By Taylor Paraboschi
Yale professor Alfred Bollet gave a lecture on the life and legacy of Sacagawea in the Guthart Cultural Center Theater this past Wednesday, as part of the University’s Women’s History month celebration. As an opening to his lecture, Bollet listed the many monuments that have been erected in Sacagawea’s honor, and the various geographical features that have been named after her.
“She has 24 statues erected for her, five of which are with Lewis and Clark,” said Bollet, adding that she also has four mountains, three lakes and a river dedicated to her. Bollet went on to mention that in 2000, she was honored with her picture being minted on a gold dollar coin, making her the second woman ever to have their picture minted on a gold dollar.
The focal point of his lecture was the legacy that Sacagawea left behind, and the controversy that surrounds the time and place of her death. Bellot explained that one historical record states that Sacagawea died in December of 1812, at the age of 25, while there is a gravesite in Lander, Wyo., that was constructed for her, stating that she passed away in 1884 at the age of 96. “Quite a big age gap,” laughed Bellot.
Bellot reasoned that poor record keeping was one of the reasons why it is hard to pin-point exact date of Sacagawea’s death. “The American Memory Site of the Library of Congress has 4,252 entries dedicated to Lewis and Clark, but no entries for Sacagawea,” he said, adding that this was because Sacagawea lived her life in obscurity after the exhibition ended.
He went on to add that in 1825 Clark constructed a record of everyone who was on the exhibition with him and Lewis, and next to Sacagawea’s name he had written deceased.
“The problem with Clark’s record,” Bellot notes, “is that he didn’t have any proof that Sacagawea was actually dead. He didn’t attend the funeral and was only told that she had died in 1812.” To further disprove the theory that she died in 1812, Bellot named numerous people and situations where people had factual evidence of seeing her after the supposed date of her death.
Bellot notes that it is much more likely that she died in 1884 at the age of 96 and goes on to talk about the numerous sightings of Sacagawea after she left her husband in Saint Lewis and was thought to have died in 1812. “She joined the Camanche tribe in Mexico and told nothing of her former life,” he said, adding that her name was changed to Porivo, and that she remarried a Camanche Indian by the name of Inap, who she later had five children with.
According to Bellot, Sacagawea would later separate from the Camanche tribe after the death of her husband Inap, and travel to Fort Bridger where she was told her two sons, Baptiste and Toussaint, from her first marriage were living. “When she arrived at the fort, both Baptiste and Toussaint greeted her and addressed her as mother.”
Bellot spoke of a farmer by the name of Finn Burnett who researched the life of Sacagawea and states in his memoir that the elder Indian by the name of Boinaiu, is actually Sacagawea. Burnett reasons that Boinaiu had to be Sacagawea because the “stories that she told were pretty convincing evidence that she was the actual Sacagawea.”
Bellot went on to add that at each of the various sightings of Sacagawea it was discerned that the elder Indian woman who told the stories of the Lewis and Clark exhibition had to be Sacagawea because only someone who was on the exhibition would know of the experiences that the Indian woman told and be able to reiterate them in great detail. “Three different Indian tribes, the Camanches, the Shoshonis and the Gros Ventres, each mention Sacagawea’s travels in great detail,” he said.
“She is either the real Sacagawea or the greatest imposter in American history,” laughed Bellot when asked what his opinion was on whether or not the elder Indian woman by the name of Boinaiu was in fact Sacagawea.