As for Sacajawea, she has a monument--a very poor and inadequate one--in the city of Portland, Oregon. The crest of the Great Divide, where she met her brother, would have been a better place. It was here, in effect, that she ended that extraordinary guidance--some call it nothing less than providential--which brought the white men through in safety.
Trace this Indian girl's birth and childhood, here among the Shoshones, who had fled to the mountains to escape the guns of the Blackfeet. Recall her capture here by the Minnetarees from the Dakota country. Picture her long journey thence to the east, on foot, by horse, in bull-hide canoes, many hundreds of miles, to the Mandan villages. It is something of a journey, even now. Reverse that journey, go against the swift current of the waters, beyond the Great Falls, past Helena, west of the Yellowstone Park, and up to the Continental Divide, where she met her brother. You will find that that is still more of a journey, even today, with roads, and towns, and maps to guide you. Meriwether Lewis could not have made it without her.
While he was studying the courses of the stars, at Philadelphia, preparing to lead his expedition, Sacajawea was learning the story of nature also; and she was waiting to guide the white men when they reached the Mandan villages. Who guided her in such unbelievably strange fashion? The Indians sometimes made long journeys, their war parties traveled far, and their captives also; but in all the history of the tribes there is no record of a journey made by any Indian woman equal to that of Sacajawea. Why did she make it? What hand pointed out the way for her?
A statue to her? She should have a thousand memorials along the old trail! Her name should be known familiarly by every school child in America!] All were now content to lie for a few days at the Shoshone village. A brisk trade in Indian horses now sprang up--they would be footmen no more.
"Which way, Sacajawea?" Meriwether Lewis once more asked the Indian girl.
But now she only shook her head.
"Not know," said she. "These my people. They say big river that way. Not know which way."
"Now, Merne," said William Clark, "it's my turn again. We have got to learn the best way out from these mountains. If there is a big river below, some of these valleys must run down to it. Their waters probably flow to the Columbia. The Indians talk of salmon and of white men--they have heard of goods which must have been made by white men. We are in touch with the Pacific here. I'll get a guide and explore off to the southwest. It looks better there."