Wind River Reservation and Sacajawea

Statue of Sacajewea at Cemetery 

Visiting the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming was a fascinating experience. Wind River is a reservation that is shared by two Indian Nations, the Shoshone and the Arapaho (there are 311 reservations in the U.S. and over 500 nations; only a few reservations are shared by contiguous tribes).  Here are some things we learned at the reservation.

1. We learned more about Sacajawea’s fascinating story. This Shoshone woman has become legendary because of the critical role she played in Lewis and Clark’s expedition: the only woman and only Indian on the expedition who among other things facilitated passage through Indian territory. She is buried on the reservation and is also memorialized there and in a major exhibition at the Shoshone Cultural Center. This cultural center, part of the Shoshone public school complex, is not well known but is excellent with a fine collection of photos, display of traditional tools, clothes, weapons etc from the 1800s, and exhibits highlighting the stories of Sacajawea and 19^thcentury Shoshone leader Chief Washakie.

2. Chief Washakie was a renowned warrior and political leader (see attached picture highlighting his Crowheart Butte exploit, for example) who came to believe that if the Shoshone were to retain their lands they needed to make peace with and accommodate to U.S authority and this is what he did, even joining his forces with the military to fight other Indian nations.

3. At the local school we learned that the 4-year high school graduation rate is 50%. While this is not an impressive figure to say the least (national average is around 80%; among Native Americans it is 68%, the lowest of any group), we were surprised to see that the school librarian who reported this to us was pleased by it!  That is because there has been significant improvement in this metric in recent years. The school itself impressed us with its orderliness, obvious interest in supporting the Shoshone culture and language (many things on the hallway walls were bilingual), and modernity (and a major renovation/expansion is under way). There is much love and caring for the children but poverty has a terrible tendency to get in the way. The official poverty rate on the reservation for families with children (official government figures usually underestimate poverty by at least ½) is 23% vs. 9% nationally (on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, which we will be visiting in a few weeks the rate is 53%!).

Sacajawea's grave stone in the Sacajawea Cemetery on the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming

Chief Washaki