Interpretter

An Opportune Encounter.

Fortunately for the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, their expedition through the Louisiana Purchase brought them into contact with the Shoshone woman Sacagawea. Her skills as an interpreter and guide were instrumental to the expedition's success; it is difficult to imagine such an outcome without her language skills and help.

An Invaluable Guide.

As a girl of about fourteen, Sacagawea was captured by a rival tribe (probably Crow) and won in a gambling match by the French fur trader Toissant Charbonneau. Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau in 1805 to guide them to the Pacific after meeting him in the Mandan villages at the big bend of the Missouri River in Dakota country. Sacagawea and her infant son Jean Baptiste (or "Pomp") accompanied the expedition west up the Missouri. The Shoshone woman quickly demonstrated that she was far more indispensable as a guide...