Editors

Jerry Stemach, MS, CCC-SLP

Karen Erickson, PhD Center for Literacy and Disability StudiesUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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A Step into History

Sacagawea The Trip to the West

byJerry Stemach

Contents

Chapter 1 How My Mother Died . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2 Prisoner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Chapter 3 The Wives of Old Bear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter 4 How My Son Was Born . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 5 Heading West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 6 The Big Surprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chapter 7 Across the Rocky Mountains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Chapter 8 The Trip to the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 9 The Way Back East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Chapter 10 After the Great Adventure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

4

But one year, we couldn’t

find food in the mountains.

We were starving. We had

to leave the mountains.

The Shoshoni Indians live in the mountains.

The mountains are safe.

My name is Sacagawea.

I am a Shoshoni Indian.

Chapter 1: How My Mother Died 5

It isn’t safe on the

plains. The Minnetaree

Indians live on the

plains. The Minnetaree

Indians do not like

the Shoshoni Indians.

We went down to the

flat, grassy plains.

Thousands of buffalo

lived on the plains.

Buffalo have meat

for food and skins

for blankets.

6

The Minnetaree Indians

killed my mother.

They made me their

prisoner.

7

Now I was a prisoner.

I was a slave for the

Minnetaree chief.

Chapter 2: Prisoner8

I had to live and work in the chief’s

house. The house was called a lodge.

The lodge was made out of logs

and dirt.

9

Otter Woman also lived with the chief.

Otter Woman and I were both slaves.

10

She showed us how to make

boats from buffalo skins.

The chief was not kind to us.

But the chief’s wife was kind to us.

She showed us how to grow corn.

11

One day, a white man came to the village.

Otter Woman and I called the white man,

“Old Bear.” His face was hairy like a bear!

Chapter 3: The Wives of Old Bear12

The chief liked Old Bear.

The chief and Old Bear

liked to play games.

The chief and Old Bear

liked to make bets.

Old Bear won

Otter Woman

and me in a bet.

Otter Woman

and me did not

like Old Bear.

But now we had

to marry Old Bear!

13

Old Bear told me many things. Old Bear told

me about the white men who came. Old Bear

said, “Chief Jefferson is the white men’s chief.”

14

Old Bear said, “The white men are going west.

They are going west to the sea.”

15

Old Bear said, “The white men have many

guns. Maybe they will trade guns for horses.”

I said, “I’ll go! The Shoshoni village is my village!

Old Bear said that we should help them.

Old Bear said, “We’ll take them to the

Shoshoni village. The Shoshoni people

have many horses.”

16