Sacajawea vs. Charbonneau

Abstract

The deflation of the Sacajawea myth, a recent trend in scholarship on the Lewis and Clark expedition, has come at a time when its power to inspire American youth has never been greater. But admiration for Sacajawea, while certainly not unmerited, has been based on a portrait distorted by a century of embellishments, exaggerations and endeavors to bestow a nobility of birth and sentiment on her. The Lewis and Clark expedition in its novelistic form amplifies her role, giving her « a prominence...