How good a guide was Sacagawea?
She was hired as an interpreter of the Shoshone language, not as a guide. Although the captains hadn’t planned it, she was a sign of peaceful intention to Indian nations, since women didn’t travel with war parties. Three times she recognized landmarks in her home country of southeastern Montana, and told the captains about them. As they approached the headwaters of the Missouri, she knew they were nearing. As they passed Beaverhead Rock, she said that the Shoshones called it that from its shape. On the return trip, with Captain Clark’s party heading for the Yellowstone River, she told him about what’s now called Bozeman Pass, and the party took that route. Whether these occasions were “guiding” or not is something that today’s historians don’t agree on.
