. He repeated his offer to keep Pomp with him. Clark also said he would see to the boy’s education. Later, the family came to visit Clark. In October 1810, Charbonneau bought farmland from Clark near St. Louis. But in the spring of 1811, he became homesick for the plains and his trading life. He sold the land back to Clark. Then he and Sacagawea sailed back up the Missouri. They left Pomp with Clark.
▲ There are two very different stories about how Sacagawea died. Most historians believe the one recorded by John Luttig. He was the clerk at Fort Manuel, in what is now South Dakota. On December 20, 1812, Luttig wrote in his journal: “This evening the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake squaw, died of a putrid fever. She was a good and the best woman in the fort, aged about 25 years. She left a fine infant girl.” Luttig later took the baby, named Lisette, to St. Louis. There, in Orphan’s Court, William Clark adopted Lisette and Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (Pomp) on August 11, 1813. If this story is true, Sacagawea is buried somewhere on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in present-day South Dakota. But there are people who don’t believe this account. They say that Charbonneau had many wives, and that the woman who died was not Sacagawea. She was another Shoshone.
◀ Clark paid for Jean Baptiste’s schooling in St. Louis until at least 1820. In 1823, Prince Paul of Germany met Jean Baptiste on a hunting trip to the U.S. Jean Baptiste then went to Europe with the prince. He learned how to speak four languages and stayed there until 1829. Then Jean Baptiste returned to the U.S. He went back to being a frontiersman. He was known as a smart, brave, and expert guide and hunter. In 1866, he died of pneumonia. He is buried near Danner, Oregon.
▲ Through the years, the Shoshone have passed down a very different story about Sacagawea. They say she wandered all over the West for years. They say she had several husbands and children. They also say that she finally settled at the Wind River Reservation (above) in Wyoming. She lived there with Jean Baptiste and Bazil, her sister’s son, whom she had adopted. This woman was called Porivo. People who met her said that she spoke both English and French. They said she told stories of traveling with Lewis and Clark. These stories included seeing the “big fish” on the ocean shore. They also said that she owned a rare Jefferson Medal. This woman died on April 9, 1884.
Think Piece!
We will never know exactly how Sacagawea died. That’s because of the clerk who recorded the death of an Indian woman at Fort Manuel. He described her only by her relationship to a man. He didn’t record her name. Which of the two versions of Sacagawea’s death do you like better? Why?
