On November 4, 1804, Clark wrote in his journal: 'a Mr. There, they built cabins in a clearing below the villages and settled in for the winter. They arrived at the Mandan and Hidatsa villages near the mouth of the Knife River in North Dakota on October 26, 1804. Jefferson's secretary and confidante, Lewis, and Lewis's friend Clark were assigned to lead the corps of explorers. Congress authorized a 'Voyage of Discovery' by which a group of men would explore the territory between the Mississippi and Columbia Rivers and attempt to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Sometime between 18, Sacajawea and another girl were sold to (or won in a gambling match by) trader Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian who was residing among the Hidatsa. On May 20, 1805, Lewis wrote of 'Sah-ca-ger-we-ah or Bird Woman's River' as a name for what is now Crooked Creek in north-central Montana. The Original Journals of Lewis and Clark support a Hidatsa origin. Sacajawea is a name meaning 'Boat Launcher' in Shoshone. At the Hidatsa camp, Boinaiv was given the name Sacagawea by her captors, which means 'Bird Woman.' There is more than a little argument over the derivation and Several girls and boys, including Boinaiv, were captured and taken back to the Hidatsa village.

The warriors killed four men, four women and a number of boys.

In 1800, when the Shoshone girl, Boinaiv, was about 12 years old, her band was camped at the Three Forks of the Missouri River in Montana when they encountered some Hidatsa warriors. Nevertheless, there is much controversy surrounding the life of this intrepid woman. In addition, the Shoshone Indians have many stories in their oral tradition about Sacajawea, and many living Shoshone trace their ancestry to her. Sacajawea's Shoshone name was Boinaiv, which means 'Grass Maiden.' The primary documentation of Sacajawea's life is contained in the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a lawyer and a clerk of a fur trading company who led an expedition authorized by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 to explore the recently purchased Louisiana Territory. She was born somewhere between 17 into the Lehmi band of the Shoshone Indians who lived in the eastern part of the Salmon River area of present-day central Idaho. Sacajawea was an interpreter and guide for and the only woman member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806. Sacajawea is responsible in large part for the success of the expedition, due to her navigational, diplomatic, and translating skills. In the early 1800s, Sacajawea accompanied Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their historical expedition from St.

Sacajawea by Gloria D. Miklowitz