Sacagawea and Especifismo: Difference between pages

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{{anarchism}}

'''Sacagawea''' ('''Sakakawea''', '''Sacajawea''', '''Sacajewea'''; [[#Spelling and pronunciation|see below]]) (c. [[1787]] – [[December 20]], [[1812]]) was a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] woman who accompanied the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition|Corps of Discovery]] with [[Meriwether Lewis]] and [[William Clark]]. Most of what is known of her life is from incomplete records and is therefore imbued with a great deal of legend and hearsay

<b>Especifismo</b> is an [[anarchist]] [[praxis]] which originates in [[South America]]. Some [[argue]] that it is a [[natural]] [[evolution]] of the [[ideas]] of [[Platformism]] and [[Sintetismo]]. It [[involves]] "1) The [[need]] for a [[specifically]] anarchist [[organization]] [[built]] around a [[unity]] of ideas and praxis. 2) The [[use]] of the specifically anarchist organization to [[theorize]] and [[develop]] [[strategic]] [[political]] and [[organizing]] work. 3) [[Active]] [[involvement]] and building of [[autonomous]] and [[popular]] [[social movements]], called [['social insertion]].' The [[praxis]] [[implies]] the [[existence]] of an orginization that [[manifests]] an [[open]] and specifically anarchist [[adhesion]]. This would be done in order to [[disseminate]] anarchist ideas in a [[form]] that can be visible to the [[militant]] anarchist [[element]] of [[society]]. Especifismo is a praxis that [[expresses]] itself in the [[national]] and [[regional]] anarchist organizations of the world.

==Birth==

She was born to a tribe of [[Shoshone]] near what is now [[Three Forks, Montana]]. However, in 1800, she was kidnapped by a group of [[Hidatsa]], and taken to their village near the present [[Washburn, North Dakota]]. She therefore grew up culturally affiliated with this tribe; some believe her name is taken from the Hidatsa phrase for "'''Bird Woman'''." She was named so because when she was born a flock of white birds flew overhead. The origins and proper pronunciation of her name has become a great point of controversy and contention among interested historians.

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==Marriage==

At the age of about sixteen she married a [[France|French]] trapper, [[Toussaint Charbonneau]], who was also concurrently married to another Shoshone woman. Two accounts survive of Charbonneau's acquisition of Sacagawea: (1) he purchased both from the Hidatsa as wives.Sacagawea was pregnant with their first child when the Corps of Discovery arrived in the area to spend the winter of 1804/05. Needing someone to interpret the Hidatsa language, Lewis and Clark interviewed Charbonneau for the job. Although they were not overly impressed with him, the deal was sealed when they discovered that Sacagawea spoke Shoshone, an added bonus. She would become valuable in her role as interpreter.

==Lewis and Clark==

Contrary to a common romantic view, Sacagawea did not act as a "guide" ''per se'' on the main part of the trip. This falsehood originates in the early feminist movement and the inaccurate history of Grace Hebard. In fact, Sacagawea's knowledge of the land was limited to the areas in which she grew up. Once the party was past her former Shoshone settlement, her knowledge of the land was no greater than that of the rest of the group. Her main duties were as a food gatherer, laborer, and translator. For example, with the Shoshone, she would translate into Hidatsa to her husband Charbonneau, who would then translate into French (he knew little English, but several others in the party knew French). The value of having Sacagawea as a Shoshone translator was proved when they reached her old village, and she was reunited with her brother, Cameahwait, who had by that time become a tribal leader. This smoothed the way in the negotiation to obtain much-needed horses from the Shoshone.

As recorded in the expedition's journals for [[May 14]], [[1805]], Sacagawea proved crucial to the success of the project when her husband Charbonneau capsized a [[pirogue]] the group was using to make its way upriver. Unable to swim, Charbonneau flew into a panic and was unable to help right the situation; Sacagawea therefore calmly went about collecting items which had been lost into the river: instruments, trade items and&mdash;perhaps most important, at least to future generations&mdash;the water-sodden pages of the journals themselves.

After their return to Fort Mandan, the members of the expedition parted ways with Sacagawea in August of 1806. They extended an offer to take the Charbonneau family to [[St. Louis, Missouri|St. Louis]], offering to provide land for the family to farm and an education for Jean Baptiste. This offer was declined at the time, but by 1809 the family had moved to St. Louis. Toussaint Charbonneau abandoned farming after a few months, going with Sacagawea to Fort Manuel (near today's North Dakota/South Dakota border) and leaving Jean Baptiste in the care of William Clark.

Records of Fort Manuel show that Charbonneau then left Sacagawea there while he was off on further travels, and that she died in December 1812 of "putrid fever" (which was at the time a description for what is now called [[diphtheria]]). She would have been approximately 25 years old at the time. It is important to note that these records are disputed by many Native Americans, and there also is wide belief among the Shoshone people and historians that Sacagawea died from old age on April 9, 1884 at nearly 100 years old. For these reasons, she has 2 gravesites.

==Myths and legends==

As previously noted, reliable historical information about Sacagawea is extremely limited. For example, there was no contemporary portrait made of her. Regrettably, the lack of records has fostered a number of myths about Sacagawea. One of these is that she was romantically involved with Lewis or Clark; while the journals show that she was friendly with Clark and would often do favors for him, the idea of a liaison is almost certainly manufactured wholly by novelists who wrote about the expedition decades and centuries later.

Another legend surrounding Sacagawea involves a Shoshone woman who claimed to be her, and who died at the Wind River Band reservation in [[Wyoming]] on [[April 9]], [[1884]]. The Wyoming [[DAR]] in [[1963]] went so far as to erect a Sacagawea monument near [[Lander, Wyoming|Lander]] on the basis of this claim. There is, however, no proof of it being true, and it is not accepted by most serious historians.

==Spelling and pronunciation==

[[Image:Sakakawea-statue-bismarck-nd-2004.jpg|thumb|Statue in Bismarck, ND]]

''Sacagawea'' is the most widely used spelling of her name, and is properly pronounced /səˈkagəˈwiə/. Up until the latter part of the 20th century, however, schools mostly taught her name as being ''Sacajawea'' or ''Sacajewea'' /ˈsækəʤəˈwiə/. The confusion here almost certainly originated from the use of the "j" spelling by [[Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844)|Nicholas Biddle]], who annotated the expedition's journals in 1814. The error was compounded with the publication of the novel, ''The Conquest'', written by Eva Emery Dye in 1902, in anticipation of the expedition's centennial. It is likely Dye used Biddle's secondary source for the spelling, and her highly popular book made it ubiquitous throughout the United States (previously most non-scholars had never even heard of Sacagawea). Conversely, the journals themselves mention Sacagawea by name seventeen times, each time with the "g" spelling. While the spelling ''Sacajawea'' has subsided from general use, the corresponding pronunciation persists in American culture.

''Sakakawea'' /səˈkakəˈwiə/ is the next most widely adopted spelling and pronunciation, and is the official spelling of her name according to the [[Three Affiliated Tribes]], which include the [[Hidatsa]]. This spelling is widely used throughout [[North Dakota]], notably in the naming of [[Lake Sakakawea]]. However, some historians and linguists discount this version, alleging its development was based on faulty research that went into an 1877 US Government Printing Office Publication, ''Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians'', which transliterated "bird" as "tsa-ka-ka," and "woman" as "mia," "wia" or "bia." Some advocates of this version prefer it because it approximates the generally accepted pronunciation but avoids the g/j confusion.

==In fiction==

[[Lisa Simpson]] portrayed her in a segment of [[The Simpsons]] episode ''[[Margical History Tour]]''.

==Commemorations==

[[Image:Sakakawea-statue-inscription-bismarck-nd-2004.jpg|thumb|Inscription on statue]]

*In [[1910]] a statue was made and erected in front of the Capitol Building in Bismarck, ND with the following inscription: "Sakakawea - The Shoshone indian 'bird woman', who in 1805 guided the Lewis and Clark expedition from the Missouri River to the Yellowstone. Erected by the Federated Clubwomen and schoolchildren of North Dakota. Presented to the State October 1910"

*Sacagawea was portrayed on a US [[postage stamp]] in [[1994]], and she and her son Jean Baptiste are depicted on the currently-circulating [[United States dollar coin]] (image above).

*Sakakawea's statue (under that spelling) was added to the [[National Statuary Hall]] in the [[U.S. Capitol]] by the state of North Dakota in 2003.

*The Sacagawea Interpretive Center was opened in Salmon, Idaho in August 2003, near her birthplace in the Lemhi Valley.

==External links==

Sacajawea's lateral descendants and relatives and the city of [[Salmon, Idaho]], have joined together to build the [http://www.sacajaweacenter.org Sacajawea Interpretative and Education Center] in the valley of her birth.

[[Category:1787 births|Sacagawea]]

[[Category:1812 deaths|Sacagawea]]

[[Category:American folklore]]

[[Category:History of Montana]]

[[Category:Lewis and Clark]]

[[Category:Native American people]]

[[Category:People from Idaho|Sacagawea]]

[[de:Sacajawea]]

[[fr:Sacagawea]]