Red Devils -10 Sacagawea

We again had an early breakfast and sat in the lounge of our hotel waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Hudson to come to pick us up for Mass. Mrs. Hudson was much less talkative last night when her husband was with us. I expect he wasn’t too happy with her gossiping.

When at the restaurant, Mr. Hudson asked us how we had managed our research, we had to admit that it had hit us much more personally than we expected, and that we hadn’t had time to look through all the files. I told him I particularly was sorry that we had nothing at all on Sitting Bull.

So as we joined them in their carriage I was very pleased when Mr. Hudson gave us a gift of a clipping about Sitting Bull. He said it had only recently been released for publication, but he thought it might give us food for thought. And he also handed me a note which contained the address of Mrs. Libby Custer. “You might find this a useful resource. Libby is currently writing up the history of her life on the plains, including her time in Bismarck, and I have checked, she is willing to tell you about it. But I wouldn’t tell her that you intend to say anything positive about the Indians,” he added with a grin. I thanked him and said I would write to her straight after we got home.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is on East 51^st Street and Madison Avenue. It is a splendid building. Mr. Hudson told us a bit about the history of it. “It is the largest Catholic Cathedral in America, and the architect, James Renwick, used the Gothic style and built it from white marble. It will seat 2200 people. Its spires raise 330 ft. from the ground. The most outstanding features for you to notice are the Great Rose Window, and the St. Michael and St. Lewis altar which was designed by Tiffany.

 “The organ in Saint Patrick's Cathedral was built in 1879 by Geo. Jardine & Son, one of New York's finest organ builders this century. Just wait until you hear it.”

The service for the Purification of Mary was wonderful, with a spectacularly talented choir, and the organ music boomed out and the whole cathedral vibrated. I cannot begin to describe the beauty of the cathedral.

As for the music, the Mass sung was Missa de Angelis, and at the offertory the choir sang Te Deum Laudamus; at communion, Ecce Panis Angelorum and after Mass, Shubert’s Ave Maria. For the recessional the organist played Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring by Bach. I shall be singing the tune in my head for the rest of the day.

After the service, we needed to go straight back to Grand Central Station to catch our train home, but Mr. Hudson bought us each a sandwich at a stand in the station, so at least we would not go home hungry.

What a wonderful experience it was. We couldn’t wait to go back to New York again. But I also knew that I had a lot of work to do writing up our research, and I needed to write to Mrs. Custer as soon as I could to find out her point of view.

The train ride home was somewhat of an anticlimax, but we spent our time wisely, discussing what we had read about the Indians’ accounts of the battle.

“I really wanted to find out if anybody said anything specific about our Pa,” I said, “but all I found was one reference to his body being near Custer’s and by the river.”

“I couldn’t bear to hear them tell about them all, no doubt including him, being stripped and scalped.”

“Pa wasn’t either scalped or stripped,” I said. “Didn’t you read that front page from The Bismarck Tribune that we were sent after Pa died? He and General Custer were the only ones that were left more or less alone.”

"But Custer was stripped. Remember how the one who killed him told about finding his pink and hairy body, and starting to chop off his finger? I expect the Bismarck Tribune lied about it because they wanted the people of Bismarck to feel that their heros had somehow been treated specially."

“But wasn’t it interesting and somewhat upsetting too, to hear that it was women who did the body stripping and scalping.”

“I don’t suppose the Indians necessarily told the whole truth either. ”

“Well, I think they were pretty authentic. They didn’t seem to be slanted towards making the Indians agree on things, or making Custer out to be any better than he was.”

“Well, at least we know a bit more, rather than just imagining the whole thing. And the Indians seem to have lost as many men as the whites, and there seemed to be fighting between tribes as well. They were driven away afterwards, and didn’t follow through on their one battle success. Crazy Horse surrendered in 1877 and Sitting Bull and his followers went to Canada. But most of the Indians who were involved went back to their reservations and kept the peace.

“I have to read this article about Sitting Bull. I think it might tell us more about why the whole thing happened in the first place. Mr. Hudson seemed to think that Sitting Bull’s opinions should play a part in my article. I am so excited that it might get printed. If only we could have had more time and looked more thoroughly through all those files.”

“Well, I for one, could not have taken much more of it. I couldn’t write all this up. It is too blood thirsty for my liking. And I keep seeing Pa there, in the midst of it all. I am glad I chose Mr. Barnum. I might not get my work published, but at least I will have had a very interesting time researching it and writing it up. We must make sure we go to the Circus when it starts up again in the spring.”

“Yes, let’s do that. And we must visit the museum too and see all the rest of the exhibits that he talked so much about.” 

Before long our train returned to Bridgeport, and we were very pleased to see Uncle William waiting for us as we got off the train.

***** 

When we got to our English class on Monday afternoon, I was worried. I had not done any more writing on my project. I didn’t want to tell Miss Marble about our weekend research because it had all been about Indians - and other than I intended to write to Mrs. Custer, I didn’t have anything else to contribute to class.

Cora Sue was different. She had so much information about P.T. Barnum, that even if she hasn’t written it up, she could no doubt hold forth about it for hours if necessary.

But as luck would have it, I wasn’t called on. This time it was Josephine’s turn. She had chosen Sacagawea, but was forced by Miss Marble to make Lewis and Clark’s expedition the subject of her essay. Her introduction was all about the basic background of Lewis and Clark, and she hadn’t mentioned Sacagawea at all.

However, when she was called on today to update us on her project, she spent her entire time talking about this little Indian girl. And as we had been thinking about Indians all weekend ourselves, Cora Sue and I were fascinated.

Sacagawea (pictured above)  or Bo-I-Naiv which was her original name, was born about 1790 into the Shoshone (or Snake people) tribe, who lived in the Idaho Mountains.

The Shoshone tribe lived in constant states of hunger and war; they were defenseless against the other tribes, who by now had guns. One day when Bo-I Naiv was 12, the Hidatsas, enemies of the Shoshone, captured her and several other children. In the enemies' camp, the Shoshone children made plans to escape; Elk Horn, the oldest and the leader, stole a bow and arrow from a sleeping guard. Bo-I-Naiv could have escaped, but she would not leave her best friend, Otter Woman, behind. Leaping-Fish Woman was also fast asleep. Bo-I-Naiv awakened Otter Woman, who, thinking she was going to be killed, began screaming. By the time their enemies were alerted,  the other children had gone, leaving Bo-I-Naiv, Leaping Fish Woman and Otter Woman behind.

The girls' Hitatsa master, Red Arrow, treated them like his own daughters. But one day Leaping Fish Woman was able to escape and made her way home. As the story goes, a few years later, Red Arrow lost the other girls in a gambling game to Toussaint Charbonneau, a middle-aged French trader. Red Arrow tried to win them back, but Charbonneau refused. The girls were taken away to live among the Mandans. Charbonneau already had a Mandan wife whose health was poor. Bo-I Naiv was then called Tsakakawea, which means Bird Woman. When Charbonneau's Mandan wife died, he took Tsakakawea and Otter Woman as his wives.

A French-speaking Canadian, Toussaint Charbonneau was born near Montreal in about 1759. Then a town of only a few thousand people, Montreal was the center of a lively fur trading and that was the life he chose to follow.

Charbonneau’s life as an itinerant trader took him from Montreal to what is now Dakota Territory in about 1797. Compared with the primitive camps he had known in the northern wilderness, the pleasant villages and abundant gardens of the Hidatsa and Mandan tribes were inviting.  

When Lewis and Clark were going on their journey to explore and map out the West of America, they spent their first winter in a camp near what is now Bismarck. They were worried about crossing the Rockies, and also felt that they needed more horses for the journey. They needed a guide - and they hired Toussaint to do this for them. He was allowed to take one of his wives along, and he took Sacagawea, by now 16 years old and nine months pregnant. But her advantage was that she could speak two languages, Hidatsa and her native Shoshone, so could be an interpreter for them.

Before they set out on their trail, Sacagawea gave birth, and it was actually Lewis who aided her in her birthing. She was having a bad time, and he was told by someone that she should have powdered rattlesnake rattles to help her. So he found some, mixed it with water, gave it to her, and ten minutes later, the baby was safely born.

Lewis and Clark had a close relationship with this new baby who was called Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, born on the 12^thof February, 1805. His mother also gave him the Shoshone name, Pomp, and Lewis called him by this name, meaning first born. Sacagawea called him Bambi.