Sacagawea
Native American woman & companion to Lewis and Clark at age 16
Sacagawea ( SAK-ə-jə-WEE-ə or sə-KAH-gə-WAY-ə; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea; c. May 1788 – December 20, 1812) was a Lemhi Shoshone or Hidatsa woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition's knowledge of natural history in different regions.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early 20th century adopted Sacagawea as a symbol of women's worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to recount her accomplishments.
Early life
Reliable historical information about Sacagawea is very limited.
According to Toussaint Charbonneau, her husband, she was born c. 1788 into the Agaidika ('Salmon Eater', aka Lemhi Shoshone) tribe near present-day Salmon, Idaho. This is near the continental divide at the present-day Idaho-Montana border. In 1800, when she was about 12 years old, Sacagawea and several other children were taken captive by a group of Hidatsa in a raid that resulted in the deaths of several Shoshone: four men, four women, and several boys. She was held captive at a Hidatsa village near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. She disclosed to Lewis and other expedition members that four Shoshone men and some boys were killed in the battle, and she was taken captive with other women and boys.
The public source identifies “Sacagawea” as native American woman & companion to Lewis and Clark at age 16. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sacagawea, Native and American.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q238960. VIAF identifies the subject as 84351167. The Library of Congress control number is n79040147. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1788, 1812 and 1800.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sacagawea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.