Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there, and this is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. And I can't help but feel
Speaker 1: that I'm being subtweeted right now before. I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means. Oh, it's where you talk about somebody
Speaker 1: without directly talking about them. He's kind of maybe talk
Speaker 1: about their behavior, how you disapprove of something that they did,
Speaker 1: but you don't directly say this person did this and
Speaker 1: I don't like it, you know. I one time, I
Speaker 1: don't know all this lingo with the Twitter because I
Speaker 1: was never on it, and I was emailing with Jonathan Colton,
Speaker 1: musician Jonathan Colton about coming on movie Crush, and I
Speaker 1: can't remember what I said, but he said something something
Speaker 1: don't at me, and I didn't know what that meant,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what I did. I don't know. I apologize
Speaker 1: if I did something wrong, and I think he was
Speaker 1: kind of like, who is this idiot? Hodgeman likes this guy?
Speaker 1: And I think, don't I mean, didn't that just mean
Speaker 1: you're tagging someone on Twitter or something. Yeah, but usually
Speaker 1: it means like you're you're telling them that they got
Speaker 1: something wrong, or you disagree with what they said, or
Speaker 1: they should be ashamed of what they said. It's usually
Speaker 1: a hostile thing that you're adding somebody or you're you're yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't they're they have made their point and they
Speaker 1: don't want to hear any feedback from you about it.
Speaker 1: That's why. That's kind of what I took from it.
Speaker 1: And you have to like kind of snap a few
Speaker 1: times when you say it. I'm just really so thankful
Speaker 1: still that I never joined Twitter. Just that's the last
Speaker 1: thing I need. I'm already on Facebook, which is terrible.
Speaker 1: I've been enjoying Instagram. I have to say that seems
Speaker 1: like a pretty nice crowd, totally different place. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about all this because we're talking
Speaker 1: about yes we are who truly Yeah, naturally, Who would
Speaker 1: probably a shoe both Instagram and Twitter because she seems
Speaker 1: like a pretty solid human being. She'd be like, don't
Speaker 1: at me, that's right. So um, just to just to
Speaker 1: get this done out of the gate again, I thought
Speaker 1: that her name was pronounced Socca Joweyah. I am not
Speaker 1: like in the minority in the United States at least
Speaker 1: because that's how we were raised to say her name.
Speaker 1: But fortunately we have such things as historians and people
Speaker 1: who listen to Native Americans who have been told over
Speaker 1: the years. Now it's not socca joeya, it's Soaca caauaga. Right,
Speaker 1: there's one pronounced pronunciation of it, but that it's not
Speaker 1: just it's gou um. And we've started to kind of
Speaker 1: pronounce her name correctly. You say it way better than me,
Speaker 1: So why don't you take it well? I mean, gosh,
Speaker 1: this is the third time now we're on this, I've
Speaker 1: seen different things from sicago Away to Sicaga. I think
Speaker 1: in Clark's journal, uh William Clark, that is of Lewis
Speaker 1: and Clark fame spelled it s a h k A
Speaker 1: h emphasis on that g A r w e a,
Speaker 1: so sicag Away or Cicagoa. But then the Shoshone, which
Speaker 1: is a Native American tribe that uh, well we'll get
Speaker 1: to the importance there. Um they say, actually it is
Speaker 1: s a c A j A w e a, and
Speaker 1: it means boat pusher, not the Hidatsa language of bird woman.
Speaker 1: So there is some debate. Yeah. Um. One thing that
Speaker 1: I did see is that Lewis and Clark um and
Speaker 1: they factoring this because Socaa was the the main guide
Speaker 1: and interpreter as they pushed further westward, um she or
Speaker 1: they they actually tried to spell every Indian or Native
Speaker 1: American word that they encountered phonetic as best they could.
Speaker 1: They were terrible spellers, even of English words. I mean
Speaker 1: just like barely literate, it seemed like. But they tried
Speaker 1: their best. Yeah it's really bad, um, but they they
Speaker 1: tried to try to spell every every word that they
Speaker 1: found phonetically. And I think Sacca go Awea's name appears
Speaker 1: seventeen different times in both of their journals, and not
Speaker 1: once do they spell that third syllable guh with a
Speaker 1: J sound with a J. It's always a G. And
Speaker 1: they think that it was a hard G, so that
Speaker 1: it's not Socca jawiyah. So they said it's definitely gif
Speaker 1: and not Jeff right, which it is definitely gift as
Speaker 1: we all know. Uh So, if you listen to the
Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark episode, was it a two parter? I
Speaker 1: feel like it was. It was not. It was not
Speaker 1: new thinking of the evil Kennebil God, it's embarrassing. You
Speaker 1: always bring that up to shame me. I think it's
Speaker 1: shame both of us and Jerry to a certain extent
Speaker 1: as well. She stepped in been like, for God's sakes,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Totally consolidate man. So a great
Speaker 1: episode though. I know in that episode we talked a
Speaker 1: bit obviously about Chicago Way and Ken Burns in his
Speaker 1: great documentary about the Core of Discovery. But she was born,
Speaker 1: she had a she know, she lived a short life,
Speaker 1: and there is a little controversy on how long she
Speaker 1: did live, which we'll get to at the end. But
Speaker 1: she was born in either seventeen or eighty nine as
Speaker 1: a member of the lim Limy is what I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: Eli m h I band of the Shoshone tribe, which
Speaker 1: we spoke about a minute ago. Is this Shoshone or Shoshoni?
Speaker 1: Shoshoni is shy That's what I've always heard, But then
Speaker 1: again I always heard it was ska Joya too. I
Speaker 1: believe she grew up though in a very imagined, lovely,
Speaker 1: lovely part of the country and what is Idaho in
Speaker 1: the Salmon River region. Yes, um so she was actually
Speaker 1: a member of a specific band of the Lemhi Shoshoni.
Speaker 1: Um the salmon eaters is what they were called. Um.
Speaker 1: And she she grew up in that that part of Idaho.
Speaker 1: I guess it was around them the bitter Root mountains
Speaker 1: near the Continental divide, and the bitter Roots are part
Speaker 1: of the Rockies. But yeah, it just sounds absolutely gorgeous. Um.
Speaker 1: The Shoshoni tribe was enemies to the Hidatsa, who you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. And the reason that they say that saka
Speaker 1: Awa means bird woman is because Skawa became an involuntary
Speaker 1: member of the Hidaza tribe when she was around twelve
Speaker 1: years old. Um I didn't get as she was out
Speaker 1: on a buffalo hunt, or if the Hidatza happened to
Speaker 1: be out on a buffalo hunt and came across her,
Speaker 1: did you understand that. I'm not sure, Um. I kind
Speaker 1: of just in my mind and thought that they were out.
Speaker 1: But I guess it doesn't really matter, because either way,
Speaker 1: she was kidnapped and settled with them near what is
Speaker 1: now Bismarck, North Dakota, and here's where her life took
Speaker 1: a or I guess that event actually took her life
Speaker 1: in a very different direction. Uh, and that that was
Speaker 1: a trading center, an international trading center, so people from
Speaker 1: all over the world would kind of stop through there
Speaker 1: to trade their weares. And she was essentially uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to not say kidnapped again. Um, a fringe
Speaker 1: Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau beautiful took her as property.
Speaker 1: He called her his wife. But we can't you know,
Speaker 1: now through today's lens, we've got a lot better about
Speaker 1: not glossing over that stuff. She was property to him.
Speaker 1: She was a teenager, I think, like sixteen or seventeen
Speaker 1: even I think she was, oh was she? Uh? And
Speaker 1: she was about two decades younger than him. And there's
Speaker 1: no other way to say it other than she was property.
Speaker 1: And part of being property was that she was raped
Speaker 1: by Charbonneau. Yeah, like there's there's um, there's no way
Speaker 1: you can put it that that, Like she didn't have
Speaker 1: any say in the matter of whether they had sex,
Speaker 1: so like it's just that's rape, no matter what. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, over the over the years, like she's always
Speaker 1: been referred to as one of his wives because I
Speaker 1: guess Americans didn't want to kind of confront that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, right, So she ends up um living among
Speaker 1: the Haidatsa and as Um Charbonneau's wife slash property Um.
Speaker 1: Because Charbonneau being a fur trader and the Hadatsa Um
Speaker 1: settlement that they lived at, Um being this kind of
Speaker 1: international trading post. He had kind of adopted, like the
Speaker 1: hadats A way of living himself. Um. He had just
Speaker 1: being a fur trader, he had to be able to
Speaker 1: handle himself out in the elements. UM. So I think
Speaker 1: it kind of it was his speed from what I gathered.
Speaker 1: For the rest of his life, he just basically lived
Speaker 1: in a style similar to Native Americans. UM. So she
Speaker 1: aside from being away from her native tribe, she lived,
Speaker 1: you know, probably fairly in a fairly cosmopolitan manner compared
Speaker 1: to how she would have had she never been kidnapped
Speaker 1: from the lem He band of Shoshonees Um. Which is
Speaker 1: kind of sad. But there's one thing that should be said.
Speaker 1: There's there's documentary opinion that she was Um. She was
Speaker 1: not unhappy living on this kind of um, this border
Speaker 1: land between the two cultures. Like she she seemed to
Speaker 1: feel somewhat comfortable um living among you know, the colonizer's
Speaker 1: way of life. UM. On the frontier just as much
Speaker 1: as she did living among the Shoshoni. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: should also point out that a lot of this is
Speaker 1: very little is recorded, a lot of speculative um, because
Speaker 1: you know, there's remarkable well, I guess not remarkable because
Speaker 1: it was eighteen o three, but um, very little actual
Speaker 1: recorded information about her life. But it's remarkable how much
Speaker 1: there is for the well typical teenage Native American girl
Speaker 1: at the time. Um. Like the fact that there's anything
Speaker 1: recorded about her, says, well, it is a kind of
Speaker 1: a huge testimony to her and her personality. No, absolutely, Um.
Speaker 1: So eighteen o three is when Charbonneau takes control of
Speaker 1: her life. Eighteen o three is also when Thomas Jefferson said, Hey,
Speaker 1: we got this uh big tract of land, really sweet
Speaker 1: deal called the Louisiana Purchase, eight hundred and twenty eight
Speaker 1: thousand square miles of land stretching from the Canadian border
Speaker 1: to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Mississippi to Colorado.
Speaker 1: And we need to go see what's out there because
Speaker 1: white people have never explored this territory. Um, I want
Speaker 1: to find a Northwest passage, which was eventually found. They
Speaker 1: were looking in the wrong place, but Um, that's what
Speaker 1: they were sort of after, but they were after more.
Speaker 1: Jefferson really wanted to know what was out there the landscape.
Speaker 1: He wanted maps, He wanted to know about the Native
Speaker 1: American tribes. He wanted to know about the plant life
Speaker 1: and the animal life, and just like, go Merryweather Lewis
Speaker 1: out there and record everything you can. Yeah, Mery Meryweather
Speaker 1: Lewis was Jefferson's personal secretary, and Lewis um selected um
Speaker 1: what was Clark's first name, Josh Billy William William Clark
Speaker 1: Billy Clark um As, who had been his captain in
Speaker 1: UM the Army, as the leader of the expedition. He
Speaker 1: found him to be an able leader and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to come leave this super high prestige UM
Speaker 1: expedition for the president that the entire nation is going
Speaker 1: to be watching. And Clark said, sure, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So Lewis and Clark set out on this expedition and
Speaker 1: they actually traveled I think six miles before they ended
Speaker 1: up um in at that head atsa settlement, Um, which
Speaker 1: is about where they really started to hit the frontier.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, all right, that sounds like a
Speaker 1: great turning point to take a break. So we'll be
Speaker 1: back right after this and pick up with the meeting
Speaker 1: of Loos and Clark and SARKA. Stuff you should know, Nash,
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Okay, Chuck. So we've reached what
Speaker 1: is now today Bismarck, North Dakota at the South Dakota,
Speaker 1: South Dakota. Are you sure? I think so? No, it's
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's Bismarck, North Dakota. Are there two? I
Speaker 1: was gonna say it almost literally doesn't matter. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get crushed for this. It is. No, it's definitely Bismarck,
Speaker 1: North Dakota. Okay, then there that was a misprint. Then
Speaker 1: in the I'll tell you what. Get this. I've got
Speaker 1: this machine called the compute Tour. Are you actually gonna
Speaker 1: look it up? Yeah, I'm gonna look it up. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do a favor for the people of Bismarck for
Speaker 1: once North Dakota. I think it's North Dakota. It is.
Speaker 1: That's weird because I think this is from Austaff Works.
Speaker 1: I got South Dakota written in there. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: let to send an email. I'm not gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: add them yeah, that, don't you know, that's the tagline
Speaker 1: of how stuff works. Don't add us. That's right. So
Speaker 1: apologies to all the people in the both Dakotas, all
Speaker 1: three Dakotas. We met nothing by it, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: do a live show there one day to make up
Speaker 1: for it. Are we sure? Why not? Um, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you later. Okay, all right, where are we? It's November
Speaker 1: two four when they finally land and they meet up
Speaker 1: with Chicago, who is six months pregnant at this point,
Speaker 1: and Charbonneau is get the impression that he's a bit
Speaker 1: of a not a grifter may maybe, but sort of
Speaker 1: an opportunist. Yeah, yeah, I think so for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: like he's a fur trader for Pete's sake, Like you
Speaker 1: gotta be you gotta be a little like that. That
Speaker 1: includes not just survival in the woods and killing animals,
Speaker 1: but also having to you know, get the highest price
Speaker 1: you can for your pelts. So I'm guessing there's a
Speaker 1: bit of used car salesman to Charbonneau. For sure. He
Speaker 1: was not exactly. He was not well liked by Lewis
Speaker 1: and Clark. I don't know that he was heated or despised.
Speaker 1: But I get the impression from reading historians interpretations of
Speaker 1: their their journal entries about Sharbonneau was that he was
Speaker 1: kind of a cross between um, Chris Farley, okay, and Gallam.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can't wait to see that photoshop goodness, yea,
Speaker 1: who's going to take care of that for us? So
Speaker 1: just this idea that this guy was not competent necessarily
Speaker 1: and was maybe a little bit evil. Um. And that's that's,
Speaker 1: you know, all you need to know about Scharbonneau. I
Speaker 1: also get the impression, Chuck, that there was a there
Speaker 1: was a you know, we'll talk about later, but there
Speaker 1: was Kaga was plucked from historic obscurity and really kind
Speaker 1: of raised up on this pedestal. And I think rightly so.
Speaker 1: But there was a sport that developed alongside of that
Speaker 1: where you could very easily raise up by contrasting her
Speaker 1: to her good for nothing slave holdings quote husband, um,
Speaker 1: and showing how just just terrible he was at everything.
Speaker 1: It made her look all of them all the much better.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a sport to it. There's a
Speaker 1: kind of a long history of putting down Charbonneau. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think that it's kind of rooted in fact,
Speaker 1: from what I understand. Yeah, So at any rate, he
Speaker 1: comes along and he's like, hey, you guys really need
Speaker 1: to bring me along. And uh, and my wife slash
Speaker 1: property here. Um, I speak Datza and French, and they're like,
Speaker 1: we don't really need that, but I see that Chicago
Speaker 1: Way speaks Shoshone, and we really need to learn that
Speaker 1: because at a certain point gonna need to talk to
Speaker 1: them to get some horses. Uh. And since we can't
Speaker 1: hire a woman because it's three, we have to actually
Speaker 1: hire the husband to get her to come along. I
Speaker 1: guess you both can come. Yeah. So like we got
Speaker 1: to explain why um Chicago Way being Shoshone was really important,
Speaker 1: and it was, like you said, those horses somehow, I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure how they already knew this, because these
Speaker 1: are the first Americans to chart a course westward. But
Speaker 1: they knew that the um the Missouri River and the
Speaker 1: Columbia River was um was separated by mountains, the Rocky Mountains,
Speaker 1: the bitter Root Mountains to be specific, and that since
Speaker 1: they were taking to the river, they were going to
Speaker 1: need to get from one river to the other, and
Speaker 1: that the Shoshoni Indians happened to live exactly where they
Speaker 1: needed um or where they needed to pass through, where
Speaker 1: they needed the most help, where they needed horses, and
Speaker 1: so having a Shoshone along to help broker a deal
Speaker 1: would be incredibly useful, so useful in fact, that the
Speaker 1: arrangement was going to be that when they finally met
Speaker 1: up with the Shoshoni tribe in this area where they
Speaker 1: needed the horses the most, um Sicagowa was going to
Speaker 1: speak to the Shoshones and then she was going to translate,
Speaker 1: with the Shoshones said into Hadazza to um Charbonneau. Charbonneau
Speaker 1: was going to translate from um Hadatza into French for
Speaker 1: a French speaking member of the Court Discovery, who would
Speaker 1: then translate from French into English for Lewis and Clark.
Speaker 1: That's how he didn't No, he spoke Hadazza in French.
Speaker 1: So an addition to no, he so he did. He
Speaker 1: did play a role that was important. He was going
Speaker 1: to translate from Datsa into French. Um. It would have
Speaker 1: been way better if he had spoken English. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it just meant another person in the chain. Everything came
Speaker 1: out purple Monkey dishwatcher at the end. So uh, one
Speaker 1: thing we failed to mention, I think, which is just remarkable,
Speaker 1: is that um, a few a couple of months before
Speaker 1: they leave together. Uh, Chicago has her son, Jean Baptiste UM,
Speaker 1: known as Baptiste and so. And I know we talked
Speaker 1: about this in Lewis and Clark, but I think I
Speaker 1: didn't have a kid at the time. It's just astounding
Speaker 1: to me now that I've had a two month old
Speaker 1: baby two to take and like keeping that baby alive
Speaker 1: and all the comforts of you know, modern day America.
Speaker 1: To take a baby like that on a voyage like
Speaker 1: this is astounding. Yeah. Yeah, it's really remarkable. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if you look at all of the
Speaker 1: memorials to Chicago Aya, UM, I don't think there's one
Speaker 1: out there that doesn't also show Baptiste as well of
Speaker 1: not um. Not just because he was an adopted honorary
Speaker 1: member of the Court of Discovery basically a mascot sure um,
Speaker 1: but also because it just goes to point out just
Speaker 1: how astounding what his mom did UM was. You know.
Speaker 1: I think when when Chicago was put on the the
Speaker 1: dollar coin in the United States in two thousand, UM,
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton famously referred to her as the original working mom. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty cool designation. I thought so too. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's great to to just that that she's
Speaker 1: remembered as you know, doing all this with a baby
Speaker 1: strap to her back the whole time. Right. So, um,
Speaker 1: that's their plan they plan to get there, send her
Speaker 1: out to talk to the Shoshoni tribe to get these horses.
Speaker 1: But which was a good plan, but it was even
Speaker 1: way better. It worked out like almost like it had
Speaker 1: been written in a movie script or something, because I
Speaker 1: think it is. Lewis shows up first and has contacts
Speaker 1: with an older woman of the tribe, and then about
Speaker 1: sixty Shoshone on horseback ride up and they're like, you
Speaker 1: seem like a decent guy, you're friendly, let's all make
Speaker 1: this workout. Then Park's group shows up about a day
Speaker 1: later with Chicago Way and they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's you. You were the one that was kidnapped and
Speaker 1: taken away so many years ago. And then Chief kama
Speaker 1: Wait rides up and it's Icago Way's brother. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: not only did they get to have this reunion, but um,
Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark are like, yes, we're going to Yeah,
Speaker 1: the chief is her brother, Like this is perfect. But
Speaker 1: you know what that stuck out to me as Chuck,
Speaker 1: Um that meant that Chicago way, it probably would have
Speaker 1: met Lewis and Clark even if she had never been kidnapped.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, maybe didn't that really crazy to think like
Speaker 1: that one way or another she was going to probably
Speaker 1: meet Lewis and Clark even even with her life diverging
Speaker 1: that radically from its you know, original projected path. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what it really did was um, I mean, she
Speaker 1: was already proving to be useful in that she could
Speaker 1: identify berries and things that you could eat and plants
Speaker 1: that you could use as medicine, and kind of acted
Speaker 1: as the um the navigator in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: like no, we need to go this way. I've been
Speaker 1: here before, this is where I grew up. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a huge, huge rock called Beaverhead Rock that she um
Speaker 1: famously recognized that you can go visit and stand in
Speaker 1: the place basically where she showed Lewis and Clark like, look,
Speaker 1: my my people are going to be right around here.
Speaker 1: I recognize this place. Yeah, so they've already got all
Speaker 1: this respect for up until that point. And then she
Speaker 1: has such an end with the Shoshone. Like you said,
Speaker 1: they get I'm sure a really good deal on the horses.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but they get help. They get
Speaker 1: like they kind of partner up with them to help
Speaker 1: them along, which is a really big deal. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark's expedition had UM somewhere in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: of forty people, involved huge boats, several huge boats, lots
Speaker 1: of equipment, lots of instruments. And some people say, well,
Speaker 1: like if they needed horses a bad way and they
Speaker 1: bring the horses because they traveled by water, they really
Speaker 1: needed horses really really badly. But just for this one
Speaker 1: specific part of the trip in between the Missouri and
Speaker 1: the Columbia River, Thomas Jefferson very famous famously called a
Speaker 1: dilly of a pickle that they had run into. UM.
Speaker 1: But the fact that they were able to get the
Speaker 1: horses from the shown um, it just basically checked this
Speaker 1: enormous box that the whole expedition UM was predicated on.
Speaker 1: They just couldn't They could not have completed their mission
Speaker 1: without this and UM, so I could go away and
Speaker 1: basically brokered that made sure that box got checked. And
Speaker 1: there's one other thing that stands out about her too,
Speaker 1: that that gets overlooked us on a few places. Um,
Speaker 1: Charbonneau had another wife who was Shoshone, and if they
Speaker 1: needed a Shoshoni speaker, who was who was? You know
Speaker 1: with Sharbonneau who came with Sharbonneau. Um, they could have
Speaker 1: very easily gone with Otter woman the other the other
Speaker 1: Um I guess victim of Charbonneau. Um, And they didn't.
Speaker 1: They went with Sacagea, who knowing full well that she
Speaker 1: came with an infant, now like there was going to
Speaker 1: be an infant, even though with Otter Woman there wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been so clearly. Chicago way is like putting out
Speaker 1: the right kind of vibes. That's saying like, I'm extraordinarily competent.
Speaker 1: You should probably pick me, even though if you pick me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be bringing a newborn baby along on
Speaker 1: this frontier trek. Um. I think that says a lot
Speaker 1: about the kind of UM I guess, charisma or competence
Speaker 1: or whatever. She was putting out that that that Lewis
Speaker 1: and Clark were like, yes, I think she would be
Speaker 1: the better of the two. Yeah, because you don't want
Speaker 1: a two month old baby along. No, But if you're
Speaker 1: you're cute. But now but if you say, okay, we'll
Speaker 1: have a two month baby along like that says a
Speaker 1: lot about the mom that's carrying the baby around and
Speaker 1: where her abilities are. I think, yeah, absolutely. Um. She
Speaker 1: also proved her worth when and I can't remember if
Speaker 1: we I think we might have talked about this when
Speaker 1: there was one of their sailing vessels almost capsized when
Speaker 1: a big squall hit it. Apparently Charbonneau was navigating. He
Speaker 1: panicked under pressure, and it was Chicago Way who was
Speaker 1: calm and said, you know what, we need to get
Speaker 1: these papers together. We need to get the books that
Speaker 1: we've been writing in, all these navigational instruments and medicines
Speaker 1: and provisions and other stuff. We need to get it
Speaker 1: all together and take care of it. And oh also
Speaker 1: this baby, uh and basically saved that situation. And Charbonneau
Speaker 1: was just you know, he was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh my god, oh my gosh, sacarbl
Speaker 1: sac Blue is right. So yeah, that was That's one
Speaker 1: of the big stories that's told about Sacagaweya so much.
Speaker 1: So I mean, um that that either Lewis or Clark
Speaker 1: wrote about it, and basically was like, Um, this this
Speaker 1: second away is an amazing person, Like she's she's doing
Speaker 1: stuff that other members of the Corps not doing. I
Speaker 1: mean there's I think at least twelve members of the
Speaker 1: Corps Discovery who aren't mentioned by name in either of
Speaker 1: the journals of Lewis and Clark throughout the expedition. They
Speaker 1: did work, they did their their job obviously, UM, but
Speaker 1: they didn't get mentioned because they weren't doing stuff like
Speaker 1: Scagueya was. And I think the fact that she's mentioned
Speaker 1: multiple times with kind of um frequently discussing like just
Speaker 1: they're impressed, how impressed they were with her, it says
Speaker 1: a lot as well. Um. Yeah, I mean they named
Speaker 1: because of that sailing incident, they named a branch of
Speaker 1: the Missouri River after her. And I think Clark um
Speaker 1: was the one who really closer to her. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: really hard to get a read on exactly what the
Speaker 1: nature of their relationship was. It seems just like maybe
Speaker 1: mentor type of relationship, and that he kind of took
Speaker 1: her under his wing and took these long walks with her. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything untoward about it. It is
Speaker 1: kind of what I'm getting at. I don't have that
Speaker 1: impression either, and I have not run across the history
Speaker 1: and that's asserted that there was something untoward about it
Speaker 1: either the way they were close, the way yeah they
Speaker 1: were The way I took it was like an adopted
Speaker 1: little sister kind of thing. Yeah, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: way I see it. I also don't think Charbonneau would
Speaker 1: have stood for that. I think that would have been
Speaker 1: not okay with him, because he was the kind of
Speaker 1: guy who would be like, that's my property, you know, right, Well,
Speaker 1: of course, so I yeah, I don't have the impression,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I thought the same thing, you know as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in fact, they thought so much of her, especially Clark.
Speaker 1: And this is a really telling thing is that they
Speaker 1: gave when they reached the Pacific coast, there was a
Speaker 1: vote on whether or not to stay there for the
Speaker 1: winter or not, and they actually let her vote, which
Speaker 1: in the early eight hundreds, to let a woman have
Speaker 1: a vote like that was remarkable. So um, when they
Speaker 1: when they decided to stay, that vote um led to
Speaker 1: them staying in what's now a story of Oregon. They
Speaker 1: build a winter quarters called Fort clats Up after a
Speaker 1: friendly tribe nearby, and so what I thought too, but
Speaker 1: it's it's close. There's an l in there. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: clasts up. Uh. But the class up people said, hey,
Speaker 1: get this, there's a beached whale. You gotta see this thing.
Speaker 1: It's enormous. And so I think Louis was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go check this out. You guys stay here
Speaker 1: and psychic away. I know we talked about this in
Speaker 1: the Lewis and Clark episode Psychic Way and said, look, man,
Speaker 1: I have walked a long ways and helped you guys out,
Speaker 1: and the idea that you're not going to let me
Speaker 1: see the ocean. I've never seen any ocean. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna let me see the ocean and this giant whale
Speaker 1: that's been beached come on. And so Louis relented very famously.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, come along, so it's I could
Speaker 1: go away a kind of. She put her foot down
Speaker 1: basically and said, no, I'm I'm going to see this
Speaker 1: um that would be unusually cruel not to let me.
Speaker 1: So she went and saw this, this giant whale, She
Speaker 1: saw the ocean for the first time. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty big I've never seen a beached whale imagine
Speaker 1: seeing a beached whale the first time you see the
Speaker 1: ocean too, you know. Yeah, I remember when I uh
Speaker 1: as a young kid when I we showed my grandmother
Speaker 1: the ocean for the first time, and she was in
Speaker 1: her uh jeez, she was probably in her seventies. She
Speaker 1: lived to be a hundred, so she had to be
Speaker 1: in her mid seventies when we took her the ocean
Speaker 1: and we walked her out there, and she walked out
Speaker 1: on the beach. I'll never forget it and said, oh
Speaker 1: it's big, that's cute, and that was about it. She
Speaker 1: didn't hang out for long. It's like, I'm good, this
Speaker 1: is enough. Yeah, And there was no whale to poke
Speaker 1: with a stick. So, um you I'm kidding, by the way,
Speaker 1: you should never do that, poke a whale with a stick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I was making a joke. That wasn't nice.
Speaker 1: I think everybody knew that chuck. Yeah, you try and
Speaker 1: get that whale back in the water if you can,
Speaker 1: now with the stick, though not with the stick. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to take our second break, Yeah, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about how this all wrapped up in what happened to
Speaker 1: her afterward. Right for this st you should know, gosh
Speaker 1: suck stuff, you should know. Okay, So they made it
Speaker 1: to the Pacific. They overwintered there and I think eighteen
Speaker 1: o five eighteen os X and then they started to
Speaker 1: make their way back, and um, they actually went right
Speaker 1: back to the same um hitatsa settlement that international training
Speaker 1: post or outside of Bismarck, North Dakota, UM where they
Speaker 1: picked up Charbonneau and Sacaga and they said, hey, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, We'll see you guys later. And everywhere I saw, um,
Speaker 1: Charbonneau was paid something like five dollars and thirty three
Speaker 1: cents for his efforts, and Psycha was not paid anything. Um,
Speaker 1: although I saw also in this article that she was
Speaker 1: paid as well, what do you can do? You have
Speaker 1: any idea? Yeah, you know, I was confused to everywhere
Speaker 1: else I looked said that she did not get direct payment,
Speaker 1: which article said that she did. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be right. Um. Or maybe they
Speaker 1: just sort of said, well, since her captor slash husband
Speaker 1: was paid and sort of means she was. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but I saw nowhere else that said that she was
Speaker 1: actually paid independently, and I mean that would make the
Speaker 1: most sense you know, although after that that expedition, it's
Speaker 1: I could I would also not be surprised if she
Speaker 1: was paid directly, even though it bucked you know, convention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got paid five dollars and three and twenty acres
Speaker 1: of land, which was pretty good. And it's like, I
Speaker 1: tried to do a inflation comp but it's they don't
Speaker 1: even have anything. I think it said, like when you
Speaker 1: when you go that far back, you can't even compare
Speaker 1: it to today's Really west, they gave me a um
Speaker 1: an estimate of about nine grand. Oh see, I saw.
Speaker 1: I saw that too, but I didn't see that as
Speaker 1: a as a direct inflation calculator, more like the goods
Speaker 1: that you could have bought back then. No, no, I
Speaker 1: saw that. It just didn't seem like a wonder one
Speaker 1: to me. Um even still, it seems like, really I
Speaker 1: would I would imagine five dollars back then would be
Speaker 1: like ten trillion today, you know, Yeah, it would seem
Speaker 1: it would seem to be the case. It's it's a
Speaker 1: little weird, but yeah, because I mean, like a journey
Speaker 1: of thousands of miles um at the behest of the
Speaker 1: president of the United States getting paid nine grand seems
Speaker 1: like it just seems like you would get more than that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but then again, he's a fur trapper
Speaker 1: who only speaks at Atza in French, so who knows.
Speaker 1: I think what confused me is like if you enter
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars a hundred years later, it's like fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand or maybe that does work. I don't know. It
Speaker 1: just didn't seem to work out math wise. But what
Speaker 1: do I know? Yeah, no, I'm with you. Who you
Speaker 1: kind of have to be able to peer back into
Speaker 1: the vagaries of the American economy over the last couple
Speaker 1: of hundred years to suss that out. I looked it
Speaker 1: up and it said that what that would be today
Speaker 1: would be two hundred eight beaver tails and nine thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Poor beaver. I know. That's the other thing about Sharbonneau
Speaker 1: that people don't say. He killed a lot of animals
Speaker 1: for their pelts. So all right, so after the expedition,
Speaker 1: she stayed with Charbonneau. Um, I think a few years
Speaker 1: later they moved to with Little Baptiste moved to St. Louis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the invitation of m clark, right, yeah, and it says
Speaker 1: you know that they he offered them an opportunity of
Speaker 1: land to farm, which I don't quite get because he
Speaker 1: just got three acres of land. I was wondering if
Speaker 1: that was one and the same. Maybe I couldn't quite
Speaker 1: part that out, but at any rate, he's like, here,
Speaker 1: you come, here, here's some land to farm if you
Speaker 1: let me educate your son, uh in the you know,
Speaker 1: American sort of schooling system, and uh, you know that
Speaker 1: was he was the godfather or of the boy at
Speaker 1: that point. Really cared a lot about Baptiste and Chicago, ay,
Speaker 1: and one of the best for him, and I think
Speaker 1: that was a pretty decent deal for Charbonneu. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, um, I believe Clark officially adopted Baptiste as
Speaker 1: his guardian at least, if not as his his adopted parent. Um.
Speaker 1: And he was educated at the St. Louis Academy, I believe,
Speaker 1: and then he um. I don't know how he met him,
Speaker 1: but that Baptiste went on to meet a German prince
Speaker 1: who was like, Hey, you should totally come back and
Speaker 1: hang with me in Germany and I'll make sure you
Speaker 1: get a European education, and he did. He moved to
Speaker 1: Europe and was educated there. Um lived a pretty interesting life. Said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to America. Became a trapper for
Speaker 1: a while. Um had a bunch of different interesting jobs.
Speaker 1: I believe it was a hotel clerk in Auburn, California
Speaker 1: for a little while. Um. So, yeah, he did a
Speaker 1: bunch of different stuff and had a pretty pretty amazing life, uh,
Speaker 1: in addition to basically being this the official mascot of
Speaker 1: the Core of Discoveries expedition. Yeah, and he he ended
Speaker 1: up taking guardianship because Charbonneau and Chicago Way left in
Speaker 1: April eighteen eleven to go on another fur trading expedition,
Speaker 1: and they left Baptist with him. So I can I
Speaker 1: think it kind of worked out for everyone. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get the impression. It wasn't like we don't want
Speaker 1: our kid and Louis give me your kid. I think
Speaker 1: like it was for the best interest of the kid,
Speaker 1: and they all loved him very much. That's the impression
Speaker 1: I have. She also had a daughter about a year
Speaker 1: after that, in eighteen twelve, Lisette or Lizette, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's an s or Z. And this is
Speaker 1: where we get to the sort of fork in the
Speaker 1: road as to what actually happened to Chicago way, and
Speaker 1: there are a couple of stories. One is that she
Speaker 1: died not long after of what was called putrid fever
Speaker 1: or which is probably typhoid fever. There's another story and
Speaker 1: which she would have been about twenty five years old
Speaker 1: in December of eighteen twelve. There's another story that she
Speaker 1: went on to live a very long life in another
Speaker 1: part of the country. But I think that one has
Speaker 1: kind of been shot down, right. Yeah, So at the
Speaker 1: at the turn of the last century, um, CHICAGOA was
Speaker 1: kind of dug out of obscurity. Um. Well, actually there
Speaker 1: was a guy who was the the official I don't know,
Speaker 1: biographer chronicler of the Core of Discoveries expedition where he
Speaker 1: was in charge. His name was A Biddle. I believe
Speaker 1: he was in charge of basically taking the um notes
Speaker 1: of the Core discovering getting them ready for publication. You
Speaker 1: just couldn't publish the whole thing like that. He he
Speaker 1: edited them basically, but he also interviewed Clark, and out
Speaker 1: of his interviews with Clark, we we found a lot
Speaker 1: more out about Chicago Aya than we knew before. And
Speaker 1: Biddle was like, this is a very interesting story right here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put Chicago away a front and center. So
Speaker 1: he kind of brought Chicago way into the foreground for
Speaker 1: the first time. But then, almost a century later, as
Speaker 1: the UM the women's suffrage movement was starting to gain
Speaker 1: momentum Uh, there was a woman named Um Emily no
Speaker 1: Eva emery Die who wrote a book about the Lewis
Speaker 1: and Clark expedition and said, here's my heroine. Chicago is
Speaker 1: a heroine. I'm going to basically use her as an
Speaker 1: icon for the suffragette movement. UM. And that's how she
Speaker 1: kind of became this this symbol from that point on.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what kicked up the spiel, though you
Speaker 1: asked a question, you said something, What was it? Do
Speaker 1: you remember my spiel about how UM Chicago was kind
Speaker 1: of brought out of obscurity by these writers. Oh oh, um,
Speaker 1: where where it came? This idea came from that um
Speaker 1: she had she had gone on to live a long life. UM.
Speaker 1: That first book that was written by Eva emery Die
Speaker 1: was picked up by another historian who said, you know what, Um,
Speaker 1: I've heard these stories about this woman who went on
Speaker 1: to live at the wind River plant Um Reservation. And
Speaker 1: I think she's actually Chicago, WEA. And that kind of
Speaker 1: kicked off this whole hunt. Yeah, because like you said,
Speaker 1: there was I mean, there are numerous, um, numerous people
Speaker 1: who wrote down sort of officially that she did die
Speaker 1: very young at five years old, including I think Clark
Speaker 1: uh in one of his um I think like maybe
Speaker 1: a financial leisure leisure ledger. It was a cash book
Speaker 1: about like where people like where are they? Where they now?
Speaker 1: Basically have they've been paid? And uh, next to her
Speaker 1: name he just wrote dead, which not even a face next.
Speaker 1: I guess if it's a ledger, you're just trying to
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, be cold about it. But that
Speaker 1: someone who really cared a lot about her, it seemed
Speaker 1: it probably wasn't the right place to wax philosophical, right.
Speaker 1: But also some people have said, um, well, no, he
Speaker 1: was covering for her because she The legend goes that
Speaker 1: she left Sharbonneau ran off to live a life away
Speaker 1: from her as an independent woman, right exactly, which really
Speaker 1: kind of dovetailed with the suffragette movements, um, push for
Speaker 1: women's rights. Um, So that was a great idea that
Speaker 1: that that that's what she did, and the idea was
Speaker 1: that Clark was covering for her in his little cash
Speaker 1: ledgers by saying she was dead, knowing full well she
Speaker 1: was alive. Other people are like, who's going to ever
Speaker 1: look in Clark's cash ledger? Like Sharponne is ever going
Speaker 1: to get his hands on it? That's probably not correct.
Speaker 1: And there the whole idea that she went on to
Speaker 1: live on the wind River Reservation until age a hundred
Speaker 1: when she died in like the eighteen eighties, makes for
Speaker 1: a good story. It makes for a great story. And
Speaker 1: there was a woman who did live like that. Her
Speaker 1: name was Para evo Um, also known as Basil's mother,
Speaker 1: who lived to be a hundred and a lot of
Speaker 1: people said, no, that's soccagaweya. But that was before more
Speaker 1: historical record came out Um, including an account from a
Speaker 1: guy who worked for the same fur trading company that
Speaker 1: Charbonneau did knew Charbonneau personally and wrote in his journal
Speaker 1: had no reason to make anything up. But in December,
Speaker 1: I think on December twentie of eighteen twelve, was it
Speaker 1: wrote that Charbonneau's wife, uh, he's the one who said
Speaker 1: that she had a putrid fever and died and that
Speaker 1: she was the best woman in the fort. She was
Speaker 1: a good woman and the best woman in the fort.
Speaker 1: She was aged about twenty five years, which totally fits
Speaker 1: the bill for Chicago auayah. And she left the fine
Speaker 1: infant girl. Yes, so once that once that guy's journal
Speaker 1: was found, that was basically the nail in the coffin
Speaker 1: of the idea that Chicago Aua had had lived to
Speaker 1: age a hundred after escaping her captor husband. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think what kind of cool, as you know, even though
Speaker 1: there's very little officially recorded about her life, everywhere she
Speaker 1: is recorded, it's all glowing praise um. There's not like
Speaker 1: one entry where anyone was ever like, boy Cicago and
Speaker 1: that baby are really like, what a mistake that was.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, she was a boon to the Core
Speaker 1: Discovery and a big, big part of its success. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so as a result, Chuck Um Lifetime is in
Speaker 1: Lifetime Movie Network. Lifetime. I couldn't find the year, but
Speaker 1: they recently conducted a survey of memorials to create the
Speaker 1: Lifetime Her Story map, and of I think hundred plus statues,
Speaker 1: monuments and memorials that exists in the United States, only
Speaker 1: about two hundred, which is around four honor Women, but
Speaker 1: of those, two hundred sixteen honor Cicagowa, which means that
Speaker 1: she is the most honored woman via monuments and statues
Speaker 1: in the entire United States. Amazing. The first one, from
Speaker 1: what I read, was by a group of suffragettes in Portland,
Speaker 1: Oregon in NT five, And that statue is obviously still
Speaker 1: there today, and it is beautiful. And guess who's strapped
Speaker 1: to her back in the statue? Um, loss set little
Speaker 1: Baptisset's right, you got anything else? No other than and
Speaker 1: we should mention. I don't think we know a lot
Speaker 1: about what happened to Lasette. Unfortunately she was sort of
Speaker 1: lost to history. Yeah, for sure. Um, I guess that's it.
Speaker 1: That's it, all right. So since we said that's it,
Speaker 1: that means it's time everybody for listener mail. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do a couple of corrections. A bit of a
Speaker 1: maya culpa for me. In a correction, Um, I said
Speaker 1: the word redneck a lot entitled the episode about the Clan.
Speaker 1: Uh use the word redneck, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have. That's a derogatory term. The name actually
Speaker 1: has a different history. I think West Virginia Coal Miners
Speaker 1: has something to do with that, and I just wasn't
Speaker 1: really being as sensitive enough. I'm not apologizing for for
Speaker 1: degrading the clan, but I probably shouldn't use the word
Speaker 1: rednecked with such a broadbrush. Think about it. The chuck
Speaker 1: that means the clan is so rotten they give Rednecks
Speaker 1: a bad name. That's essentially what we're saying here. I
Speaker 1: love it. Uh. And then as from that same episode,
Speaker 1: we need to address the Robert Bird instant from a
Speaker 1: lot of people that, Yeah, so I think we were
Speaker 1: talking about Senator Robert Bird sort of being unapologetic about
Speaker 1: being in the clan. That was very much not the case.
Speaker 1: This is one of the many emails, and this is
Speaker 1: from Aaron Patrick Lyons. He him his hey, listen to
Speaker 1: the great episode in the KKK, and as usual, did
Speaker 1: a bang up job. However, I have to take issue
Speaker 1: with Josh's statement indicating the Senator Robert Bird was an
Speaker 1: unrepentant Lansman. He was indeed an exalted cyclops or local
Speaker 1: leader of the clan in the fifties into the fifties,
Speaker 1: but through the seventies and eighties he had a sincere
Speaker 1: change of heart regarding race relations and voted for the
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior National Holiday, among other legislation in
Speaker 1: his very long career. He was deeply embarrassed, embarrassed and
Speaker 1: apologetic about his time in the clan UH. And that
Speaker 1: is like I said, from Eric Patrick, Aaron Patrick Lyons,
Speaker 1: and Cedar Paul's Iowa. We heard from a lot of
Speaker 1: people that um, not only did he vote for the
Speaker 1: MLK holiday, but apparently did a lot of work for
Speaker 1: legislation to UH for equal rights for African Americans. I
Speaker 1: totally flubbed that one. To my apologies to Robert Bird's
Speaker 1: family for his legacy in that small way, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad we got corrected almost immediately right after the episode
Speaker 1: came out. It was I can't believe you guys used
Speaker 1: redneck so much. You were totally wrong about Robert Burg.
Speaker 1: So this this listener mail is perfect. And then there's
Speaker 1: one other thing I want to say too about the
Speaker 1: neck thing, chuck Um. Somebody pointed out I think it
Speaker 1: was on Twitter that using the word redneck it's not
Speaker 1: only derogatory towards rednecks, it obfuscated it cover it up.
Speaker 1: All of the people who aren't rednecks, who see who
Speaker 1: are just kind of everyday normal people who are either
Speaker 1: in the clan or subscribe to the clan's ideologies. That
Speaker 1: it makes it seem like just this marginal group um
Speaker 1: or a marginal thought or fringe thought, when it's really
Speaker 1: kind of subscribed to by an alarming number of people
Speaker 1: that you know, you live in, work beside, and might
Speaker 1: never really guess at just how deep their racism goes.
Speaker 1: So I think that's another reason to have a shoot
Speaker 1: it as well. Yeah, and you know, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: stick up for myself, but I think when you grow
Speaker 1: up in the South, you might feel like you have
Speaker 1: a little bit of ownership. So yeah, my apologies to
Speaker 1: all the great rednecks of the world. That's right. Sorry
Speaker 1: Jeff Foxworthy, Sorry Larry the Cable Guy, who's actually not
Speaker 1: really a redneck if you listen to David cross Is
Speaker 1: beef with him. Yeah, I mean that's a that's fully
Speaker 1: an act, right. Yeah, from what I understand, he created
Speaker 1: that persona to get more fans and comedy. That's right.
Speaker 1: Uh smart, that's right. And uh, well, I guess since
Speaker 1: we started talking about Larry the Cable Guy, that's the
Speaker 1: end of this episode and listener mail is petered out.
Speaker 1: Uh And if you want to get in touch with
Speaker 1: us to correct us or call us out for something
Speaker 1: or whatever, um lay it on us, send us an
Speaker 1: email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio for
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.