Journaling History: Sacagawea and York

Objectives

• Students will understand first-person perspective
• Students will assess the validity of historical documents
• Students will write an imaginary autobiographical narrative

Journals published in 1814 provide the official history of the Lewis and Clark exhibition. The journals, however, tell only one side of the story. Two members of the expedition who did not leave written records, although their contributions were indispensable, were translator Sacagawea and "servant" York.

Sacagawea was about 16 years old and joined because Lewis and Clark employed her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, a French trader who was about 47 years old. As a translator, Sacagawea could bargain and negotiate with other Native Americans for provisions or horses that the expedition needed desperately.

York, who was about 34 years old, was William Clark's slave. He had no choice as to whether he would join the expedition because, like Sacagawea, he was the property of one of its members. York asked to be freed after the expedition, but Clark refused.

York and Sacagawea were treated very differently from white male expedition members. If they had left journals, what might have they said about the expedition?

That is the focus of this lesson.

As you read about Sacagawea [1] and York [2], write a journal entry that imagines Sacagawea or York's first-person account.

Your journal entry should focus on a single event, such as Sacagawea's reunion with her brother or a moment of "horseplay" on June 20, 1804, when York almost lost his eyesight.

Your entry also should discuss how Sacagawea or York felt about their roles in the expedition. Did they feel treated fairly? Did they feel they had real power? Did they see themselves as full-fledged members of the expedition? Why or why not?

This activity meets curriculum standards in Language Arts and U.S. History as outlined by Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education, 4th Edition [3] .