The Boise State Broncos recently played and defeated the Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville, Virginia. As it turns out, the cities of Boise and Charlottesville have more in common than just Division 1 football teams. Each city has a statue of Sacajawea, the Native American woman who served as a guide and interpreter for the Corps of Discovery, which is better known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Lewis and Clark set out with more than thirty U.S. Army volunteers in May of 1904 to find a route across the North American continent. They traveled up the Missouri River, went through the areas now known as the Dakotas, Montana and Idaho, then rode the Columbia River to the Pacific coast of modern-day Oregon. In the town of Seaside, Oregon you can see a statue of Lewis and Clark looking out over the Pacific, and at Fort Clatsop near Astoria there’s a statue of Sacajawea. These sites mark the official end of the westbound journey of the Corps of Discovery. Sacajawea, who was a Shoshoni Indian born in modern-day Lemhi County, Idaho, near the town of Salmon, joined the expedition in the Dakotas. She lived there with her husband, a French trapper, who purchased her from the Hidatsa tribe. The Hidatsa had kidnapped her at the age of 12. When she met Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea was only 16. From the Dakotas to the Pacific, she served the Corps of Discovery as an interpreter of the Shoshoni language and an occasional guide.
The beginning of the expedition is officially near St. Louis, Missouri. But the unofficial beginning is in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lewis and Clark were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, who lived in a neoclassical palladian home he designed near Charlottesville called Monticello. It was at Monticello in 1803 that Jefferson composed a letter to congress requesting money for the Lewis and Clark expedition. And since nothing started until the money was granted, Charlottesville considers the Corps of Discovery to have begun there. At Monticello, a small brass plaque is set in the ground in front of the house. It was placed there in 2003, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson’s monetary request. And not far from the campus of the University of Virginia, which was founded by Jefferson, Charlottesville unveiled an impressive statue honoring Lewis and Clark. It also honors Sacajawea…sort of. The statue was created in 1919, and at that time, including a representation of Sacajawea was a bold idea. The statue was praised as an inspiring work of public art. As time passed, though, the public, especially the female public and Native American public, grew less fond of the statue. Why? Because it portrayed Sacajawea as hunched below Lewis and Clark. To a sculptor, the hunched position is shorthand for subservient. By 2009, the statue’s critics were demanding action. The statue couldn’t be changed easily, and the city of Charlottesville didn’t want to scrap it. Instead, they created a new plaque commemorating Sacajawea and placed it next to the statue. The plaque includes a description of Sacajawea’s contributions to the expedition, and it vaguely apologizes for her subservient appearance in the statue. It’s known unofficially as the Sacajawea Apology Plaque. Boise’s Sacajawea statue is in front of the Idaho History Museum in Julia Davis Park. And there are more than 20 other Sacajawea statues in the United States, including several in Lewiston.
Most of you probably didn’t make it to Charlottesville for the game, but if you ever get there, be sure to check out the statue of Sacajawea and the apology for it. And on the University of Virginia campus, don’t miss the dormitory room of Edgar Allan Poe, which looks pretty much as he left it when he dropped out of college in 1826. No students live in the room, even though it’s really only a rumor that that’s where Edgar Allan Poe went insane.
