Sacagawea

I happened to catch the end of “The Journey of Sacagawea” on public television the other night . Unfortunately, I did not see much of the show, but I was immediately reminded about another servant leader on a journey, namely Leo in Herman Hess’s book “The Journey to the East”. It was Leo who inspired Robert Greenleaf to coin the phrase “servant leader”, so it seems appropriate that the US Mint placed Sacagawea’s likeness on a gold coin to honor this Shoshone Indian servant-leader.

Sacagawea was only fifteen years old when she joined Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery. At the age of ten she was abducted from her tribe by the Mandan/Hidatsa and was eventually sold with another young girl as a wife to the French Canadian trapper Toussaint Charbonneau. Lewis and Clark had hired Charbonneau to come along with them on the trip to act as an interpreter, with the understanding that he would bring Sacagawea along. More information about her can be found at this PBS web site.

On the journey she gave birth to a son, she help feed the members of the voyage, she guided them through the lands of her childhood, she interpreted with other Indians for them, and her and her infant sons presence with the group helped to ensure the Indian tribes they encountered that the group did not come to make war. Lewis and Clark journals “tell us she was compassionate, cheerful and uncomplaining, accepting life as she found it. She had little choice in her destiny and few freedoms. And yet the men on the expedition respected her bravery.” Refer to the following page on the “Journey of Sacagawea” site for more quotes on her leadership skills on the journey.

Although not many details are known about her life, what is known makes clear that in her short life (she apparently died around the age of 22) Sacagawea was a natural at servant leadership.