Happy Birthday, Sacajawea! (trusted guide of Lewis & Clark expedition, 1800s)

from Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, American Public Media):

April 6 is the birthday of the Shoshone woman Sacajawea, born in Idaho (sometime around 1789). She was kidnapped at age 10 by the Hidatsa tribe, sold into slavery, and bought by a French-Canadian trapper who made her one of his two wives.

When Lewis and Clark hired the trapper to guide them to the Pacific, Sacajawea -- a teenager with her two-month-old baby on her back -- was part of the package. She accompanied the party to the Pacific Ocean and back, acting as their interpreter. She could speak half a dozen Indian languages, she told them which plants were edible, and, William Clark said, tribes were inclined to believe that their party was friendly when they saw Sacajawea because a war party would never travel with a woman, especially one with a baby.
When the trip was over, Sacajawea's husband got $500 and 320 acres of land. She died on December 1812, of a "fever," at the age of 23. Clark legally adopted her two children -- the boy who had been a baby on the expedition, Jean Baptiste, and an infant daughter, Lisette.

[more information about her at MANATAKA American Indian Council:

http://www.manataka.org/page80.html