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Shop now during the Dell Top Tech event 1:14 and find the award-winning tech the experts trust most, like the Dell XPS 13 laptop. 1:19 Study, work, and do more with a thin and light design, a vivid touch screen, 1:23 in long-lasting battery life and impressive performance 1:25 powered by Intel Core processors. 1:28 While shopping, you'll also find great prices 1:30 on monitors and accessories and perks 1:32 like Dell rewards, fast shipping, 1:34 and financing with flexible payment options. 1:36 Just visit dell.com slash deals. 1:38 That's dell.com slash deals. 1:44 Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. 1:45 And for this week's Select, 1:47 I've chosen our 2021 episode on Sakagawaia, 1:50 whose name I learned to pronounce correctly 1:52 after 45 years on the planet in this very episode. 1:56 She's one of those figures in American history who's been morphed into more of a folk legend 2:01 than a real life person. 2:02 And I think that's because we round out the contours of historic people so we can teach 2:07 young kids about them and that after a while that kidified version is all they become 2:12 in everyone's mind. 2:13 So like anyone, there's a lot more to Saqqa Gowayya than the average person realizes. 2:18 But what's most amazing is that we actually know a lot of that stuff about her. 2:22 It's amazing because not only was she a Native American living at the beginning of the 19th 2:27 century on the Great Plains, but she was a teenager and a girl. 2:31 And yet we know a bunch about her and what we know adds up to a pretty great person. 2:36 That's why we named this episode Impressive Team. 2:39 Hope you're impressed by her too. 2:45 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. 2:55 Hey and welcome to the podcast. 2:57 I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there and this is Stuff You Should 3:01 I know, and I can't help but feel 3:03 that I'm being subtweeted right now. 3:06 Before, I don't know what that means. 3:09 Oh, it's where you talk about somebody 3:11 without directly talking about them. 3:13 You just kind of maybe talk about their behavior, 3:16 how you disapprove of something that they did, 3:18 but you don't directly say, 3:20 this person did this and I don't like it. 3:23 You know, one time, I don't know all this lingo 3:27 with the Twitter, because I was never on it 3:28 And I was emailing with Jonathan Colton musician Jonathan Colton about coming on movie crush 3:34 And I can't remember what I said, but he said something something don't at me 3:39 And I didn't know what that meant and I was like, oh my gosh. I'm sorry. I'm not sure what I did. I 3:45 Don't know I can I apologize if I did something wrong, and I think he was kind of like who is this idiot 3:55 I mean, didn't that just mean you're tagging someone 3:58 on Twitter or something? 3:59 Yeah, but usually it means like you're telling them 4:02 that they got something wrong or you disagree 4:04 with what they said or they should be ashamed 4:06 of what they said. 4:06 It's usually a hostile thing that you're adding somebody 4:09 or you're, yeah, they have made their point 4:14 and they don't want to hear any feedback from you about it. 4:17 That's what I mean. 4:17 That's kind of what I took from it. 4:19 And you have to like kind of snap out of it. 4:21 I'm gonna snap a few times when you say it. 4:23 I'm just really so thankful still 4:25 that I never joined Twitter. 4:26 Just, that's the last thing I need. 4:29 I'm already on Facebook, which is terrible. 4:31 I've been enjoying Instagram, I have to say. 4:33 That seems like a pretty nice crowd. 4:35 Totally different place. 4:37 Yeah. 4:38 But you know, we're talking about all this 4:39 because we're talking about Sacagauea. 4:41 Yes, we are. 4:43 Who- Naturally. 4:44 Yeah, naturally. 4:46 Who would probably eschew both Instagram and Twitter 4:49 because she seems like a pretty solid human being. 4:52 She'd be like, don't at me. 4:53 That's right. 4:55 So just to get this done out of the gate, 4:58 again, I thought that her name was pronounced Sacajawea. 5:03 I am not like in the minority in the United States 5:08 at least because that's how we were raised to say her name. 5:11 Fortunately, we have such things as historians 5:14 and people who listen to Native Americans 5:16 who have been told over the years. 5:18 No, it's not Sacagawea, it's Sacakauga, right? 5:22 There's one pronunciation of it, 5:24 but that it's not Juh, it's Guh. 5:27 And we've started to kind of pronounce her name correctly. 5:31 You say it way better than me. 5:32 So why don't you take it? 5:34 Well, I mean, gosh, this is the third time now 5:37 we're on this. 5:38 I've seen different things from Sacagawe to Sacagawea. 5:42 I think in Clark's journal, William Clark, 5:46 that is of Lewis and Clark fame, spelled it S-A-H-K-A-H, emphasis on that, G-A-R-W-E-A, 5:55 so Sacagawea, or Sacagawea, but then the Shoshone, which is a Native American tribe that, well, 6:05 we'll get to the importance there, they say actually it is S-A-C-A-J-A-W-E-A, and it 6:14 means boat pusher, not the Hidatsa language of bird woman. 6:20 So there is some debate. 6:21 Yeah, one thing that I did see is that Lewis and Clark, 6:25 and they factor in this because Sacagawea was the, 6:30 the main guide and interpreter 6:32 as they pushed further westward. 6:36 She, or they, they actually tried to spell 6:39 every Indian or Native American word that they encountered 6:43 phonetically, as best they could. 6:45 They were terrible spellers, even of English words. 6:48 I mean, just like barely literate, it seemed like, 6:51 but they tried their best. 6:52 Yeah, it's really bad. 6:54 But they tried to spell every word 6:59 that they found phonetically. 7:01 And I think Sakagoea's name appears 17 different times 7:07 in both of their journals. 7:09 and not once do they spell that third syllable, 7:13 guh, with a J sound, with a J. 7:15 It's always a G. 7:17 And they think that it was a hard G 7:18 so that it's Sakagawaya, not Sakajawea. 7:21 So they said it's definitely Gif and not Gif. 7:25 Right, which it is definitely Gif as we all know. 7:29 So if you listen to the Lewis and Clark episode, 7:32 was it a two-parter? 7:33 I feel like it was. 7:34 It was not. 7:35 It was not? 7:35 That's why. 7:36 And you're thinking of the evil Keneval episode. 7:38 God, it's so embarrassing. 7:41 You always bring that up to shame me, I think. 7:43 It shames both of us and Jerry to a certain extent as well 7:47 for letting that one through. 7:47 She could have stepped in and been like, for God's sakes, 7:49 what are you doing? 7:50 Totally. 7:52 Consolidate, man. 7:54 So a great episode though, 7:57 I know in that episode we talked a bit obviously 8:00 about Sokagaway and Ken Burns 8:02 and his great documentary about the 8:04 the core of discovery. 8:06 But she was born, she lived a short life 8:10 and there is a little controversy on how long she did live 8:13 which we'll get to at the end. 8:15 But she was born in either 1788 or 89 8:19 as a member of the Lemhi, is what I'm gonna say. 8:25 LEMHI ban of the Shoshone tribe 8:27 which we spoke about a minute ago. 8:29 Is it Shoshone or Shoshone? 8:31 Shoshone? 8:32 Is it Shoshone? 8:33 That's what I've always heard 8:34 but then again, I always heard it was Sacajawea too. 8:36 I know. 8:37 I believe the Shoshone. 8:39 She grew up though in a very, 8:41 I imagine, lovely, lovely part of the country 8:43 in what is now Idaho in the Salmon River region. 8:47 Yes, so she was actually a member 8:51 of a specific band of the Lemhi Shoshone. 8:56 The Salmon Eaters is what they were called. 9:00 and she grew up in that part of Idaho. 9:04 I guess it was around the Bitterroot Mountains 9:07 near the Continental Divide 9:09 and the Bitterroots are part of the Rockies, 9:11 but yeah, it just sounds absolutely gorgeous. 9:15 The Shoshone tribe was enemies to the Hidatsa 9:19 who you mentioned earlier. 9:21 And the reason that they say 9:22 that Sacagawea means bird woman 9:24 is because Sacagawea became an involuntary member 9:28 of the Hidatsa tribe when she was around 12 years old. 9:32 I didn't get if she was out on a buffalo hunt 9:35 or if the Hidatsa happened to be out on a buffalo hunt 9:38 and came across her. 9:39 Did you understand that? 9:41 I'm not sure. 9:43 I kind of just in my mind thought that they were out 9:45 but I guess it doesn't really matter 9:47 because either way she was kidnapped 9:50 and settled with them 9:53 near what is now Bismarck, North Dakota. 9:55 Yeah. 9:56 And here's where her life took a, or I guess that event actually took her life in a very 10:01 different direction in that that was a trading center, an international trading center. 10:06 So people from all over the world would kind of stop through there to trade their wares. 10:10 And she was essentially, I mean, it's hard to not say kidnapped again, a fringe Canadian 10:20 fur trader to saw Charbonneau. 10:23 Beautiful. 10:24 took her as property he called her his wife but we can't you know now through 10:29 today's lens we've got a lot better about not glossing over that stuff right 10:33 she was property to him she was a teenager I think like 16 or 17 I'm not 10:39 even I think she was actually 15 and she was about two decades younger than 10:46 him and there's no other way to say it other than she was property and part 10:50 of being property was that she was raped by Charbonneau. 10:54 Yeah, like there's no way you can put it that, 10:58 that like she didn't have any say in the matter 11:01 of whether they had sex. 11:03 So like it's just, that's rape, no matter what. 11:06 But yeah, over the years, 11:08 like she's always been referred to as one of his wives 11:12 because I guess Americans didn't wanna 11:14 kind of confront that stuff, you know? 11:17 Right. 11:17 So she ends up living among the Hidatsa 11:23 as Charbonneau's wife slash property 11:28 because Charbonneau being a fur trader 11:31 and the Hidatsa settlement that they lived at 11:35 being this kind of international trading post, 11:37 he had kind of adopted like the Hidatsa way 11:41 of living himself. 11:44 He, just being a fur trader, 11:45 he had to be able to handle himself out in the elements. 11:49 So I think it kind of, it was his speed 11:52 from what I gathered for the rest of his life. 11:55 He just basically lived in a style 11:57 similar to Native Americans. 12:00 So she, aside from being away from her native tribe, 12:05 she lived, you know, probably fairly, 12:09 in a fairly cosmopolitan manner 12:11 compared to how she would have had, 12:13 and she'd never been kidnapped from the Lemhi band 12:16 of Shoshone's, which is kind of sad. 12:19 But there's one thing that should be said. 12:22 There's documentary opinion that she was not unhappy living 12:31 on this kind of this border land between the two cultures. 12:37 Like she seemed to feel somewhat comfortable 12:42 living among the colonizer's way of life on the frontier. 12:49 It just as much as she did living among the Shoshone. 12:52 Yeah, and we should also point out 12:54 that a lot of this is very little is recorded, 12:57 a lot is speculative because there's remarkable, 13:02 well, I guess not remarkable because it was 1803, 13:05 but very little actual recorded information about her life. 13:09 But it's remarkable how much there is for the typical teenage Native American girl at the time. 13:17 Like the fact that there's anything recorded about her says, is it kind of a huge testimony 13:22 to her and her personality? No, absolutely. So 1803 is when Charbonneau takes control of her life. 13:31 1803 is also when Thomas Jefferson said, 13:36 hey, we got this big tract of land, 13:41 really sweet deal called the Louisiana Purchase, 13:45 828,000 square miles of land stretching 13:49 from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico 13:52 from the Mississippi to Colorado. 13:54 And we need to go see what's out there 13:56 because white people have never explored this territory. 14:00 I want to find a Northwest Passage which was eventually found. They were looking in the wrong place 14:05 But that's what they were sort of after but they were after more Jefferson really wanted to know what was out there the 14:12 Landscape he wanted maps. He wanted to know about the Native American tribes 14:17 He wanted to know about the the plant life and the animal life and just like go 14:24 Maryweather Lewis out there and record everything you can. 14:27 Yeah, Maryweather Lewis was Jefferson's personal secretary 14:31 and Lewis selected, what was Clark's first name? 14:37 Josh? 14:37 Billy, William. 14:38 William Clark, Billy Clark as, 14:41 who had been his captain in the army 14:46 as the leader of the expedition. 14:48 He found him to be an able leader and said, 14:50 said, hey, you want to come lead this super high prestige expedition for the president 14:55 that the entire nation's going to be watching. And Clark said, sure, let's do it. So Lewis 15:00 and Clark set out on this expedition, and they actually traveled, I think 1600 miles 15:07 before they ended up at that Hidatsa settlement, which is about where they really started 15:15 to hit the frontier from what I understand. 15:17 All right, that sounds like a great turning point to take a break. 15:22 Okay. 15:23 So we'll be back right after this and pick up with the meeting of Lucen Clark and Sacagauea. 15:29 Stuff you should know, dash and shot, stuff you should know. 15:43 Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. 15:46 That's Toyota affordability, and it all starts with a great deal on the truck 15:51 from your local Toyota dealer. 15:53 That's right. 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It's a beautiful thing 17:32 What the fans experience? It's incredible. It gave me a lot of pride AT&T connecting fans to what they love 17:40 Connecting changes everything AT&T 17:46 You know, you're never done decorating your home 17:48 You know what I mean? 17:49 Sure. 17:49 Yeah, because it's a process. 17:50 There's always something you could do or buy or update. 17:53 The only question is, what's next? 17:55 For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly it's usually a new rug. 18:00 Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. 18:05 It's the smart place to get it. 18:06 That's right. 18:07 Whatever your style, whatever your budget, whatever you're looking for, Wayfair makes 18:10 it easy to find it and you can feel good about your purchases too because Wayfair 18:14 verified products go through a thorough 10-point quality inspection. 18:18 And with over 20 million 5-star reviews, Wayfair must be doing something right. 18:23 You can find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair rewards. 18:28 Join Wayfair rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. 18:32 Head to Wayfair.com to shop all things home. 18:35 That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. 18:39 Wayfair, every style, every home. 18:53 Okay, Chuck. So we've reached what is now today Bismarck, North Dakota at the South Dakota. 18:59 South Dakota. 18:59 South Dakota. 19:00 You sure? 19:02 I think so. 19:03 No. 19:03 Is that not right? 19:04 Yeah. It's Bismarck, North Dakota. 19:06 Are there two? 19:08 I was going to say it almost literally doesn't matter. 19:11 We're going to get crushed for this. 19:13 It is. No. It's definitely Bismarck, North Dakota. 19:16 Okay. Then there that was a misprint then in the. 19:19 Yeah, I'll tell you what get this. I've got this machine called the computer 19:25 Are you actually gonna look it up? Yeah, I'm gonna look it up 19:28 I'm gonna do a favor for the people of Bismarck for once 19:32 North Dakota, I think it's North Dakota. It is that's weird because I think this is from Halstow for her 19:38 So you got South Dakota written in there. Oh boy 19:42 All right, I'll let this end an email 19:44 Not gonna I'm gonna at them. Yeah 19:48 Don't you know that's the tagline of how stuff works? 19:51 Don't add us. 19:52 That's right. 19:53 So apologies to all the people in the, both Dakotas, 19:56 all three Dakotas, we meant nothing by it. 19:59 And we're going to do a live show there one day 20:01 to make up for it. 20:02 Are we? 20:03 Sure, why not? 20:05 I'll tell you later. 20:07 Okay. 20:11 All right, where are we? 20:12 It's November 2nd, 1804 when they finally land 20:16 and they meet up with Sacagauea, 20:17 who is six months pregnant at this point. 20:22 And Charbonneau is, I get the impression 20:24 that he's a bit of a, not a grifter maybe, 20:29 but sort of an opportunist. 20:34 Yeah? 20:35 Yeah, I think so for sure. 20:37 I mean, like he's a fur trader for Pete's sake. 20:39 Like you gotta be, you gotta be a little, 20:42 like that includes not just survival in the woods 20:44 and killing animals, but also having to, you know, 20:47 get the highest price you can for your pelt. 20:50 So I'm guessing there's a bit of used car salesman 20:53 to Charbonneau for sure. 20:54 He was not exactly, he was not well liked by Lewis and Clark. 20:58 I don't know that he was heated or despised, 21:00 but I get the impression from reading 21:02 historians interpretations of their journal entries 21:06 about Charbonneau is that he was kind of across 21:10 between Chris Farley. 21:20 and golem maybe? I can't wait to see that photoshop. 21:27 Oh, goodness. Yeah, I know who's going to take care of that for us. 21:29 So, just this idea that this guy was not competent necessarily and was maybe a little bit evil. 21:35 And that's, you know, all you need to know about Charbonneau. 21:39 I also get the impression, Chuck, that there was a, you know, we'll talk about later, 21:43 but there was, Sacagawea was plucked from historic obscurity 21:48 and really kind of raised up on this pedestal. 21:51 And I think rightly so, 21:52 but there was a sport that developed alongside of that 21:55 where you could very easily raise Sacagawea up 21:58 by contrasting her to her good for nothing 22:02 slave holding quote husband 22:06 and showing how just terrible he was at everything. 22:10 It made her look all the much better. 22:12 So I think there's a sport to it. 22:14 There's a kind of a long history of putting down Charbonneau, 22:19 but I think that it's kind of rooted in fact 22:21 from what I understand. 22:23 Yeah, so at any rate, he comes along and he's like, 22:26 hey, you guys really need to bring me along 22:29 and my wife slash property here. 22:33 I speak Hidatsa in French. 22:36 And they're like, we don't really need that. 22:38 But I see that Sacagaway speaks Shoshone, 22:41 and we really need to learn that 22:43 because at a certain point, 22:45 we're gonna need to talk to them to get some horses. 22:47 And since we can't hire a woman because it's 1803, 22:52 we have to actually hire the husband to get her to come along. 22:54 I guess you both can come. 22:56 Yeah, so like we got to explain 22:58 why Sacagawea being Shoshone was really important. 23:03 And it was like you said, those horses, 23:06 and somehow I'm not exactly sure how they already knew 23:08 this because these are the first Americans 23:10 to chart a course westward, but they knew that the the Missouri River and the 23:17 Columbia River was separated by mountains, the Rocky Mountains, the 23:23 Bitterroot Mountains to be specific, and that since they were taking to the 23:28 river, they were going to need to get from one river to the other and that 23:32 the Shoshone Indians happened to live exactly where they needed or where they 23:37 they needed to pass through where they needed the most help 23:40 where they needed horses. 23:42 And so having a Shoshone along to help broker a deal 23:47 would be incredibly useful. 23:49 So useful in fact, that the arrangement was going to be 23:54 that when they finally met up with the Shoshone tribe 23:58 in this area where they needed the horses the most, 24:03 Sakagawaia was going to speak to the Shoshone's 24:05 And then she was going to translate what the Shoshone said into Hidatsa to Charbonneau. 24:12 Charbonneau was going to translate from Hidatsa into French for a French-speaking member of the Corps of Discovery 24:18 who would then translate from French into English for Lewis and Clark. 24:22 How Charbonneau didn't even speak English? 24:24 No, he spoke Hidatsa in French. 24:27 Okay, I thought that meant in addition to English. 24:29 No, so he did play a role that was important. 24:33 He was going to translate from Hadatsa into French. 24:38 It would have been way better if he had spoken English, 24:42 but it just meant another person in the chain. 24:45 Everything came out purple monkey dishwasher at the end. 24:51 So one thing we failed to mention, I think, 24:54 which is just remarkable is that a few, 24:57 a couple of months before they leave together, Chicago Way has her son, Jean Baptiste, known as 25:05 Baptiste. And so, and I know we talked about this in Lewis and Clark, but I think I didn't have a 25:11 kid at the time. It's just astounding to me now that I've had a two-month-old baby 25:16 to take and like keeping that baby alive in all the comforts of, you know, modern-day America 25:21 to take a baby like that on a voyage like this 25:25 is astounding. 25:28 It's really remarkable. 25:30 Yeah, and I mean, like if you look at all of the memorials 25:34 to Sacagauea, I don't think there's one out there 25:38 that doesn't also show Baptiste as well. 25:41 Of course not. 25:42 Not just because he was an adopted honorary member 25:46 of the Corps of Discovery, basically a mascot, sure. 25:49 but also because it just goes to point out 25:54 just how astounding what his mom did was, you know? 26:00 I think when Chicago Way was put on the dollar coin 26:06 in the United States in 2000, 26:09 Hillary Clinton famously referred to her 26:11 as the original working mom. 26:13 Wow, that's pretty cool designation. 26:16 I thought so too. 26:16 So yeah, I think it's great to just that she's remembered 26:20 as doing all this with a baby strapped to her back 26:24 the whole time. 26:27 Right, so that's their plan. 26:30 They plan to get there, send her out to talk 26:31 to the Shoshone tribe to get these horses, 26:35 but which was a good plan, but it was even way better. 26:39 It worked out like almost like it had been written 26:41 in a movie script or something. 26:42 Yeah. 26:43 Because I think it is Lewis shows up first 26:47 and has contact with an older woman of the tribe, 26:51 and then about 60 Shoshone on horseback ride up. 26:54 And they're like, you seem like a decent guy, 26:57 you're friendly, let's all make this work out. 27:00 Then Clark's group shows up about a day later 27:02 with Sacagaway and they're like, oh my God, it's you. 27:08 You were the one that was kidnapped 27:09 and taken away so many years ago. 27:12 And then Chief Kamea Waite rides up 27:15 and it's Sakagawa's brother. 27:18 Yeah. 27:19 So not only do they get to have this reunion, 27:22 but Lewis and Clark are like, yes, 27:24 we're gonna get such a good deal on these horses. 27:27 Yeah. 27:28 The chief is her brother, like this is perfect. 27:31 But you know what that stuck out to me as Chuck? 27:35 That meant that Sakagawa probably would have met 27:38 at Lewis and Clark, even if she had never been kidnapped. 27:43 Yeah, maybe so. 27:44 Isn't that really crazy to think like 27:46 that one way or another, 27:47 she was going to probably meet Lewis and Clark, 27:51 even with her life diverging that radically 27:53 from its original projected path. 27:57 Yeah, and what it really did was, 27:59 I mean, she was already proving to be useful 28:01 in that she could identify berries 28:04 and things that you could eat 28:06 and plants that you could use as medicine 28:08 and kind of acted as the navigator in a lot of cases, 28:13 like, no, we need to go this way, 28:14 I've been here before, this is where I grew up. 28:16 Yeah, there's a huge, huge rock called Beaver Head Rock 28:18 that she famously recognized that you can go visit 28:21 and stand in the place basically 28:23 where she showed Lewis and Clark, 28:25 like, look, my people are gonna be right around here. 28:28 I recognize this place. 28:30 Yeah, so they've already got all this respect 28:32 for up until that point. 28:33 And then she has such an in 28:35 and with the Shoshone, like you said, 28:39 they get, I'm sure a really good deal on the horses 28:40 and not only that, but they get help. 28:42 They kind of partner up with them to help them along, 28:45 which is a really big deal. 28:46 Yeah, because Lewis and Clark's expedition had, 28:49 somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 people involved, 28:52 huge boats, several huge boats, lots of equipment, 28:55 lots of instruments, and some people say, 28:58 well, like if they needed horses a bad way 28:59 and they bring the horses, 29:01 well, because they traveled by water, 29:02 they really needed horses really, really badly, 29:05 but just for this one specific part of the trip 29:08 in between the Missouri and the Columbia River, 29:11 Thomas Jefferson very famously called it 29:14 a dilly of a pickle that they had run into. 29:17 But the fact that they were able to get the horses 29:20 from the Shoshone, it just basically 29:24 checked this enormous box that the whole expedition 29:29 was predicated on. 29:30 They just couldn't, they could not have completed 29:32 their mission without this. 29:33 And so I could go away. 29:36 I basically brokered that, 29:38 made sure that box got checked. 29:40 And there's one other thing that stands out about her too 29:42 that gets overlooked that I saw in a few places. 29:47 Charbonneau had another wife who was Shoshone. 29:49 And if they needed a Shoshone speaker 29:52 who was, you know, with Charbonneau, 29:55 who came with Charbonneau, 29:56 they could have very easily gone with Otterwoman, 29:59 the other, I guess, victim of Charbonneau. 30:04 And they didn't. 30:05 They went with Sacagawea who knowing full well 30:08 that she came with an infant now. 30:11 Like there was going to be an infant 30:12 even though with otter women there wouldn't have been. 30:15 So clearly Sacagawea is like putting out 30:17 the right kind of vibes and saying 30:19 like I'm extraordinarily competent. 30:21 You should probably pick me even though if you pick me 30:24 I'm going to be bringing a newborn baby along 30:26 on this frontier trek. 30:29 I think that says a lot about the kind of I guess charisma 30:36 or competence or whatever she was putting out 30:39 that Lewis and Clark were like, yes, 30:42 I think she would be the better of the two. 30:44 Yeah, because you don't want a two-month-old baby along. 30:47 No, but if you say, okay, we'll have a two-month baby along. 30:53 Like that says a lot about the mom 30:55 that's carrying the baby around 30:56 and what her abilities are, I think. 30:59 Yeah, absolutely. 31:00 She also proved her worth when, 31:02 and I can't remember if we, 31:03 I think we might've talked about this, 31:06 when there was a, 31:08 one of their sailing vessels almost capsized 31:10 when a big squall hit it. 31:12 Apparently, Charbonneau was navigating, 31:15 he panicked under pressure, 31:17 and it was Sacagaway who was calm 31:20 and said, you know what? 31:22 We need to get these papers together. 31:23 We need to get the books that we've been writing in all these navigational instruments and medicines and provisions and other stuff 31:30 We need to get it all together and take care of it. And oh also this baby 31:34 and basically saved 31:37 That situation and Charvin was just you know, he was like, oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god 31:43 So yeah, that was that's one of the big stories that's told about sake go away as so much so I mean 31:51 I mean, that either Lewis or Clark wrote about it 31:55 and basically was like, this Sacagaway 31:58 is an amazing person. 32:00 Like she's doing stuff that other members 32:02 of the Corps are not doing. 32:04 I mean, there is, I think at least 12 members 32:08 of the Corps of Discovery who aren't mentioned by name 32:10 in either of the journals of Lewis and Clark 32:12 throughout the expedition. 32:14 They did work, they did their job, obviously, 32:17 but they didn't get mentioned 32:19 and because they weren't doing stuff like Sacagawea was. 32:22 And I think the fact that she's mentioned multiple times 32:25 with kind of frequently discussing 32:29 like just how impressed they were with her. 32:33 It says a lot as well. 32:35 Yeah, I mean, they named because of that sailing incident 32:38 they named a branch of the Missouri River after her. 32:41 Yeah. 32:42 And I think Clark was the one who really grew closer 32:45 or to her, it's really hard to get a read 32:49 on exactly what the nature of their relationship was. 32:52 It seems just like maybe a mentor type of relationship 32:57 in that he kind of took her under his wing 33:00 and took these long walks with her. 33:05 I don't think there's anything untoward about it 33:07 is kind of what I'm getting at. 33:08 I don't have that impression either. 33:10 And I have not run across a historian that's asserted 33:13 that there was something untoward about it either. 33:16 The way I took it- 33:16 But they were close. 33:17 Yeah, they were. 33:18 The way I took it was like an adopted little sister 33:22 kind of thing. 33:23 Yeah, that's kind of the way I see it too. 33:24 I also don't think Charbonneau would have stood for that. 33:27 I think that would have been not okay with him 33:30 because he was the kind of guy who'd be like, 33:32 that's my property, you know? 33:34 Right, well, of course. 33:36 So I, yeah, I don't have that impression, 33:37 but yeah, I thought the same thing, you know, as well. 33:41 And in fact, they thought so much of her, 33:44 especially Clark that, and this is a really telling thing, 33:47 is that they gave, when they reached the Pacific coast, 33:50 there was a vote on whether or not to stay there 33:54 for the winter or not. 33:55 And they actually let her vote, 33:56 which in the early 1800s, 34:00 to let a woman have a vote like that was remarkable. 34:03 Yeah. 34:05 So when they decided to stay, 34:07 that vote led to them staying in what's now Astoria, Oregon. 34:13 They build a winter quarters called Fort Klatsop 34:16 after a friendly tribe nearby. 34:20 Fort Klatsop? 34:21 That's what I thought too, but it's close. 34:23 There's an L in there. 34:25 Yeah, Klatsop. 34:27 But the Klatsop people said, 34:29 hey, get this, there's a beached whale. 34:32 You gotta see this thing, it's enormous. 34:34 And so I think Lewis was like, 34:35 okay, we're gonna go check this out. 34:37 about you guys stay here. 34:38 And Saqqa Gawai, I know we talked about this 34:40 in the Lewis and Clark episode, Saqqa Gawai said, 34:43 look man, I have walked a long ways and helped you guys out 34:48 and the idea that you're not going to let me see the ocean. 34:52 I've never seen any ocean. 34:53 You're not gonna let me see the ocean 34:54 and this giant whale that's been beached, come on. 34:58 And so Lewis relented very famously 35:00 and was like, okay, come along. 35:02 So Saqqa Gawai kind of, she put her foot down 35:05 and said, no, I'm going to see this. 35:07 That would be unusually cruel not to let me. 35:10 So she went and saw this giant whale. 35:12 She saw the ocean for the first time. 35:14 I mean, that's a pretty big, 35:16 I've never seen a beached whale. 35:18 Imagine seeing a beached whale the first time 35:20 you see the ocean too, you know? 35:22 Yeah, I remember when I, as a young kid, 35:26 when we showed my grandmother the ocean for the first time 35:29 and she was in her, geez, 35:32 she was probably in her 70s. 35:33 She lived to be a hundred. 35:34 Wow. 35:35 So she had to be in her mid-70s 35:37 when we took her to the ocean. 35:38 Yeah. 35:38 And we walked her out there 35:40 and she walked out on the beach. 35:41 I'll never forget it. 35:42 And said, ooh, it's big. 35:44 Yeah, that's cute. 35:46 And that was about it. 35:47 She didn't hang out for long. 35:48 She's like, oh, I'm good. 35:49 This was enough. 35:51 Yeah. 35:51 And there was no whale to poke with a stick. 35:54 So you wanna- 35:55 I'm kidding, by the way. 35:56 You should never do that. 35:57 Poke a whale with a stick? 35:58 Yeah, I was making a joke. 36:00 That wasn't nice. 36:01 I think everybody knew that, Chuck. 36:02 Yeah, you try and get that whale back in the water if you can. 36:04 Not with the stick though. 36:06 Not with the stick. 36:07 You want to take our second break? 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We'll see 41:31 you guys later. 41:33 And everywhere I saw, 41:35 Charbonneau was paid something like $500 and 33 cents 41:40 for his efforts. 41:41 And so I could go away. 41:42 It was not paid anything. 41:44 Although I saw it also in this article 41:46 that she was paid as well. 41:49 Do you have any idea? 41:51 Yeah, you know, I was confused too. 41:53 Everywhere else I looked said 41:54 that she did not get direct payment. 41:56 Which article said that she did? 41:59 I don't know. But it doesn't seem to be right. Or maybe they just sort of said, 42:04 well, since her captor slash husband was paid, then sort of means she was. I'm not sure. 42:11 But I saw nowhere else that said that she was actually paid independently. 42:14 And I mean, that would make the most sense, you know, although after that, 42:17 that expedition, I could, I would also not be surprised if she was paid 42:21 directly even though it bucked, you know, convention. 42:24 Yeah, he got paid $500 and 320 acres of land, which was pretty good and it's like I tried 42:33 to do a inflation comp, but it's they don't even have anything. 42:38 I think it said like when you go that far back, you can't even compare it to today's 42:44 currency. 42:44 Oh really? 42:44 Westgate gave me an estimate of about $9,000. 42:49 Oh, see, I saw that too, but I didn't see that as a direct inflation calculator, more 42:57 like the goods that you could have bought back then. 43:01 No, they said nine grand. 43:03 No, I saw that. 43:04 It just didn't seem like a one-to-one to me. 43:05 Oh, I see. 43:08 Even still, it seems like a really, I would imagine $500 back then would be like $10 trillion 43:15 today, you know? 43:16 Yeah. Yeah. It would seem, it would seem to be the case. It's a little weird. 43:22 But yeah, because I mean like a journey of thousands of miles at the behest of the President 43:28 of the United States, getting paid 9 grand seems like, it just seems like you would get 43:34 more than that. I don't know. But then again, he's a fur trapper who only speaks 43:39 I'm French, so who knows? 43:42 I think what confused me is like if you enter $500 43:46 a hundred years later, it's like 15,000 43:50 or maybe that does work. 43:52 I don't know. 43:52 It just didn't seem to work out math wise, 43:54 but what do I know? 43:55 Yeah, no, I'm with you. 43:57 You kind of have to be able to peer back into the 44:01 vagaries of the American economy 44:03 over the last couple of hundred years to suss that out. 44:06 I looked it up and it said what that would be today 44:09 they would be 280 beaver tails in $9,000. 44:14 Poor beaver, I know. 44:17 That's the other thing about Charbonneau 44:19 that people don't say he killed a lot of animals 44:21 for their pellets. 44:23 All right, so after the expedition, 44:29 she stayed with Charbonneau. 44:32 I think a few years later, 44:34 they moved to, with little Baptiste, 44:37 moved to St. Louis. 44:38 Yeah, the invitation of Clark right? Yeah, and it says you know that they he offered them an opportunity of land 44:46 To farm which I don't quite get because he just got 320 acres of land 44:50 I was wondering if that was one in the same 44:53 Maybe I couldn't quite parse that out, but at any rate. He's like here you come here 44:57 Here's some land to farm if you let me educate your son 45:02 and the you know American sort of schooling system and 45:08 And, you know, he was the godfather of the boy at that point, 45:11 really cared a lot about Baptiste and Sacagaway 45:14 and one of the best for him. 45:16 And I think that was a pretty decent deal for Charbonneau. 45:19 Yeah, so I mean, I believe Clark officially adopted 45:26 Baptiste as his guardian at least, 45:28 if not as his adopted parent. 45:32 And he was educated at the St. Louis Academy, I believe. 45:36 And then he, I don't know how he met him, 45:40 but Baptiste went on to meet a German prince 45:44 who was like, hey, you should totally come back 45:46 and hang with me in Germany. 45:47 And I'll make sure you get a European education. 45:50 And he did, he moved to Europe and was educated there, 45:53 lived a pretty interesting life, 45:55 said, yeah, I'm gonna go back to America, 45:57 became a trapper for a while, 45:59 I had a bunch of different interesting jobs. 46:01 I believe it was a hotel clerk in Auburn, California 46:05 for a little while. 46:07 So yeah, he did a bunch of different stuff 46:09 and had a pretty amazing life, 46:12 in addition to basically being the official mascot 46:16 of the Corps of Discoveries expedition. 46:20 Yeah, and he ended up taking guardianship 46:22 because Charbonneau and Sacagaway left in April, 1811 46:26 and to go on another fur trading expedition 46:29 and they left Baptiste with them. 46:32 So I think it kind of worked out for everyone. 46:34 Yeah, I get the impression it wasn't like 46:36 we don't want our kid and Lewis would give me your kid. 46:39 I think like it was for the best interest of the kid 46:42 and they all loved him very much. 46:43 That's the impression I have. 46:45 She also had a daughter about a year after that 46:48 in 1812, Lisette or Lisette. 46:52 I don't know if it's an S or a Z. 46:55 and this is where we get to the sort of fork in the road 46:58 as to what actually happened to Chicago Way. 47:02 There are a couple of stories. 47:04 One is that she died not long after 47:07 of what was called putrid fever, 47:10 or which is probably typhoid fever. 47:12 That's terrible. 47:13 There's another story, 47:14 and which she would have been about 25 years old 47:16 in December of 1812. 47:19 There's another story that she went on to live 47:21 of a very long life in another part of the country, 47:25 but I think that one has kind of been shot down, right? 47:27 Yeah, so at the turn of the last century, 47:32 Sakagawaia was kind of dug out of obscurity. 47:36 Well, actually there was a guy who was the official, 47:40 I don't know, biographer, chronicler 47:42 of the Corps of Discovery's expedition 47:44 where he was in charge, his name was Biddle, I believe. 47:49 He was in charge of basically taking the notes 47:54 of the core discovery and getting them ready 47:56 for publication. 47:56 You just couldn't publish the whole thing like that. 47:58 He edited them basically, but he also interviewed Clark. 48:02 And out of his interviews with Clark, 48:04 we found a lot more out about Sacagauea 48:07 than we knew before. 48:08 And Bill was like, this is a very interesting story 48:11 right here. 48:12 I'm gonna put Sacagauea front and center. 48:14 So he kind of brought Sacagauea into the foreground 48:17 for the first time, but then almost a century later as the women's suffrage movement was starting 48:23 to gain momentum, there was a woman named Emily, no Eva Emery Dye who wrote a book about the Lewis 48:33 and Clark expedition and said, here's my heroine, Sacagawea is a heroine, I'm going to basically 48:39 use her as an icon for the suffragette movement. And that's how she kind of became this symbol 48:46 from that point on. 48:48 I don't remember what kicked up the spiel though.
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