You're Dead to Me - Sacagawea

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Greg Jenner is joined by historian Prof Katrina Phillips and comedian Alex Edelman in the 19th century to meet an icon of American history, Sacagawea. Hired to lead Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery through the newly acquired Louisiana territories at just 16 years old, Sacagawea was responsible for the lives of the corps and her "man-baby" husband as well as her actual baby who she gave birth to mid-expedition. Her heroics along the course of the journey are well documented but why is there no record of any first-hand account from the woman herself?Produced by Cornelius Mendez Script by Greg Jenner and Emma Nagouse Research by Charlotte PotterA production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. All day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a Radio 4 history podcast for everyone. For people who don't like history, do like history, or people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. You may have heard my other podcast, Homeschool History, but that one's mostly for the kids.

On this podcast, we explore the wilds of the past in search for comedy gold. And if you've listened to our last two episodes on the Harlem Renaissance and Becoming America, you'll know that we're wrapping up Series 3, or Season 3 if you're American, with five episodes of American history. And today we are grabbing our camping supplies as we journey back over 200 years to meet Sacagawea, one of the most fascinating women in American history.

And to accompany me on this fact-finding mission are two very special guests. In History Corner, she's Assistant Professor of Native History at Macalester College in Minnesota and is the author of Staging Indigeneity, Salvage Tourism and the Performance of Native American History. It's Dr. Katrina Phillips, but we're friends now, so we're calling you Katie. Hi, Katie. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. And in Comedy Corner, he's an Edinburgh Fringe award-winning comedian. You may have seen him on Live at the Apollo or on Conan O'Brien's show.

You may have seen him live at the BBC or on Roast Battle UK. He's the host of Alex Edelman's peer group on Radio 4, and he's even a TV writer, having recently scribbled on Netflix's Teenage Bounty Hunters. But most importantly, of course, you'll remember him from the Mayflower episode of You're Dead to Me. It's Alex Edelman. Hi, Alex. Welcome back. Thanks for having me back. So thrilled. Last time out, we discovered you know quite a lot about history, but that you'd come fairly late to it how much do you know about sacagawea i'm a fan big fan of the gold dollar

but yeah i've heard lots of great little anecdotes about her many of which i'm sure are apocryphal but the answer is no i don't know how much i know about sacagawea maybe maybe a bit maybe nothing maybe a lot i've you me, do an episode. That's the most confrontational approach we've ever had to the opening question, but I like it. I enjoyed it. So, what do you know? The first segment of the pod is called the So What Do You Know? It's where I have a go at guessing what our listeners at home might know about today's subject.

And I'm guessing, no matter where you grew up in the world, that you do know the name Sacagawea. I think it rings a bell. It may ring a very tiny, far away bell, perhaps if you're British or Irish. I mean, she's certainly a name that we vaguely know of over here. But in pop culture, she doesn't pop up as often as I expected. A quick search of IMDb doesn't really produce a lot of big hitting modern movies. There was the 1955 Charlton Heston and Donna Reed film, The Far Horizons. But the most obvious one is Ben Stiller's movie, Night at the Museum, when a waxwork Sacagawea comes to life and has an unexpected workplace romance with Robin Williams's Teddy Roosevelt, which is quite a weird storyline. I didn't hate it, but I sort of went, really? Okay, great. But we're going to find out why is she one of the most discussed, most mythologized,

most famous women in American history? So, Professor Katie, can we start with the absolute basics? Where and when was Sacagawea born and what was her early life like? Sacagawea is born around 1788 in the valley of the Lemhi River to the west of the Rocky Mountains. So in what's now Idaho. And her Shoshone name was Bowiapa, which means grass woman. And the name Sacagawea is going to come much later. The community was probably 400 to 500 people due to earlier smallpox outbreaks and things like that. And so in her early life, she would have been trained according to traditional Shoshone gendered expectations. She would have processed the

kill of the hunt. She would have helped dress skins and dry the meat, carry wood and water, gather and prepare food, help take care of the children, make moccasins and clothing. And it was the responsibility of Shoshone women to pack, carry and unpack the mobile village, while the men would be the ones who would defend the tribe and go on hunts. So her name isn't Sacajawea at this point. She's called Buwayapur. Is that right? And that's also what's going to kind of lead to a lot of the not necessarily controversies, but it's what's going to cloud her later life. Because there aren't a lot of great records that are written about Native peoples in this moment. And so she had a couple of different names. And so that's part of what also, I think, leads to this mythology around her that we get to later on. And then there's some serious drama when she's about 12 years old.

Alex, do you know what happens to her when she's just in her early teens? She meets... No, I have no idea. She gets a letter from Hogwarts. I mean, that would be quite a different story. Let me take a guess, right? Is it violent? It's fairly violent, isn't it, Katie?

I mean, we're talking here about a kidnapping, right? She's captured by another tribe. That's all I know. I got nothing more. Okay, we'll give you like by another tribe. That's all I know. I got nothing more. Okay, we'll give you like half credit for that. Like, help me. Yeah. Greg had to walk you to that part. So we'll give you like half credit. Professor Phillips, please. So she's captured by a Hidatsa raiding party near the Three Forks of the Missouri River. And she's taken hundreds of miles east to the

Hidatsa settlement along the Knife River in North Dakota. At this Hidatsa village that she's taken to, it was a really diverse commercial hub. So there were a lot of different languages that were being spoken during trade negotiations. And so this is where she starts to kind of hone her skills as an intermediary. She is a captive, but there was plenty of food. There was a lot of shelter and things like that. She might have married her captor. We're not entirely sure. But this is also where she gets the name Sacagawea, which means boat, paddler, or bird woman. So this is that moment where she gets the name we now know her by. And then if that's not enough, there is now going to be a marriage, maybe a second marriage,

we're not sure, to a French Canadian. And his name is Toussaint Chabonneau. Toussaint? Yeah. This part I know, right? He's a fur trader and she's sold to him though, right?

I think it's a deal. I don't know if money changes things, but I think it's a, you buy some stuff, here's a new wife. But yeah, he's French Canadian. He's a fur trader. He's not a great guy, Katie.

He is about as far from being the hero in the story as we could get. Also, given what's happening at this point in history, when we're thinking about the fur trade and things like that, he's just kind of par for the course. What did it take to be known as a bad guy back then? There's a baseball player named Ty Cobb from the early 1900s. His reputation was, at the time, as a vicious racist. And to be like, in the early 1900s, to be known as a vicious racist, you're like, man, it must be so, like, so depressing to be like, this guy was really awful.

He's not a hero. He's a monster. But he's a fur trader back then so you know you expect more from people that trap and kill small animals for profit you know okay so she is married potentially for a second time to a man who essentially acquired her we're not quite sure how one of the interesting things i suppose is that he speaks hidatsa so that's how they can talk to each other is that she has learned hidatsa she's learned the language of the tribe that took her but the story gets much more complicated because of a thing called the

louisiana purchase and alex i'm sure you know what this is because it's as i understand it from watching sitcoms every child in america has to learn I mean, I haven't written on any of those sitcoms, but I will say that even when I was a kid, I was like, this seems like a really great deal. Where like, when you're a kid, you don't know the specifics, but they're like, hey, so the United States was one tenth the size of what it is now. And then the United States went to the French

and was like, we'll give you $11 in 2020 money for the entire rest of the continent and the French were like that seems like a great bargain which by the way like a bunch of land that like wasn't theirs to sell right I was surprised as a kid to find out it was more than Louisiana because I was like oh Louisiana is that small funnily shaped state on you know the Gulf of Mexico but the Louisiana purchase is just enormous yeah i mean katie it's it's nearly 850 000 square miles and it's 15 modern states yeah so in 1803 the united states obviously you know your listeners can't see the air quotes around purchased you know the western half of the mississippi river basin and so this had been controlled by the French, by the British,

by the Spanish. And it included the land that now covers all of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Oklahoma, as well as most of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Minnesota. I'm just now realizing that rattling off the names of all of these states for a predominantly British audience might not like quite have the same impact. During elections, we become experts in American geography. We're all we're all talking the streets. We're going like, Oh my god, I can't believe the third district of Minnesota has voted left. Oh my god. It's amazing. On election night, Greg and a bunch of other people were texting me like, do you think the Maricopa County results are going to hold?

And I'm just like, how do you know the name of the county when 90% of Americans would point at a map and be like, is that the UK? And people are like, no, that's Spain and Portugal. But you're close. You're on the right side of the ocean. But Native scholars have pointed out, and rightly so, right? Like this was not a land purchase. You know, as Alex pointed out, there were hundreds of thousands of Native people already living on this land. And land is going to be continually bought and sold at the expense of

Native people by the US government for like the rest of history at the cost of several billions. And it wasn't a fair price. The Louisiana Purchase is extremely complicated. The long and short of it is, in theory, France sells it to America for $15 million. But it's discovery rights that are sold, not actual land rights. The Haitian Revolution is happening. The Saint-Domingue Revolution is happening. Napoleon wants to fight the British. He can't afford it. So he sells it for whatever money he can get. then America was like cool brilliant we've bought this thing we'd better go figure out what is we've just bought they weren't

even trying to buy Louisiana so they were trying to buy a small amount near the Mississippi and New Orleans and then Napoleon was like just have all of it it's fine but what it does mean Katie is that there is now a need to figure out what America has just acquired, or at least now can go and claim to acquire. And that means sending out a discovery team. The president at the time is Jefferson. This is 1803. He's obsessed also with a particular animal, as well as wanting to go and find out what America now owns and the commercial possibilities. And he wants to get a western river route to the Pacific. He's also obsessed with one particular animal. Do you know what it is?

Is it the buffalo? It's a good guess. Think bigger. The giant buffalo. Oh, no, wait, it's a mastodon, wouldn't it? That's right. Yeah, yeah. Mammoths and mastodons. That's it. That's so sick. I agree with Thomas Jefferson. He thinks they're still living in the American West. And more importantly, he's in a long running battle argument with a French scientist called the Comte de Buffon,

who says that American animals are small and puny and useless and European animals are big and mighty. And Jefferson's like, no, no, we've got good animals. I'm going to prove it. And so he wants a mammoth.

We just missed them, right? We only missed them by like 10, 11,000 years. Yeah. Yeah. They died at about 10,000 years ago. just missed them right we only missed them by like 10 11 000 years yeah yeah they died out about 10 000 years ago just missed them i mean cosmically it's the blink of an eye right so he is gonna send out a team to go and find him a mammoth slash find out what he's just technically bought supposedly alex who are his two front running team there's lewis there's clark

i know it's called the Corps of Discovery because when I was in kindergarten, there was a big plastic laminated sheet that said Corps of Discovery on it. John Ledyard? John Legend, the R&B singer. John Legend, yeah, it's John Legend. John Legend and Chrissy Teigen,

and they're having an amazing time. I know they have rifles and peace medals, right? Like they have these peace medals that they're planning to give out. I know they have rifles and peace medals, right? Like they have these peace medals that they're planning to give out. I know there are like some army people, right? They're like, most of these people are military folks, right? Yeah, this is Captain Meriwether Lewis,

his buddy, Second Lieutenant William Clark. And then about 40 dudes who are pretty military. This essentially is a US military operation. And then there's Clark's enslaved servant called York. There's a lovely dog called Seaman. Sorry, I'm sorry. Dog's name is Seaman? Not like that, Alex.

Seaman is in someone who goes to sea. Is it like a seafarer? Oh, okay, a seafarer. He's not called Jizz the dog. There's a French chap as well, which is going to prove useful later on. Katie, they go from Madison County in Illinois. They've had some scientific training. The best minds in America have gone, here's how you use a compass.

Here's how you use a map. Don't eat that. Don't eat that. You can eat that. So they've had like a crash course and then they set off by boat and they spent about six months, Katie, traveling before they encounter Sacagawea. Yes. In 1803, Lewis and Clark and the whole core of discovery had traveled down the Ohio River through Illinois. And by the time May of 1804 rolls around, they've gone about 2,300 miles along the Missouri River to the Rockies, and they

just keep going. And by the time it's autumn, they reach the Mandan Territory, which is in present-day North Dakota. And in early November, Lewis and Clark hire two interpreters, Toussaint Charbonneau and one of his Shoshone wives, Sacagawea, who by this point, we tend to think she's about 16. And she's also pregnant. She's pregnant with a little pomp. Yeah. Yes. I love this elementary education come flooding back.

It's great, Alex. As I'm watching myself see this, I'm learning how they teach American kids stuff. I remember that there were nine guys from Kentucky. And I remember that there were a couple of guys from Massachusetts because I'm from Massachusetts. So they were like, there were some Massachusetts people on this, but one of them stole whiskey and got drunk. And so no one likes to talk about that guy. I mean, the crucial thing to say here, Katie, is that Sacagawea is like the great, fascinating character in this story. But they sort of blunder into her.

Jefferson doesn't go, OK, you go six months down the river, you go this way, and then you will meet this amazing young woman and she their own volition. They are part of this because of the circumstances around them that are dictating their lives. And there's another Shoshone guide who's part of the expedition who's known as Swooping Eagle and they nickname him Toby. Of course, they give him a nickname because God forbid you actually like learn how to pronounce somebody's name correctly. It's also so much less cool, Katie, to be like, my name's Swooping Eagle. They're like, we're gonna call you Toby. Now I can't even say Toby. So Swooping Eagle, he leads the expedition up the Salmon River. And so this is one of the most dangerous parts of the journey. But we don't ever think about him, right? Like he doesn't get

enough credit for the work that he did. When we're thinking about all of the people that just come and go throughout all of this, you know, Greg, your point about this being like accidental destiny, I think is the best way to think about it. And Sacagawea is 16 and pregnant, which is basically an MTV show. She's now going to go on a extraordinarily dangerous thousand mile journey we don't know if she's got a choice in this but like her husband's like yeah yeah we'll do it it's fine it's a really interesting gang of people some of whom are there voluntarily some who are under orders some of whom have volunteered but they're dragging their wives along some of whom are bringing enslaved people who have no say in the matter and semen don't forget about semen yeah

don't forget semen the dog what What kind of dog was semen? He was in Newfoundland. I want... Who's got more information on semen the dog? Okay, I've got my phone. I'm going to Google semen. Nope, I'm going to Google semen the dog. That's dangerous.

Hold on, I've got semen a Newfoundland dog. He was purchased for $20. That would have bought you a square mile in the louisiana purchase you can't overstate the value of semen stop it naughty bad bad alex sorry professor phillips sorry you're not sorry at all that's okay but i mean alex you've raised the point actually about the guy from massachusetts who shames your state but there's drunkenness there's fighting there's court marshals there's mutinies Katie I mean these are soldiers but they are not very well behaved young men and Sacagawea is a young woman in amongst all these

rowdy blokes it's not a great scenario for her is it it's really not and I don't even want to call them an army because the army might take offense at that. But when we've got this like crew that's like, you know, marching along across what's going to become the rest of America, for the native people that they encounter, to have a woman with that expedition is going to do more for their trading. It's going to do more for their negotiating and their learning and things like that than if it had just been this random crew of 40 dudes that's marching across the continent. So she slightly softened them a bit. Not only is she a guide, but she's also, because she's a woman, she slightly feminizes the risk, the danger.

Yeah. There are a number of scholars who have talked about that as far as the borderlands go and things like that. It's not that hard to imagine what would have happened if they hadn't had Sacagawea. Somebody would have done something dumb and a lot of people would have died. There wouldn't have been that like big poster in Alex's kindergarten classroom. That's what I find amazing is a 16 year old woman, heavily pregnant, is amongst this gang of people. And then she has to give birth amongst them, which must have been really scary. It's a really heavy labor. It's a painful labor. She's given some medicine, the rattle of a rattlesnake, which apparently helps her go into labour.

So she gives birth. She has the baby, little pomp, Jean-Baptiste. My wife had a baby quite recently. I've got a little daughter running about. Babies are cute and all, but they are exhausting and screaming all the time. And they need to be fed and bathed and looked after. And she has to do all of this while traipsing across America. I don't know if we know, again, we don't know how much of a decision she would have had in this either. I mean, at the same time, like her husband is just useless. Sacagawea, she's the guide. She's the interpreter. She's like identifying what plants they can eat.

You know, Lewis has a note in his journal that he calls Charbonneau a man of no peculiar merit. It's a real bun. Charbonneau actually quits the expedition in March of 1805 because he refused to follow the Corps' military regulations. And so Lewis and Clark are really freaking out because they lose Charbonneau, they're gonna lose Sacagawea. And a couple days later, Charbonneau is like, okay, fine, like, can I please come back? And then he agrees to follow orders. Yeah, I mean, you get the sense that they're like, do we really need this dude to come back? Oh, yeah, his wife's amazing. Okay.

How's Sacagawea feel? Like, I know Ordway keeps a journal. I know Lewis and Clark, to a degree, keep a journal. I know that one of the alcoholic Kentucky guys keeps a journal. But is Sacagawea enjoying this? Is there any sort of hunger for things remote that Sacagawea is indulging in? Judy Chicago, this artist, did a thing called The Dinner Party where she put out a fake dinner party with a place setting. It was a series of women who have impacted history and Sacagawea has a plate.

And do we know at all how Sacagawea is enjoying or feeling about this incredible role that she's playing, like this great American historical moment? I don't think anybody bothered to ask her. Why? To a certain extent, Katie, I'm going to make the case here that one of the motivations is that she is heading back towards her homeland. So perhaps that's what's in the back of her mind. She's going, I might see my family again.

But she's an absolute trooper. She's got a baby on her back. She's showing them where the foods are. She's telling them about stuff. And the other crucial thing, of course, is that she's going to be a translator for them. She's going to be so important to them in the next stage of this. So they're desperate that she doesn't leave. And then there's bears, there's danger. And then there's this amazing moment where Sacagawea saves the day, right? There's a disaster and it's Sacagawea, the young mum with the baby

on her back. It's like, I'll do it then. Katie, can you tell us what happened? The middle of May in 1805, one of the boats that has papers, equipment, medicine, the stuff that they really need. All of this stuff is in the same boat. It's mistake number one, but it capsizes. And Sacagawea rescues most of it. In Lewis's journals, he writes, this accident had like to have cost us dearly.

And he goes on to explain that it was their papers, instruments, books, medicine, their merchandise, right? Like things that they needed in order to trade with native nations in order to like gain access to lands and keep moving west. And he goes goes and in short almost every article indispensably necessary to further the views or ensure the success of the enterprise and so all of this is in one boat and it capsizes and sacagawea rescues most of it we have no reaction from sacagawea no one If a firefighter pulls a cat out of a tree,

the news does a story out of it. This woman saves the whole mission. She ensures its success. Without it, we would have all died. No one wants to be like, Sacagawea, care to comment? I just can't get over the fact that this woman is erased from her own narrative

or the first first person experience is just not somehow documented. It's unbelievable. Lewis describes her as showing fortitude and resolution. Meanwhile, Alex, what do you think her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, is doing? Drinking. I mean, this guy sucks.

He's like, you can't get it wet, it's fur. That's a genuine marmot, that is. Lewis says, Toussaint Chabonneau was crying to his God for mercy. He's basically on his knees going, why God, why? He's useless. At one point, one of the soldiers in the corps threatened to shoot him if he didn't stop. Clearly, he's pissing off everyone. And then, Katie, she gets really unwell. She gets very, very dangerously sick.

So in June, she's reported as being very sick and being in a dangerous condition. And so Clark bleeds her and gives her salts. You know, Lewis has a note in his journal about her symptoms, which her pulse is like really irregular. Her hands and her wrists are twitching. She's got a fever. She has pain in her lower abdomen. She seems to have fully recovered within a week. But one of the questions you had before about like, why is nobody asking her what she's thinking? But a lot of members of the Corps actually wrote about her condition in their papers and they wrote about her a lot. So we can start actually wrote about her condition in their papers, and they wrote about her a lot. So we can start to see, in a sense, from them how concerned they were,

both for her, for her child. And they're also recognizing how important she was to the mission, even if they're not coming out and explicitly saying it. Yeah, I mean, Captain Lewis writes that the illness gave me some concern as well for the poor object herself, the object, lovely, then with a young child in her arms, as from the consideration of her being our only dependence for a friendly negotiation with the snake Indians. The snake Indians are the nation she's from, the Shoshone. In one hand, he's kind of going, oh, I hope she gets better. But he's also kind of going, we really, really need this woman. She is our translator. She's our guide. We are screwed

if we don't have her. Firstly, why are they calling them the snake Indians? Is that a mistranslation? The term snake Indians probably comes from a misinterpretation of sign language for grass weaving, because the Shoshone people made their homes out of woven grass. But if you think about a wiggly finger motion, these white dudes are going to go to snake. So she's saying, I'm of the Shoshone, we make our houses from grass. And they're going, you're a snake person. Cool. The thing that I guess we haven't really discussed so far, Katie, is that she doesn't speak English. This is the fundamental complexity of this whole operation. It's this core of discovery of traipsing across America, mostly by river, in boats,

and the person who's leading them, who's super important, does not speak their language. She speaks Shoshone and Hidatsa, and then her husband, I guess, useless Toussaint, actually does have a use, doesn't he? I don't even know if we can call this a redeeming quality. We'll give them a little bit here. She obviously spoke Shoshone and then learned Hidatsa while she was captive. And so Charbonneau, whose native language was French, he had learned Hidatsa. And then we have one of the expedition officers, whose name is Francois Laviche, who spoke French and English. And so they're actually speaking in a chain. That's another reason why she's so important because without her language ability right they're kind of screwed yeah so if sacagawea says something and says don't

eat this she has to tell her husband who has to tell the frenchman who has to tell the core of discovery by which point they've probably already eaten it cut back to clark with red stained hands and like all over the face is like, what? Those berries were tart. She also is caught in flash floods and heavy hailstorm. They lose their compasses. They lose some of their maps. A lot of the really important stuff. And once again, it's Sacagawea who saves things a bit and goes, I know how to get out of this scenario.

She remembers landmarks. She remembers places she has been before, Katie. So there is a moment where they lose all their exploration technology and she goes, don't worry, I've got it. That's the vitality of her being in that exploration. She can help them. She can guide them. It's an incredible skill. By the end of July, the Corps of Discovery reaches Three Forks. And this is where she had been captured when she was 12. Right.

OK. She remembers the land. She remembers the landmarks. There's a specific spot called Beaverhead Rock. It's a spot that she remembers because not only was it the spot where she was captured, but it's also the spot where the Shoshone would spend their summers. So she hasn't been there in four years, but she's like, yep, I've been here before. I know it. We're now into Shoshone lands. We are soon going to encounter my people, which I guess must be exciting for Lewis and Clark because they're like, oh yeah, hooray, good, allies maybe.

There is one native historian called Vine Deloria Jr. He says that Sacagawea's memory was so extraordinary that we often do not understand it. In the case of the Lewis and Clark expedition, there was one absolutely essential factor in its success, and that was Sacagawea. Vandaloria Jr. there is saying her memory is a superpower. This understanding of where they are, the landscape, of guiding, of supporting, of saying, don't worry, we're safe this way, follow me. And so that then brings us to a very powerful emotional moment in her life where she stumbles back into territory she knows and soon is reunited with her family and on the 17th of august she meets her brother who she hasn't seen in four years

and we know this because someone asked her right someone said how does this feel how does it feel to be back this extremely powerful moment right please. Please, someone say yes to me. We sort of do. I'm going to read a quote. The quote from Clark says, Sacagawea recognizing her tribe, he writes that she danced for the joyful sight and she made signs to me that they were her nation. So he's reporting that she turned to him and went, this is my family, my home. So, Katie, who was her brother? I mean, forgive me for the pronunciation.

Is it Cameo White? That's how I would pronounce it. My issue is that every time I see a native word, my first thought is how I would say it if it was an Ojibwe word. And it's not Ojibwe, it's Shoshone. So I think it's probably our best guess for this moment here. She's reunited with her brother who's now a chief. This is a moment where she really flexes her muscles as an intermediary. We could call her a diplomat. And in many senses, we should call her a diplomat because she's really crucial to these negotiations with the Shoshone to get horses for the Corps of Discovery to get across the Rockies.

Horses are strong and powerful and can carry things and you don't want to go up a mountain on foot. So this is a super important part of the exploration. Yeah. And the Shoshone are horse experts. This is where her Shoshone identity is really crucial. This is where her Shoshone identity is really crucial. And there's actually a really interesting tidbit here because she overhears that her brother might go back on this agreement. And so she tells her husband, she tells Charbonneau, who again is utterly useless. You know, instead of going to like Lewis and Clark, he's like, oh, okay, cool. It eventually gets figured out and she helps save the negotiations. It's just a really interesting anecdote because on one hand, you could say, oh, she's showing loyalty to the core over like her family. But there's also the very distinct possibility that she really took her responsibility as an intermediary really seriously. She might have seen value in a Shoshone American alliance. Maybe it would help make trade

goods more accessible. She might have been working to build a relationship between the Shoshone and the United States. We can't know for sure. It's just one of those moments that we kind of look at and you can see what she is doing. Yeah, this is a moment where she uses her judgment to save negotiations and get the horses that the core of discovery need. And she didn't need to do that, but she chose to do that. As well as being a guide, knowing the landscape, knowing which rocks and trees you can use as waypoints, knowing which foods not to eat, as well as negotiating, as well as acquiring horses. She's also a cultural expert. She helps with diplomacy of what happens when 40 white American

dudes turn up and start blundering into people's homes. She also says at some point that she can spot certain people because of their moccasins, the shoes they wear. Her knowledge of culture and customs and things like that is also really extraordinary. And again, if we think about her in the context of being a Lemhi Shoshone woman, thinking about intertribal negotiations and diplomacy and alliances and things like that, there's one example from Lewis's journal entry from the end of May in 1805, where Sacagawea looks at the moccasin footprints that they found at some encampments and points out that these weren't Shoshone footprints, right? They were people who lived on a different side of the Rocky Mountains and in a different area.

Like it's a really crucial element of the expedition. It's like CSI. That's like footprint analysis. That's a really amazing skill. Alex, I'm assuming you wouldn't be able to identify a fellow comedian by their footwear. I would because, you know, Nishar famously has a bit of a heavy tread i actually have scoliosis so my dad liked to when it snowed in boston he would come inside he would go could tell you were home because the footprints of you slightly lopsided but uh but yeah i might want to be one of the few comics with a distinctive footprint.

This is the thing I keep coming back to, Katie. She's 16 years old, and she's basically responsible for like 45 people's lives. If she blunders, they die. She's got a small baby. She's got a man baby for her husband who's useless. And then she's got these soldiers and explorers who are sort of going, which way now?

Can I lick that? No, don't lick that. that and they get the horses they go up over the rockies and then things get really quite tricky i mean that winter is coming to quote game of thrones and they then need to find a place to winter this is an interesting moment because this is where sacagawea and the enslaved servant york they get to vote they They do. And so by this time, it's November, and they're like, oh, we should probably think of where we're going to spend the winter. And they take a vote. Both of their votes are recorded. It is an interesting moment where we have Sacagawea and we have York, who are both allowed to participate in the vote. You know, I'm not sure if their votes counted as a full vote, right?

There's always, again, I can't help it, right? Like, in most instances, we'd be like, oh, hooray, they got to vote. And I'm like, but what's the catch? But I can't help it. It's, this is the history I do. Ruining everything. Hello. You're entitled to do so, don't worry. I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest why that is but it's so dangerous this part of the journey i mean a lot of it's been dangerous they've capsized there's always disease and we know how ill she was at one point but they're dragging canoes up mountains heavy heavy heavy boats it's snowing they get snowed in at one point they almost starve to death in the bitter root mountains and have to eat their horses. Not ideal, because then you have to carry the canoes yourself.

They are literally travelling thousands of miles. So in January 1806, 12 men from the Corps of Discovery travelled to the Pacific Ocean. I mean, this is the whole point of the mission, right, is to go just west until you hit water. And Sacagawea insists that she's going to go with them. She's like, come on, I've taken you this far. I've saved your lives countless times. I want to see the sea.

I've never seen the sea. And there's also another thing that she really wants to see. It's an amazing animal. Alex, do you want to guess what it is? A Tyrannosaurus rex. I don't know. Give me a clue. It's not a mammoth, but it's like the mammoth of the sea.

Oh, she wants to see a whale. Yeah, there's a beached whale. And she's like, I want to see the mega fish. And and so she says i'm going on this mini expedition you're taking me i've earned it and so she gets to see the sea which must be very profound and exciting for her katie but they're now turning around so i guess the interesting thing about this section katie is that we know that they split apart at one point le Lewis takes some men in one direction, I think, down the Missouri River, and Clark and Sacagawea go to Yellowstone River in a northerly direction, and Clark names a rock formation after Sacagawea's son,

Jean-Baptiste, or Little Pomp, as Alex called him. He gets a pillar named after him, and as some people traditionally have said, this is the only physical evidence of their journey across America. But, Alex, archaeologists have recently found another way to track the core of discovery across the States. Do you want to guess what it was? Poop. Yay!

I knew it was going to be poop. Did my face give it away? No, I just was like, I know this is going to be the answer because no one's going to be like, oh, they found some stone tools. I'm like, nah, it's going to be poop. Katie, tell us about the poop. Oh, this is a high point in my career. Hold on, Greg, please.

Professor Phillips, tell us about the poop. Greg, please, Professor Phillips, tell us about the poop. So archaeologists have been able to identify certain locations through studying poop. Every new camp they were at, even if they were just there for a night, they would dig a new latrine. And thinking about the diet of a lot of the members of the Corps, many people, and Sacchidui is not going to be one of them, but a lot of them were constipated and they would take what was called Dr. Rush's bilious pills for constipation. And so by measuring the amount of mercury in these like 200 year old latrines, archaeologists were able to determine whether or not they had been used by the constipated core. What a less popular name for the core of discovery, the constipated core.

That was not on my kindergarten laminate poster. You mentioned mercury, Katie. Mercury is not good for humans. Dr. Rush is the famous Surgeon General Benjamin Rush, who had given them these medicines called thunderclappers, which is not good. Alex, if you had your own brand of Alex Edelman's bilious pills for solving constipation, what would you nickname them? It would be a cartoon of Moses on the thing, and he'd be holding, instead of the Ten Commandments, he'd be holding the pills, and it would just say the tablets.

Beautifully done. All right. So the Thunderclappers were Dr. Rush's mercury pills, which archaeologists have been able to track across America. We're so sorry, Katie, for making you do that. But it was fun. So this is one of the interesting things. You have to think of them as human beings. They need to eat.

They need to wash. They need to drink. And they have to defecate it's it's important there's also other risks of course as well as the bears i mentioned before and the capsizing and the snow and the starvation they also have guns with them and guns accidentally go off sometimes so at one point i think it's captain lewis who accidentally gets shot in the ass by one of his own men uh which is you know not a great day at the office wait wait wait what you're not gonna skip by that and realize that lewis was dick cheney'd by a member of his own that's right dick cheney shot a guy didn't he yeah i forgot yeah no one ever that went away so quick cheney shot a guy in the face and the guy gave a press

conference apologizing for being shot in the face it's like the most insane display of party loyalty you'll ever see but so hold on wait do you think they had this huge argument where they were like we're gonna have a split up and the first thing they were like who's taking Sacagawea and one's like I'll take Sacagawea you take the husband the remarkable thing actually is only one person on the Corps of Discovery dies. And he dies of appendicitis, which can happen to us at any time. And he dies before Sacagawea even gets there. So it's not her fault.

This really, really brings home, Katie, the success of this mission. Really, Sacagawea has kept these people alive for two years almost. But she doesn't get her big parade. The Corps of Discovery return to St. Louis, Missouri, and she's not stay with the Mandan. And at one point, Clark offers to raise Sacagawea's son, who by this point is a toddler. He's about 19 months old. By the 23rd of September, the Corps arrive in St. Louis. They've successfully concluded this 8,000 mile journey after two years, four months and 10 days. But she's not there. She doesn't get a big party. Her story just sort of ends with like,

bye, thanks very much. It's just a remarkable thing she's done that gets us onto what we know about the next part of her life, which is not much, right? I mean, Lewis and Clark's journals, they give us some of these stories we've been talking about today. But what happens to her? So we don't really know that much about her life after the expedition. There's some debate about how she died, but she most likely died at a trading post called Fort Manuel in 1812, and likely from a disease that she contracted during her contact with Americans. And we do know quite a bit about her son and all of the life experiences he had. But there's really not a whole lot that we know about Sacagawea after this all happens. No one thought there might be a frontier

autobiography that would sell a bazillion copies. No one wanted to ask a couple of questions for a local paper. There's no, there's nothing like that's the part that's just burning me. There's no narrative closure here. There is a sort of fairly dominant myth that she lives to 100 and dies in the 1880s and runs away and lives an exciting, glamorous life. But unfortunately, that's probably not true. Sadly, she died, but the sounds of it pretty young, still extraordinary life and what about her son alex do you know about her son pomp do you know what happens to him i actually weirdly know more about this guy than i think i do about sacagawea which i think is really not great apparently he was like a mini celeb and he was really good friends with a German prince.

And he went to Europe for a little while and had a baby. And like was part of the California gold rush and like ran a hotel during the California gold rush and was like, had like a really fascinating, incredible life that started as being, you know, born on the core of discovery and took him to Europe and took him back and like ended in the gold rush. So like him to europe and took him back and like ended in the gold rush so like incredible uh guy but but if you were like what was his name i was i'd be like little pump that was his rapper name he really did have extraordinary life in later life katie the idea of expedition makes it sound very fancy very heroic very

dangerous very official do we have the sense that it achieves what Jefferson has wanted it to achieve? Does Jefferson go, where's my mammoth? Or does he say, thanks very much. Fantastic. That's what we wanted. Lewis had had some pretty extensive scientific training and they did accomplish some scientific research. They made a lot of good maps. They recorded species of plants and animals. They encountered around 70 different native nations. They were constantly walking into communities that were trading and interacting, speaking different languages, and that had really complex economic relations. And I mentioned this earlier earlier but the american wilderness was actually a really sophisticated network of people who had long been there and hate to break it to you jefferson did

not get his mammoths but he got surveillance he got pathways to help the u.s develop these lands for american colonizers you know in those two, they received a lot of help from a lot of native peoples. But this legacy of kindness isn't going to be repaid. The Nuance Window! Well, I mean, that really brings us on to the Nuance Window. And this is where we allow our expert, Professor Katie, to do a two minute little lecture to tell us something we need to know about Sacagawea. And Alex has been asking for it throughout the episode, which is the story of how she becomes really famous. How does she end up in Alex's elementary school education on the wall?

Without much further ado, the nuance window, please. And so in 1902, this woman named Eva Emery Dye publishes a book called The Conquest, The True Story of Lewis and Clark. And she paints Sacagawea as the heroine who guides the Lewis and Clark expedition to success. And again, this is really significant because the men, and only the white men, are the ones hailed as heroes for the first like 100 years after the expedition. And Sacagawea is, as Rebecca Yeager argues, a symbol for Indian acceptance. Sacagawea's knowledge and expertise are key to making sure this expedition is successful, but she's never been part of this story for the first like century afterwards. But then things

start to change when we get to the progressive era in American history, because we have upper middle class white women doing more public work and taking on bigger roles with suffrage and things like that. And so Eva Emery Dye and another woman named Grace Raymond Hebard are the key figures behind this transformation of Sacagawea's image. And Yeager is really clear to point out, you know, that this change in how Americans see Sacagawea still centers the championing of westward expansion and what Yeager calls the main theme of America's triumphant march toward national greatness. And so this is also when we start to see the creation of statues, monuments, memorials, plaques, all kinds of

historical landmarks that are dedicated to Sacagawea. And so the first one was a bronze monument unveiled at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition ina. And so the first one was a bronze monument unveiled at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland. And so this statue is designed by a woman named Alice Cooper, not the musician. All right. This Alice Cooper was born in Iowa in 1875 and went to the Art Institute of Chicago. And the interesting fact is that the National American Women's Suffrage Association raised the funds to build the statue. And so if you look it up, she's looking west. She's got her child on her back.

And the plaque that accompanies it reads, And so this is definitely not the only monument to her, but hopefully this kind of helps demonstrate how and why this shift occurs and how she gets co-opted by the suffrage movement and shapes how we see her today. Amazing. Thank you so much. So what do you know now? Lovely. Okay, so it's time now for the So What do you know now this is where we figure out how much alex has learned it's a quickfire quiz last time out you got nine out of ten alex strong do you

feel like today's episode has been trickier i mean much i've got no uh i remember the answer to one of the last questions was shoes so uh i'm hoping the same thing i'm hoping the answers to one of these is that as well. We'll have to see. All right, I'm coming at you with 10 questions. Are you ready? Here we go. Question one. Sacagawea was born in probably 1788. How old was she when she joined the Corps of Discovery? She was 16. She was. Question two. Sacagawea was a name given to her by her Hidatsa captors. What does it translate to? It means boat, paddler, or bird woman. Very good.

Question three. What nation did Sacagawea belong to? She was Shoshone. She was Shoshone. Question four. What was the name of Sacagawea's useless and horrible French-Canadian husband? Toussaint. Toussaint Charbonneau.

Very good. I hate that guy. Question five. What natural remedy from an animal was Sacagawea given to hasten the birth of her son? A rattlesnake's rattle. It was. Question six. Praised by Lewis for her fortitude and resolution, what did Sacagawea do when the corpse boat is capsized she was able to salvage most most of their essential medicine and papers and stuff from the water while her husband cried on the on the shore he did question seven as well as being a guide and interpreter sakajewiya's knowledge and skills were essential in negotiating with her brother to acquire what animal? Horses for the trek over the Rocky Mountains.

Seven out of seven so far. Question eight. In January 1806, Sacagawea insisted she be able to join the rest of the party to see what astonishing sight? A beached whale. Yeah. Question nine. Sacagawea leaves no identifiable trace in the archaeological record, but other members of the Corps do. What was the trace they left?

The mercury levels in their fecal matter. It was. It was poop. Question 10. This for a perfect score, Alex. What was the name of Sacagawea's son? They called him Little Pomp, but his Little Pomp or... But it was Jean Baptiste. 10 out of 10. Nailed it. Yeah, wow. Professor Katie taught you well. I mean, that'siste. 10 out of 10.

Nailed it. Yeah, wow. Professor Katie taught you well. I mean, that's phenomenal. Well done, Alex. I mean, I'm going on Rate My Professors right now to give Professor Phillips a 10 out of 10. Ah, impressive stuff, Alex.

Now, listeners, if after this episode you're interested in more Indigenous history, why not check out our episode on the Aztecs? Or if you simply want more, Alex, then you can sail on over to the Mayflower episode. And remember, if you've had a laugh, if you learned some stuff, please do share this podcast with your friends or leave a review online and make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. A huge thank you to our fantastic guests in History Corner. We've had the marvellous Professor Katie Phillips from

Macalester College. Thank you, Katie. Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun. And in Comedy Corner, we've had the awesome Alex Edelman. Thank you, Alex. Thanks for having me. It's always fun to have you here. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we tackle another historical tale with another pair of excellent guests. But for now, I'm off to go and stockpile some constipation tablets.

Bye! You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by Charlotte Potter, the script was by Emma Nagoose and me, the project manager was Isla Matthews and the edit producer was Cornelius Mendes. Climate change

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