Cameahwait was a

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ), also known by the endonym Newe, are an Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous people of the United States with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshon ...

chief and the brother of Sacagawea. He was the leader of the first group of inhabitants of modern-day

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

who were encountered by Europeans when he met

Meriwether Lewis Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with ...

and three other members of the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...

on August 13, 1805. He then accompanied Lewis across Lemhi Pass to meet

William Clark William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Misso ...

and the remainder of the expedition. Sacagawea was with Clark's party and recognized Cameahwait as her brother. To the Shoshone, Cameahwait and Sacagawea were brother and sister. However, in the

Shoshoni language Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone ( ; Shoshoni: soni ta̲i̲kwappe'', ''newe ta̲i̲kwappe'' or ''neme ta̲i̲kwappeh''), is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshon ...

, "cousin" and "brother" are the same word, indicating the tribe thinks of them as the same. Consequently, when Sacagawea cried out that she recognized Cameahwait as her brother, that is what she meant, but whether they actually had the same father, let alone the same mother, is unclear.

Background

Several years before the encounter with the Lewis and Clark expedition, when Sacagawea was twelve years old, she and her friend Otter Woman had been kidnapped by the

Hidatsa The Hidatsa ( ) are a Siouan people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Their language is related to that of the Crow, and they are sometimes considered a pa ...

tribe and used as slaves. They were then sold to Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian trapper living among the Hidatsas and

Mandan The Mandan () are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still ...

s, who took the teenaged Sacagawea as his wife. In February 1805, she gave birth to their son,

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (February 11, 1805 – May 16, 1866), sometimes known in childhood as Pompey or Little Pomp, was an American explorer, guide, Animal trapping, fur trapper, trader, military scout during the Mexican–American War, ''alcal ...

(nicknamed "Pompey"), at

Fort Mandan Fort Mandan was the name of the encampment which the Lewis and Clark Expedition built for wintering over in 1804–1805. The encampment was located on the Missouri River approximately from the site of present-day Washburn, North Dakota, which de ...

in present-day

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

. There the family met the Lewis and Clark expedition. Expecting to need to trade with Shoshones for horses in order to cross the continental divide and knowing Sacagawea's value as an interpreter, Lewis permitted Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and Pompey to accompany the expedition as it continued west. By August 1805, the expedition had reached the headwaters of the Missouri River but had not yet encountered the Shoshones or any other Indians in the area, and thus did not know where to find the most convenient pass through the Rocky Mountains into the Columbia River watershed. Lewis, George Drouillard, John Shields, and Hugh McNeal left Clark and the rest of the expedition on the

Jefferson River The Jefferson River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the U.S. state of Montana. The Jefferson River and the Madison River form the official beginning of the Missouri at Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Fo ...

and set off overland toward the divide in search of the Shoshones. They discovered Cameahwait's small band camped on a tributary of the Salmon River shortly after crossing the divide at Lemhi Pass, just north of what is now Tendoy, Idaho. Lewis eventually returned with Cameahwait and more than a dozen other Shoshones to the Missouri River drainage, where they met Clark, Sacagawea, and the rest of the expedition. Cameahwait's band ultimately traded several dozen horses to the expedition and helped them portage most of their supplies over Lemhi Pass.

Death

Cameahwait was killed during a battle with the

Blackfeet The Blackfeet Nation (, ), officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Montana. Tribal members primarily belong ...

at Bloody Creek in

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

in April 1812. It is believed he was buried on a

butte In geomorphology, a butte ( ) is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and table (landform), tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from the French l ...

between the towns of Lemhi and Tendoy.

Legacy

There is a lake in the

Wind River Indian Reservation The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone (, ''meaning: "buffalo eaters"'') and the Norther ...

near Shoshoni, Wyoming, named Lake Cameahwait.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cameahwait Native American leaders Lewis and Clark Expedition people Pre-statehood history of Idaho Sacagawea Shoshone people 19th-century Native American people