Sacagawea: Impressive Teen

Published Feb 9, 2021, 10:00 AM

Sacagawea was only 16 when she joined the Corps of Discovery. That is one seriously impressive teenager.

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Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there, and this is stuff you should know. And I can't help but feel that I'm being subtweeted right now before. I don't know what that means. Oh, it's where you talk about somebody without directly talking about them. He's kind of maybe talk about their behavior, how you disapprove of something that they did, but you don't directly say this person did this and I don't like it, you know. I one time, I don't know all this lingo with the Twitter because I was never on it, and I was emailing with Jonathan Colton, musician Jonathan Colton about coming on movie Crush, and I can't remember what I said, but he said something something don't at me, 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 don't know. I apologize if I did something wrong, and I think he was kind of like, who is this idiot? Hodgeman likes this guy? And I think, don't I mean, didn't that just mean you're tagging someone on Twitter or something. Yeah, but usually it means like you're you're telling them that they got something wrong, or you disagree with what they said, or they should be ashamed of what they said. It's usually a hostile thing that you're adding somebody or you're you're yeah, they don't they're they have made their point and they don't want to hear any feedback from you about it. That's why. That's kind of what I took from it. And you have to like kind of snap a few times when you say it. I'm just really so thankful still that I never joined Twitter. Just that's the last thing I need. I'm already on Facebook, which is terrible. I've been enjoying Instagram. I have to say that seems like a pretty nice crowd, totally different place. Yeah, but you know, we're talking about all this because we're talking about yes we are who truly Yeah, naturally, Who would probably a shoe both Instagram and Twitter because she seems like a pretty solid human being. She'd be like, don't at me, that's right. So um, just to just to get this done out of the gate again, I thought that her name was pronounced Socca Joweyah. I am not like in the minority in the United States at least because that's how we were raised to say her name. But fortunately we have such things as historians and people who listen to Native Americans who have been told over the years. Now it's not socca joeya, it's Soaca caauaga. Right, there's one pronounced pronunciation of it, but that it's not just it's gou um. And we've started to kind of pronounce her name correctly. You say it way better than me, So why don't you take it well? I mean, gosh, this is the third time now we're on this, I've seen different things from sicago Away to Sicaga. I think in Clark's journal, uh William Clark, that is of Lewis and Clark fame spelled it s a h k A h emphasis on that g A r w e a, so sicag Away or Cicagoa. But then the Shoshone, which is a Native American tribe that uh, well we'll get to the importance there. Um they say, actually it is s a c A j A w e a, and it means boat pusher, not the Hidatsa language of bird woman. So there is some debate. Yeah. Um. One thing that I did see is that Lewis and Clark um and they factoring this because Socaa was the the main guide and interpreter as they pushed further westward, um she or they they actually tried to spell every Indian or Native American word that they encountered phonetic as best they could. They were terrible spellers, even of English words. I mean just like barely literate, it seemed like. But they tried their best. Yeah it's really bad, um, but they they tried to try to spell every every word that they found phonetically. And I think Sacca go Awea's name appears seventeen different times in both of their journals, and not once do they spell that third syllable guh with a J sound with a J. It's always a G. And they think that it was a hard G, so that it's not Socca jawiyah. So they said it's definitely gif and not Jeff right, which it is definitely gift as we all know. Uh So, if you listen to the Lewis and Clark episode, was it a two parter? I feel like it was. It was not. It was not new thinking of the evil Kennebil God, it's embarrassing. You always bring that up to shame me. I think it's shame both of us and Jerry to a certain extent as well. She stepped in been like, for God's sakes, what are you doing? Totally consolidate man. So a great episode though. I know in that episode we talked a bit obviously about Chicago Way and Ken Burns in his great documentary about the Core of Discovery. But she was born, she had a she know, she lived a short life, and there is a little controversy on how long she did live, which we'll get to at the end. But she was born in either seventeen or eighty nine as a member of the lim Limy is what I'm gonna say, Eli m h I band of the Shoshone tribe, which we spoke about a minute ago. Is this Shoshone or Shoshoni? Shoshoni is shy That's what I've always heard, But then again I always heard it was ska Joya too. I believe she grew up though in a very imagined, lovely, lovely part of the country and what is Idaho in the Salmon River region. Yes, um so she was actually a member of a specific band of the Lemhi Shoshoni. Um the salmon eaters is what they were called. Um. And she she grew up in that that part of Idaho. I guess it was around them the bitter Root mountains near the Continental divide, and the bitter Roots are part of the Rockies. But yeah, it just sounds absolutely gorgeous. Um. The Shoshoni tribe was enemies to the Hidatsa, who you mentioned earlier. And the reason that they say that saka Awa means bird woman is because Skawa became an involuntary member of the Hidaza tribe when she was around twelve years old. Um I didn't get as she was out on a buffalo hunt, or if the Hidatza happened to be out on a buffalo hunt and came across her, did you understand that. I'm not sure, Um. I kind of just in my mind and thought that they were out. But I guess it doesn't really matter, because either way, she was kidnapped and settled with them near what is now Bismarck, North Dakota, and here's where her life took a or I guess that event actually took her life in a very different direction. Uh, and that that was a trading center, an international trading center, so people from all over the world would kind of stop through there to trade their weares. And she was essentially uh, I mean, it's hard to not say kidnapped again. Um, a fringe Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau beautiful took her as property. He called her his wife. But we can't you know, now through today's lens, we've got a lot better about not glossing over that stuff. She was property to him. She was a teenager, I think, like sixteen or seventeen even I think she was, oh was she? Uh? And she was about two decades younger than him. And there's no other way to say it other than she was property. And part of being property was that she was raped by Charbonneau. Yeah, like there's there's um, there's no way you can put it that that, Like she didn't have any say in the matter of whether they had sex, so like it's just that's rape, no matter what. Um. But yeah, over the over the years, like she's always been referred to as one of his wives because I guess Americans didn't want to kind of confront that stuff, you know, right, So she ends up um living among the Haidatsa and as Um Charbonneau's wife slash property Um. Because Charbonneau being a fur trader and the Hadatsa Um settlement that they lived at, Um being this kind of international trading post. He had kind of adopted, like the hadats A way of living himself. Um. He had just being a fur trader, he had to be able to handle himself out in the elements. UM. So I think it kind of it was his speed from what I gathered. For the rest of his life, he just basically lived in a style similar to Native Americans. UM. So she aside from being away from her native tribe, she lived, you know, probably fairly in a fairly cosmopolitan manner compared to how she would have had she never been kidnapped from the lem He band of Shoshonees Um. Which is kind of sad. But there's one thing that should be said. There's there's documentary opinion that she was Um. She was not unhappy living on this kind of um, this border land between the two cultures. Like she she seemed to feel somewhat comfortable um living among you know, the colonizer's way of life. UM. On the frontier just as much as she did living among the Shoshoni. Yeah, and we should also point out that a lot of this is very little is recorded, a lot of speculative um, because you know, there's remarkable well, I guess not remarkable because it was eighteen o three, but um, very little actual recorded information about her life. But it's remarkable how much there is for the well typical teenage Native American girl at the time. Um. Like the fact that there's anything recorded about her, says, well, it is a kind of a huge testimony to her and her personality. No, absolutely, Um. So eighteen o three is when Charbonneau takes control of her life. Eighteen o three is also when Thomas Jefferson said, Hey, we got this uh big tract of land, really sweet deal called the Louisiana Purchase, eight hundred and twenty eight thousand square miles of land stretching from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Mississippi to Colorado. And we need to go see what's out there because white people have never explored this territory. Um, I want to find a Northwest passage, which was eventually found. They were looking in the wrong place, but Um, that's what they were sort of after, but they were after more. Jefferson really wanted to know what was out there the landscape. He wanted maps, He wanted to know about the Native American tribes. He wanted to know about the plant life and the animal life, and just like, go Merryweather Lewis out there and record everything you can. Yeah, Mery Meryweather Lewis was Jefferson's personal secretary, and Lewis um selected um what was Clark's first name, Josh Billy William William Clark Billy Clark um As, who had been his captain in UM the Army, as the leader of the expedition. He found him to be an able leader and said, hey, you want to come leave this super high prestige UM expedition for the president that the entire nation is going to be watching. And Clark said, sure, let's do it. So Lewis and Clark set out on this expedition and they actually traveled I think six miles before they ended up um in at that head atsa settlement, Um, which is about where they really started to hit the frontier. From what I understand, all right, that sounds like a great turning point to take a break. So we'll be back right after this and pick up with the meeting of Loos and Clark and SARKA. Stuff you should know, Nash, stuff you should know. Okay, Chuck. So we've reached what is now today Bismarck, North Dakota at the South Dakota, South Dakota. Are you sure? I think so? No, it's it's yeah, it's Bismarck, North Dakota. Are there two? I was gonna say it almost literally doesn't matter. We're gonna get crushed for this. It is. No, it's definitely Bismarck, North Dakota. Okay, then there that was a misprint. Then in the I'll tell you what. Get this. I've got this machine called the compute Tour. Are you actually gonna look it up? Yeah, I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonna do a favor for the people of Bismarck for once North Dakota. I think it's North Dakota. It is. That's weird because I think this is from Austaff Works. I got South Dakota written in there. All right, we'll let to send an email. I'm not gonna I'm gonna add them yeah, that, don't you know, that's the tagline of how stuff works. Don't add us. That's right. So apologies to all the people in the both Dakotas, all three Dakotas. We met nothing by it, and we're gonna do a live show there one day to make up for it. Are we sure? Why not? Um, I'll tell you later. Okay, all right, where are we? It's November two four when they finally land and they meet up with Chicago, who is six months pregnant at this point, and Charbonneau is get the impression that he's a bit of a not a grifter may maybe, but sort of an opportunist. Yeah, yeah, I think so for sure. I mean, like he's a fur trader for Pete's sake, Like you gotta be you gotta be a little like that. That includes not just survival in the woods and killing animals, but also having to you know, get the highest price you can for your pelts. So I'm guessing there's a bit of used car salesman to Charbonneau. For sure. He was not exactly. He was not well liked by Lewis and Clark. I don't know that he was heated or despised. But I get the impression from reading historians interpretations of their their journal entries about Sharbonneau was that he was kind of a cross between um, Chris Farley, okay, and Gallam. Maybe I can't wait to see that photoshop goodness, yea, who's going to take care of that for us? So just this idea that this guy was not competent necessarily and was maybe a little bit evil. Um. And that's that's, you know, all you need to know about Scharbonneau. I also get the impression, Chuck, that there was a there was a you know, we'll talk about later, but there was Kaga was plucked from historic obscurity and really kind of raised up on this pedestal. And I think rightly so. But there was a sport that developed alongside of that where you could very easily raise up by contrasting her to her good for nothing slave holdings quote husband, um, and showing how just just terrible he was at everything. It made her look all of them all the much better. So I think there's a sport to it. There's a kind of a long history of putting down Charbonneau. Um. But I think that it's kind of rooted in fact, from what I understand. Yeah, So at any rate, he comes along and he's like, hey, you guys really need to bring me along. And uh, and my wife slash property here. Um, I speak Datza and French, and they're like, we don't really need that, but I see that Chicago Way speaks Shoshone, and we really need to learn that because at a certain point gonna need to talk to them to get some horses. Uh. And since we can't hire a woman because it's three, we have to actually hire the husband to get her to come along. I guess you both can come. Yeah. So like we got to explain why um Chicago Way being Shoshone was really important, and it was, like you said, those horses somehow, I'm not exactly sure how they already knew this, because these are the first Americans to chart a course westward. But they knew that the um the Missouri River and the Columbia River was um was separated by mountains, the Rocky Mountains, the bitter Root Mountains to be specific, and that since they were taking to the river, they were going to need to get from one river to the other, and that the Shoshoni Indians happened to live exactly where they needed um or where they needed to pass through, where they needed the most help, where they needed horses, and so having a Shoshone along to help broker a deal would be incredibly useful, so useful in fact, that the arrangement was going to be that when they finally met up with the Shoshoni tribe in this area where they needed the horses the most, um Sicagowa was going to speak to the Shoshones and then she was going to translate, with the Shoshones said into Hadazza to um Charbonneau. Charbonneau was going to translate from um Hadatza into French for a French speaking member of the Court Discovery, who would then translate from French into English for Lewis and Clark. That's how he didn't No, he spoke Hadazza in French. So an addition to no, he so he did. He did play a role that was important. He was going to translate from Datsa into French. Um. It would have been way better if he had spoken English. But yeah, it just meant another person in the chain. Everything came out purple Monkey dishwatcher at the end. So uh, one thing we failed to mention, I think, which is just remarkable, is that um, a few a couple of months before they leave together. Uh, Chicago has her son, Jean Baptiste UM, known as Baptiste and so. And I know we talked about this in Lewis and Clark, but I think I didn't have a kid at the time. It's just astounding to me now that I've had a two month old baby two to take and like keeping that baby alive and all the comforts of you know, modern day America. To take a baby like that on a voyage like this is astounding. Yeah. Yeah, it's really remarkable. Yeah. And I mean, like, if you look at all of the memorials to Chicago Aya, UM, I don't think there's one out there that doesn't also show Baptiste as well of not um. Not just because he was an adopted honorary member of the Court of Discovery basically a mascot sure um, but also because it just goes to point out just how astounding what his mom did UM was. You know. I think when when Chicago was put on the the dollar coin in the United States in two thousand, UM, Hillary Clinton famously referred to her as the original working mom. Wow, that's that's pretty cool designation. I thought so too. So yeah, I think it's great to to just that that she's remembered as you know, doing all this with a baby strap to her back the whole time. Right. So, um, that's their plan they plan to get there, send her out to talk to the Shoshoni tribe to get these horses. But which was a good plan, but it was even way better. It worked out like almost like it had been written in a movie script or something, because I think it is. Lewis shows up first and has contacts with an older woman of the tribe, and then about sixty Shoshone on horseback ride up and they're like, you seem like a decent guy, you're friendly, let's all make this workout. Then Park's group shows up about a day later with Chicago Way and they're like, oh my god, it's you. You were the one that was kidnapped and taken away so many years ago. And then Chief kama Wait rides up and it's Icago Way's brother. Yeah. So not only did they get to have this reunion, but um, Lewis and Clark are like, yes, we're going to Yeah, the chief is her brother, Like this is perfect. But you know what that stuck out to me as Chuck, Um that meant that Chicago way, it probably would have met Lewis and Clark even if she had never been kidnapped. Uh yeah, maybe didn't that really crazy to think like that one way or another she was going to probably meet Lewis and Clark even even with her life diverging that radically from its you know, original projected path. Yeah, And what it really did was um, I mean, she was already proving to be useful in that she could identify berries and things that you could eat and plants that you could use as medicine, and kind of acted as the um the navigator in a lot of cases like no, we need to go this way. I've been here before, this is where I grew up. Yeah, there's a huge, huge rock called Beaverhead Rock that she um famously recognized that you can go visit and stand in the place basically where she showed Lewis and Clark like, look, my my people are going to be right around here. I recognize this place. Yeah, so they've already got all this respect for up until that point. And then she has such an end with the Shoshone. Like you said, they get I'm sure a really good deal on the horses. And not only that, but they get help. They get like they kind of partner up with them to help them along, which is a really big deal. Yeah, because Lewis and Clark's expedition had UM somewhere in the neighborhood of forty people, involved huge boats, several huge boats, lots of equipment, lots of instruments. And some people say, well, like if they needed horses a bad way and they bring the horses because they traveled by water, they really needed horses really really badly. But just for this one specific part of the trip in between the Missouri and the Columbia River, Thomas Jefferson very famous famously called a dilly of a pickle that they had run into. UM. But the fact that they were able to get the horses from the shown um, it just basically checked this enormous box that the whole expedition UM was predicated on. They just couldn't They could not have completed their mission without this and UM, so I could go away and basically brokered that made sure that box got checked. And there's one other thing that stands out about her too, that that gets overlooked us on a few places. Um, Charbonneau had another wife who was Shoshone, and if they needed a Shoshoni speaker, who was who was? You know with Sharbonneau who came with Sharbonneau. Um, they could have very easily gone with Otter woman the other the other Um I guess victim of Charbonneau. Um, And they didn't. They went with Sacagea, who knowing full well that she came with an infant, now like there was going to be an infant, even though with Otter Woman there wouldn't have been so clearly. Chicago way is like putting out the right kind of vibes. That's saying like, I'm extraordinarily competent. You should probably pick me, even though if you pick me, I'm going to be bringing a newborn baby along on this frontier trek. Um. I think that says a lot about the kind of UM I guess, charisma or competence or whatever. She was putting out that that that Lewis and Clark were like, yes, I think she would be the better of the two. Yeah, because you don't want a two month old baby along. No, But if you're you're cute. But now but if you say, okay, we'll have a two month baby along like that says a lot about the mom that's carrying the baby around and where her abilities are. I think, yeah, absolutely. Um. She also proved her worth when and I can't remember if we I think we might have talked about this when there was one of their sailing vessels almost capsized when a big squall hit it. Apparently Charbonneau was navigating. He panicked under pressure, and it was Chicago Way who was calm and said, you know what, we need to get these papers together. We need to get the books that we've been writing in, all these navigational instruments and medicines and provisions and other stuff. We need to get it all together and take care of it. And oh also this baby, uh and basically saved that situation. And Charbonneau was just you know, he was like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my gosh, sacarbl sac Blue is right. So yeah, that was That's one of the big stories that's told about Sacagaweya so much. So I mean, um that that either Lewis or Clark wrote about it, and basically was like, Um, this this second away is an amazing person, Like she's she's doing stuff that other members of the Corps not doing. I mean there's I think at least twelve members of the Corps Discovery who aren't mentioned by name in either of the journals of Lewis and Clark throughout the expedition. They did work, they did their their job obviously, UM, but they didn't get mentioned because they weren't doing stuff like Scagueya was. And I think the fact that she's mentioned multiple times with kind of um frequently discussing like just they're impressed, how impressed they were with her, it says a lot as well. Um. Yeah, I mean they named because of that sailing incident, they named a branch of the Missouri River after her. And I think Clark um was the one who really closer to her. Uh. It's really hard to get a read on exactly what the nature of their relationship was. It seems just like maybe mentor type of relationship, and that he kind of took her under his wing and took these long walks with her. Um. I don't think there's anything untoward about it. It is kind of what I'm getting at. I don't have that impression either, and I have not run across the history and that's asserted that there was something untoward about it either the way they were close, the way yeah they were The way I took it was like an adopted little sister kind of thing. Yeah, that's kind of the way I see it. I also don't think Charbonneau would have stood for that. I think that would have been not okay with him, because he was the kind of guy who would be like, that's my property, you know, right, Well, of course, so I yeah, I don't have the impression, but yeah, I thought the same thing, you know as well. Uh. And in fact, they thought so much of her, especially Clark. And this is a really telling thing is that they gave when they reached the Pacific coast, there was a vote on whether or not to stay there for the winter or not, and they actually let her vote, which in the early eight hundreds, to let a woman have a vote like that was remarkable. So um, when they when they decided to stay, that vote um led to them staying in what's now a story of Oregon. They build a winter quarters called Fort clats Up after a friendly tribe nearby, and so what I thought too, but it's it's close. There's an l in there. Uh yeah, clasts up. Uh. But the class up people said, hey, get this, there's a beached whale. You gotta see this thing. It's enormous. And so I think Louis was like, Okay, we're gonna go check this out. You guys stay here and psychic away. I know we talked about this in the Lewis and Clark episode Psychic Way and said, look, man, I have walked a long ways and helped you guys out, and the idea that you're not going to let me see the ocean. I've never seen any ocean. You're not gonna let me see the ocean and this giant whale that's been beached come on. And so Louis relented very famously. I was like, okay, come along, so it's I could go away a kind of. She put her foot down basically and said, no, I'm I'm going to see this um that would be unusually cruel not to let me. So she went and saw this, this giant whale, She saw the ocean for the first time. I mean, that's a pretty big I've never seen a beached whale imagine seeing a beached whale the first time you see the ocean too, you know. Yeah, I remember when I uh as a young kid when I we showed my grandmother the ocean for the first time, and she was in her uh jeez, she was probably in her seventies. She lived to be a hundred, so she had to be in her mid seventies when we took her the ocean and we walked her out there, and she walked out on the beach. I'll never forget it and said, oh it's big, that's cute, and that was about it. She didn't hang out for long. It's like, I'm good, this is enough. Yeah, And there was no whale to poke with a stick. So, um you I'm kidding, by the way, you should never do that, poke a whale with a stick. Yeah, I was. I was making a joke. That wasn't nice. I think everybody knew that chuck. Yeah, you try and get that whale back in the water if you can, now with the stick, though not with the stick. Um, you want to take our second break, Yeah, we'll talk about how this all wrapped up in what happened to her afterward. Right for this st you should know, gosh suck stuff, you should know. Okay, So they made it to the Pacific. They overwintered there and I think eighteen o five eighteen os X and then they started to make their way back, and um, they actually went right back to the same um hitatsa settlement that international training post or outside of Bismarck, North Dakota, UM where they picked up Charbonneau and Sacaga and they said, hey, thanks a lot, We'll see you guys later. And everywhere I saw, um, Charbonneau was paid something like five dollars and thirty three cents for his efforts, and Psycha was not paid anything. Um, although I saw also in this article that she was paid as well, what do you can do? You have any idea? Yeah, you know, I was confused to everywhere else I looked said that she did not get direct payment, which article said that she did. I don't know, but it doesn't seem to be right. Um. Or maybe they just sort of said, well, since her captor slash husband was paid and sort of means she was. I'm not sure, but I saw nowhere else that said that she was actually paid independently, and I mean that would make the most sense you know, although after that that expedition, it's I could I would also not be surprised if she was paid directly, even though it bucked you know, convention. Yeah, he got paid five dollars and three and twenty acres of land, which was pretty good. And it's like, I tried to do a inflation comp but it's they don't even have anything. I think it said, like when you when you go that far back, you can't even compare it to today's Really west, they gave me a um an estimate of about nine grand. Oh see, I saw. I saw that too, but I didn't see that as a as a direct inflation calculator, more like the goods that you could have bought back then. No, no, I saw that. It just didn't seem like a wonder one to me. Um even still, it seems like, really I would I would imagine five dollars back then would be like ten trillion today, you know, Yeah, it would seem it would seem to be the case. It's it's a little weird, but yeah, because I mean, like a journey of thousands of miles um at the behest of the president of the United States getting paid nine grand seems like it just seems like you would get more than that. I don't know, but then again, he's a fur trapper who only speaks at Atza in French, so who knows. I think what confused me is like if you enter five hundred dollars a hundred years later, it's like fifteen thousand or maybe that does work. I don't know. It just didn't seem to work out math wise. But what do I know? Yeah, no, I'm with you. Who you kind of have to be able to peer back into the vagaries of the American economy over the last couple of hundred years to suss that out. I looked it up and it said that what that would be today would be two hundred eight beaver tails and nine thousand dollars. Poor beaver. I know. That's the other thing about Sharbonneau that people don't say. He killed a lot of animals for their pelts. So all right, so after the expedition, she stayed with Charbonneau. Um, I think a few years later they moved to with Little Baptiste moved to St. Louis. Yeah, the invitation of m clark, right, yeah, and it says you know that they he offered them an opportunity of land to farm, which I don't quite get because he just got three acres of land. I was wondering if that was one and the same. Maybe I couldn't quite part that out, but at any rate, he's like, here, you come, here, here's some land to farm if you let me educate your son, uh in the you know, American sort of schooling system, and uh, you know that was he was the godfather or of the boy at that point. Really cared a lot about Baptiste and Chicago, ay, and one of the best for him, and I think that was a pretty decent deal for Charbonneu. Yeah, so, I mean, um, I believe Clark officially adopted Baptiste as his guardian at least, if not as his his adopted parent. Um. And he was educated at the St. Louis Academy, I believe, and then he um. I don't know how he met him, but that Baptiste went on to meet a German prince who was like, Hey, you should totally come back and hang with me in Germany and I'll make sure you get a European education, and he did. He moved to Europe and was educated there. Um lived a pretty interesting life. Said, yeah, I'm gonna go back to America. Became a trapper for a while. Um had a bunch of different interesting jobs. I believe it was a hotel clerk in Auburn, California for a little while. Um. So, yeah, he did a bunch of different stuff and had a pretty pretty amazing life, uh, in addition to basically being this the official mascot of the Core of Discoveries expedition. Yeah, and he he ended up taking guardianship because Charbonneau and Chicago Way left in April eighteen eleven to go on another fur trading expedition, and they left Baptist with him. So I can I think it kind of worked out for everyone. Yeah. Yeah, I get the impression. It wasn't like we don't want our kid and Louis give me your kid. I think like it was for the best interest of the kid, and they all loved him very much. That's the impression I have. She also had a daughter about a year after that, in eighteen twelve, Lisette or Lizette, I don't know if it's an s or Z. And this is where we get to the sort of fork in the road as to what actually happened to Chicago way, and there are a couple of stories. One is that she died not long after of what was called putrid fever or which is probably typhoid fever. There's another story and which she would have been about twenty five years old in December of eighteen twelve. There's another story that she went on to live a very long life in another part of the country. But I think that one has kind of been shot down, right. Yeah, So at the at the turn of the last century, um, CHICAGOA was kind of dug out of obscurity. Um. Well, actually there was a guy who was the the official I don't know, biographer chronicler of the Core of Discoveries expedition where he was in charge. His name was A Biddle. I believe he was in charge of basically taking the um notes of the Core discovering getting them ready for publication. You just couldn't publish the whole thing like that. He he edited them basically, but he also interviewed Clark, and out of his interviews with Clark, we we found a lot more out about Chicago Aya than we knew before. And Biddle was like, this is a very interesting story right here, I'm gonna put Chicago away a front and center. So he kind of brought Chicago way into the foreground for the first time. But then, almost a century later, as the UM the women's suffrage movement was starting to gain momentum Uh, there was a woman named Um Emily no Eva emery Die who wrote a book about the Lewis and Clark expedition and said, here's my heroine. Chicago is a heroine. I'm going to basically use her as an icon for the suffragette movement. UM. And that's how she kind of became this this symbol from that point on. I don't remember what kicked up the spiel, though you asked a question, you said something, What was it? Do you remember my spiel about how UM Chicago was kind of brought out of obscurity by these writers. Oh oh, um, where where it came? This idea came from that um she had she had gone on to live a long life. UM. That first book that was written by Eva emery Die was picked up by another historian who said, you know what, Um, I've heard these stories about this woman who went on to live at the wind River plant Um Reservation. And I think she's actually Chicago, WEA. And that kind of kicked off this whole hunt. Yeah, because like you said, there was I mean, there are numerous, um, numerous people who wrote down sort of officially that she did die very young at five years old, including I think Clark uh in one of his um I think like maybe a financial leisure leisure ledger. It was a cash book about like where people like where are they? Where they now? Basically have they've been paid? And uh, next to her name he just wrote dead, which not even a face next. I guess if it's a ledger, you're just trying to sort of, you know, be cold about it. But that someone who really cared a lot about her, it seemed it probably wasn't the right place to wax philosophical, right. But also some people have said, um, well, no, he was covering for her because she The legend goes that she left Sharbonneau ran off to live a life away from her as an independent woman, right exactly, which really kind of dovetailed with the suffragette movements, um, push for women's rights. Um, So that was a great idea that that that that's what she did, and the idea was that Clark was covering for her in his little cash ledgers by saying she was dead, knowing full well she was alive. Other people are like, who's going to ever look in Clark's cash ledger? Like Sharponne is ever going to get his hands on it? That's probably not correct. And there the whole idea that she went on to live on the wind River Reservation until age a hundred when she died in like the eighteen eighties, makes for a good story. It makes for a great story. And there was a woman who did live like that. Her name was Para evo Um, also known as Basil's mother, who lived to be a hundred and a lot of people said, no, that's soccagaweya. But that was before more historical record came out Um, including an account from a guy who worked for the same fur trading company that Charbonneau did knew Charbonneau personally and wrote in his journal had no reason to make anything up. But in December, I think on December twentie of eighteen twelve, was it wrote that Charbonneau's wife, uh, he's the one who said that she had a putrid fever and died and that she was the best woman in the fort. She was a good woman and the best woman in the fort. She was aged about twenty five years, which totally fits the bill for Chicago auayah. And she left the fine infant girl. Yes, so once that once that guy's journal was found, that was basically the nail in the coffin of the idea that Chicago Aua had had lived to age a hundred after escaping her captor husband. Yeah, I think what kind of cool, as you know, even though there's very little officially recorded about her life, everywhere she is recorded, it's all glowing praise um. There's not like one entry where anyone was ever like, boy Cicago and that baby are really like, what a mistake that was. By all accounts, she was a boon to the Core Discovery and a big, big part of its success. Yeah. And so as a result, Chuck Um Lifetime is in Lifetime Movie Network. Lifetime. I couldn't find the year, but they recently conducted a survey of memorials to create the Lifetime Her Story map, and of I think hundred plus statues, monuments and memorials that exists in the United States, only about two hundred, which is around four honor Women, but of those, two hundred sixteen honor Cicagowa, which means that she is the most honored woman via monuments and statues in the entire United States. Amazing. The first one, from what I read, was by a group of suffragettes in Portland, Oregon in NT five, And that statue is obviously still there today, and it is beautiful. And guess who's strapped to her back in the statue? Um, loss set little Baptisset's right, you got anything else? No other than and we should mention. I don't think we know a lot about what happened to Lasette. Unfortunately she was sort of lost to history. Yeah, for sure. Um, I guess that's it. That's it, all right. So since we said that's it, that means it's time everybody for listener mail. Yeah, we're gonna do a couple of corrections. A bit of a maya culpa for me. In a correction, Um, I said the word redneck a lot entitled the episode about the Clan. Uh use the word redneck, and uh, you know, I probably shouldn't have. That's a derogatory term. The name actually has a different history. I think West Virginia Coal Miners has something to do with that, and I just wasn't really being as sensitive enough. I'm not apologizing for for degrading the clan, but I probably shouldn't use the word rednecked with such a broadbrush. Think about it. The chuck that means the clan is so rotten they give Rednecks a bad name. That's essentially what we're saying here. I love it. Uh. And then as from that same episode, we need to address the Robert Bird instant from a lot of people that, Yeah, so I think we were talking about Senator Robert Bird sort of being unapologetic about being in the clan. That was very much not the case. This is one of the many emails, and this is from Aaron Patrick Lyons. He him his hey, listen to the great episode in the KKK, and as usual, did a bang up job. However, I have to take issue with Josh's statement indicating the Senator Robert Bird was an unrepentant Lansman. He was indeed an exalted cyclops or local leader of the clan in the fifties into the fifties, but through the seventies and eighties he had a sincere change of heart regarding race relations and voted for the Martin Luther King Junior National Holiday, among other legislation in his very long career. He was deeply embarrassed, embarrassed and apologetic about his time in the clan UH. And that is like I said, from Eric Patrick, Aaron Patrick Lyons, and Cedar Paul's Iowa. We heard from a lot of people that um, not only did he vote for the MLK holiday, but apparently did a lot of work for legislation to UH for equal rights for African Americans. I totally flubbed that one. To my apologies to Robert Bird's family for his legacy in that small way, and I'm glad we got corrected almost immediately right after the episode came out. It was I can't believe you guys used redneck so much. You were totally wrong about Robert Burg. So this this listener mail is perfect. And then there's one other thing I want to say too about the neck thing, chuck Um. Somebody pointed out I think it was on Twitter that using the word redneck it's not only derogatory towards rednecks, it obfuscated it cover it up. All of the people who aren't rednecks, who see who are just kind of everyday normal people who are either in the clan or subscribe to the clan's ideologies. That it makes it seem like just this marginal group um or a marginal thought or fringe thought, when it's really kind of subscribed to by an alarming number of people that you know, you live in, work beside, and might never really guess at just how deep their racism goes. So I think that's another reason to have a shoot it as well. Yeah, and you know, I'm not gonna stick up for myself, but I think when you grow up in the South, you might feel like you have a little bit of ownership. So yeah, my apologies to all the great rednecks of the world. That's right. Sorry Jeff Foxworthy, Sorry Larry the Cable Guy, who's actually not really a redneck if you listen to David cross Is beef with him. Yeah, I mean that's a that's fully an act, right. Yeah, from what I understand, he created that persona to get more fans and comedy. That's right. Uh smart, that's right. And uh, well, I guess since we started talking about Larry the Cable Guy, that's the end of this episode and listener mail is petered out. Uh And if you want to get in touch with us to correct us or call us out for something or whatever, um lay it on us, send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD,  
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