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Sacagawea
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United States postage stamp featuring Sacagawea in traditional Shoshone dress with two braids, holding a staff, against a sky with clouds. The stamp value reads 29 USA. Lewis and Clark Expedition Lewis and Clark Expedition Bronze statue by Leonard Crunelle depicting Sacagawea carrying her son Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau on her back, with trees in the background. Lewis and Clark Expedition Lewis and Clark Expedition Lewis and Clark Expedition Pompey's Pillar Map tracing the Lewis and Clark Expedition routes from St. Louis, Missouri, up the Missouri River, across the Rocky Mountains, and to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific coast. The map uses red and purple lines to show the outbound journey (1804-05) and the separate return and exploratory routes (1805-06), with key locations such as Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop marked, and territorial boundaries of the period labeled, including the Louisiana Purchase. A worn, handwritten account book belonging to William Clark, with a faded greenish cover and cursive writing visible on the front.
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United States postage stamp featuring Sacagawea in traditional Shoshone dress with two braids, holding a staff, against a sky with clouds. The stamp value reads 29 USA.
Sacagawea Sacagawea, from a U.S. postage stamp, 1994.

Sacagawea

Shoshone interpreter
Also known as: Sacajawea, Sakakawea
Written by
Jay H. Buckley
Associate Professor of History, Brigham Young University. Author of William Clark: Indian Diplomat; By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis; and others.
Jay H. Buckley
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

Sacagawea (born c. 1788, near the Continental Divide at the present-day Idaho-Montana border [U.S.]—died December 20, 1812?, Fort Manuel, on the Missouri River, Dakota Territory) was a Shoshone Indian woman who, as an interpreter, traveled thousands of wilderness miles with the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06), from the Mandan-Hidatsa villages in the Dakotas to the Pacific Northwest. Separating fact from legend in Sacagawea’s life is difficult; historians disagree on the dates of her birth and...

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