The mysterious death of Sacajawea Two hundred years have passed, and the death of Sacajawea still remains a mystery. There are different reports of what happened to Sacajawea after she left the expedition. Sacajawea and her husband, Charbonneau, parted from Lewis and Clark at the Hidatsa village in Missouri. From that point on, their lives became shrouded in mystery. William Clark invited Charbonneau and Pompey to St. Louis. It is not known if Sacajawea accompanied them on this trip. One version of her death suggests that she did travel with them. After a short time, Charbonneau returned to trapping and left Pompey in Clarks care. Clark became Pompeys legal guardian on August 12, 1813. It is suggested that Charbonneau took two more wives and headed toward western Oklahoma or Kansas. John C. Luttig from Fort Manual in Mandan County (the borders of North and South Dakota) cited one version of Sacajaweas death. Luttig stated she died on December 20, 1812 of a putrid fever. She would have been 25. An account in Clarks journal from 1825-1826 indicated that one of Charbonneaus two wives died of putrid fever in Fort Manual, South Dakota in 1812. Many people assume that Clark was writing about Sacajawea, although he does not refer to the woman by name. Could it be that Sacajawea never died in 1812? Another version of the story suggests she traveled to Fort Mandan with Charbonneau. Sacajawea and one of the wives quarreled and Charbonneau beat Sacajawea badly. She then left Charbonneau and wandered from tribe to tribe until she made her way back to her people. Documented by librarian Grace Raymond Hebard, Sacajawea returned to her Shoshone tribe in Wind River, Wyoming and died on April 9, 1884. Hebard spent time with elders of the Wyoming Shoshone tribe where she documented their stories of Sacajawea. If true, she would have been over 100 years old at the time.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 14:21:53 +0000
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