Read Sacajawea Online

Authors: Anna Lee Waldo

Sacajawea (190 page)

10
. Ruxton, p. 713.

11
. Cooke, 1878, pp. 131–34.

12
. Sen. doc., no. 2, 31 Cong. Special Session, p. 69.

13
. Bancroft, p. 568.

14
.
San Luis Rey, California’s Mission.

15
.
Bandini Documents,
San Diego Archives and Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, pp. 328–33.

16
. C. H. Porter, 1961, p. 8.

17
. Anderson, pp. 260–61.

18
. Anderson, p. 261.

19
.
Bandini Documents,
p. 333.

20
. Angel and Fairchild, p. 71; Bonner, pp. 353–64.

According to T. D. Bonner, who wrote the story of

Jim Beckwourth in 1856, the “wife of a Canadian named Chapineau, who acted as interpreter and guide to Lewis and Clarke during their explorations of the Rocky Mountains … gave birth to a son.” The “Redheaded Chief (Clarke) adopted …” him, and “on his return to St. Louis took the infant with him, and baptized it John Baptiste Clarke Chapineau. After a careful culture of his mind, the boy was sent to Europe to complete his education.” Bonner, p. 528.

21
. A personal letter to A.L.W. from Merle W. Wells, historian and archivist, the Idaho Historical Society, Boise, Idaho, September 18, 1967, says that the probable grave of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau is at the edge of a road not far from the old stage station, near Danner, Oregon, which no longer exists as a town.

22
. Moore, sec. 2.

23
. Anderson, p. 264.

24
. Anderson, p. 246.

25
. Schroer, p. 26.

26
. Rocky Mountain spotted fever is caused by a rickettsia microorganism found in certain wood ticks
(Dermacentor
). The tick is sometimes found on gophers. Therefore the Shoshonis believed that the gopher caused the disease of fever, muscular pains and skin eruptions, rather than the tick. From
The Shoshonis, Sentinels of the Rockies,
by Virginia Trenholm and Maurine Carley, p. 282. Copyright 1964 by the University of Oklahoma Press. Also see Chuinard, p. 221.

27
. Quantan Quay, a Shoshoni living on the Wind River Reservation in 1929, remembered Shoogan (named Bazil by the Mormons) as a man of fine character, physically splendid, gentle in speech and never loud or boisterous. He also remembered Toussaint (who, he said, was called Baptiste by the Mormons and others) as “a treacherous man, because he liked his firewater and used it often.” Grace Raymond Hebard,
Sacajawea, A Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1957, p. 178.

28
. Washakie purchased the casket plate from the son of a furniture dealer for the price of a bow and arrow. Grace Raymond Hebard,
Washakie.
Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1930, pp. 233–34.

29
. Washakie was said to have a “’fine open countenance’ which became so animated and expressive when he spoke that it was a real pleasure to look at him.” He had great dignity and pride in his simple possessions. On the walls of his reservation cabin were pictures of his warring exploits, drawn by himself and his son Charlie. Trenholm and Carley, pp. 285–86.

30
. This was Chief Washakie’s most famous statement. After Washakie’s death in 1900, his son Dick presented the saddle to Jakie Moore (J. K. Moore, at the Fort Washakie store), who was a great friend. Jakie’s son, J. K. Moore, Jr., of Lander, Wyoming, recalls seeing the saddle, but has no knowledge of its whereabouts now.

31
. “Mrs. Irwin wrote, from Sacajawea’s description, a history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the part that Sacajawea had taken in the expedition.” Hebard, 1957, p. 232.

32
. These field glasses were later given to Washakie by General Crook.

33
. This was the Battle of the Little Big Horn, in Montana, June 25, 1876. Linderman, 1930, pp. 154–77; Kuhlman, 1951; U.S. Govt. Printing Office,
Custer Battlefield.
Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Assoc.,
Entrenchment Trail.

CHAPTER 57
Nothing Is Lost

1
. An important personality problem for the males was finding a suitable substitute for the ancient goals. With the buffalo gone and warfare a thing of the past, they found it very hard to discover any objectives that made life worth living. “Some strongly expressed sentiment that they preferred the old existence with all its hazards, but with the chance for glory, to the pedestrian career of a farmer or mechanic.” From
Indians of the Plains
, by Robert H. Lowie, pp. 221–22. Natural History Press. Copyright 1954 by the American Museum of Natural History.

2
. Some ration days—which took place once a week, every two weeks, or once a month—they were given bacon or salt pork, dried beans, flour, rice, or hominy. Each family was given a card with their family name and number of persons in the family. The card was punched when rations were issued by a military officer who was required to be present. From
The Comanches, Lords of the South Plains,
by Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, pp. 330, 338. Copyright 1952 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

3
. Andrew Bazil, Shoogan’s son, said that Sacajawea introduced the Sun Dance among the Lemhi Shoshonisand that his father was leader of the dance. Grace Raymond Hebard,
Sacajawea, A Guide and Interpreter of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1957, pp. 259–60, 275.

4
. In the old days, in each tribe there was at least one whip holder. The whip was a wooden, serrated blade with carved scalp symbols of the owner’s victims. Tied at one end were two short otter-skin lashes. The owners of the whip were always the bravest men of the tribe. The man that owned a whip could stop any dance and recite one of his coups. In the end he was required to bring the sun curse upon himself if he stated any untruth. He could dance up to any lounging spectator, point his whip, and that person was obligated to jump right in and dance, or be whipped. No brave could be excused from the dance for any reason, if the whip were pointed at him. The man had to recite his strongest deed and then the whip holder countered with his strongest deed. If the whip holder’s deed was as good as the brave’s, the brave had to dance the rest of the time. If it was not, then the brave was excused from dancing and the whip owner had to dance. Wallace and Hoebel 1952, p. 271.

5
. Dr. James Irwin studied and practiced naturopathy, a method of treating diseases with natural agencies.

6
. In 1870 the government urged and invited the Northern Arapahos to make a treaty with the Shoshonis and locate permanently with them. Chief Washakie was angered by these demands and refused to allow them to settle on his reservation, and “he also accused them of all of the murders that had taken place in the Wind River Valley and at the mining camps the summer before.” He said the Arapahos were storing ammunition and planned to act with the Sioux to make war against his camp. Eight years later Washakie allowed the Arapahos to be placed temporarily on his reservation. Some believe he was away hunting at the time and actually had no say in the matter, and other historians say that he did not object because he himself did not want to be moved from his “beloved Wind River Mountains, home of Tamapah, the Sun-Father.” From
The Shoshonis, Sentinels of the Rockies,
by Virginia

Trenholm and Maurine Carley, pp. 276–8. Copyright 1964 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

7
. The Arapahos were broken people even before they were given a permanent place on the Wind River Reservation. Colonel John M. Chivington killed many of their warriors, women, and children when he attacked a camp of Cheyennes and Arapahos on Sand Creek, near Fort Lupton, Colorado, on November 29, 1864. Then they suffered a loss of hunting territories and food supply, broken treaties by the whites, first free access to liquor, prostitution, disease, and a general harassing that led to placement on the Pine Ridge Reservation. By then the Arapahos had nothing left but their dreams. The Peyote Cult was accepted by the Arapahos at Wind River a decade before it found its way into the Shoshoni tribe. Trenholm and Carley, pp. 277, 281–82.

8
. Friday, the adopted Arapaho son of Thomas Fitzpatrick, who was Washakie’s friend, may have talked him into holding a council with the Arapahos. Trenholm and Carley, p. 276.

9
. Later this boy became an Episcopal minister at Fort Washakie and then a canon of a cathedral in Denver, Colorado.

10
. When the Arapahos came to the reservation they were “in such indigent circumstances as to be wholly unable, without generous assistance from the government to speedily emerge from their present state of mendicity.” The once proud tribe was reduced to 198 warriors, the rest women, children, and old men. Trenholm and Carley, p. 279.

11
. Even today the Shoshoni young people are embarrassed when one of their elders spitefully calls an Arapaho “Dog-Eater” to his face. Trenholm and Carley, p. 281.

EPILOGUE

1
. Personal letters to A.L.W. from the Commission of Indian Affairs, December 14,1968, January 18,1969, and March 5, 1969.

2
. Grace Raymond Hebard,
Sacajawea, A Guide and Intrepreter of the Lewis and Clark Expidition.
Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1957, pp. 232–33.

3
. Hebard, 1957, pp. 205–17.

4
. Wind River Reservation Church Register of Burials, no. 114.

5
. Hebard, 1957, p. 208.

6
. Schroer, p. 21.

7
. Hebard, 1957, p. 213.

8
. Robert Beebe David,
Finn Burnett, Frontiersman,
Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1937.

9
. Hebard, 1957, p. 151.

10
. Hebard, 1957, p. 188.

Personal letter to A.L.W. from P. D. Riley, Nebraska State Historical Society, February 9,1968, says, “I would hesitate to use his [Rivington’s] information-he was a tall-tale spinner of the first class.”

A personal letter from Warren C. Wood, editor,
Gering Courier,
February 19,1968: “I sincerely regret that Tom Rivington, who had a lot of people fooled for a time, when he lived here, was pretty much of a fake. He had just enough semi-factual data to fool a casual historian. I liked old Tom, but he wasn’t a pioneer and doubt he ever lived with the Indians, let alone the Bird Woman.”

Personal letter to A.L.W. from Merrill J. Mattes, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, San Francisco, March 6,1968: “… the woman he claims he [Rivington] knew as Sacajawea was actually someone else with an assumed name.” The Rivington letters to Dr. Hebard and typed interviews of 1929 are in a collection called “The Hebard Papers” at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were once in the possession of Dr. C. L. Camp in the Department of Paleontology.

11
. Hebard, 1957,
Sacajawea,
pp. 188,191, 240–42.

12
. Hebard, 1957, p. 191; see also, Frazier, pp. 171–74; and Clark and Edmonds, pp. 118–20, 145.

13
. A personal letter to A.L.W. from Merrill J. Mattes of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, March 6, 1968.

14
. On December 8 and 21,1967, Mary K. Dempsey, Librarian of the Montana Historical Society, wrote that “Montanans are inclined to believe that she [Sacajawea] died at Fort Union, December 20,1812.” Actually Fort Union was not built until 1829 and this wholearea is now under the waters impounded by the Garrison Reservoir.

Mary Dempsey also wrote: “There is a queer story told by the Minnetaree warrior, Bull’s Eye, in open council, where other Indians could hear and correct his story. He claimed to be the grandson of Sacajawea, wife of ‘Sharbonish,’ with whom she went ‘far away somewhere, and she was killed,’ said Bull’s Eye, ‘by hostile Indians near Glasgow, Montana, when I was four years old, in 1869.’”

15
. A personal letter to A.L.W. from Will Robinson, secretary of the South Dakota State Historical Society, January 18,1968.

16
. Clift, p. 194.

17
. Hall, August 15, 1971.

18
. From
Sacajawea,
by Harold P. Howard. Copyright 1971 by the University of Oklahoma Press.

At a later time large boulders were set at the head and foot of the grave. A stone marker was erected at the grave in 1909 by H. E. Wadsworth, the Shoshoni agent. This marker was a gift from Timothy F. Burke, of Cheyenne, Wyoming. On the inclined face of the marker was a bronze tablet describing Sacajawea as a guide with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The tablet also carried the words: “Identified 1908 by Rev. J. Roberts.”

19
. This new marker carries the date 1907 when Reverend J. Roberts identified the grave of Sacajawea.

Bibliography
 

A
BERT
, J. W. “Journal of Lieutenant J. W. Abert from Bent’s Fort to St. Louis, 1845,” Senate, ex-doc. 438, 29 Congress, 1st Session.

A
BRAMS
, R
OCHONNE
. “Meriwether Lewis: The Logistical Imagination,”
The Bulletin
(Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis) 36 (July 1980).

A
BRAMS
, R
OCHONNE
. “Meriwether Lewis: Two Years with Jefferson, the Mentor,”
The Bulletin
(Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis) 36 (October 1979.)

A
DAMSON
, Edward.
The Political Organization and Law-Ways of the Comanche Indians.
Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, no. 54. Menasha, Wis.: American Anthropological Association, 1940.

A
DREON
, W
ILLIAM
C
LARK
.
William Clark of the Village of St. Louis, Missouri Territory. St. Louis: Lewis and Clark Heritage Federation, 1970.

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