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Sacajawea
Publisher's Note Clad in a doeskin, alone and unafraid, she stood straight and proud before the onrushing forces of America's Sacajawea, child of a Shoshoni chief, lone woman on Lewis and Clark's historic trek -- beautiful spear of a dying nation. She knew many men, walked many miles. From the whispering prairies, across the Great Divide to the crystal capped Rockies and on to the emerald promise of the Pacific Northwest, her story over flows with emotion and action ripped from the bursting fabric of a raw new land. Ten years in the writing, SACAJAWEA unfolds an immense canvas of people and events, and captures the eternal longings of a woman who always yearned for one great passion -- and always it lay beyond the next mountain. Recreates the life and legend of the Shoshoni Indian as she struggles to survive among hostile tribes, is forced to become the wife of a French trader, and plays a pivotal role in the journeys of Lewis and Clark
1424 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
548 people are currently reading
11.7k people want to read
About the author
Anna Lee Waldo
13books88followersAnna Lee Waldo wrote the best-selling historical novel, SACAJAWEA. Her interest in the subject began as a child when she collected spear points on the shores of Whitefish Lake in Montana and listened to stories of Blackfeet and Crow grandmothers.
It took her ten years to write about the first woman to go with a military contingent, with a baby in a cradleboard, half way across the North American continent. Anna Lee is now writing a sequence of books that began in Wales in the twelfth century called the DRUID CIRCLE series. These books are based on the elusive history of the son of Prince Owain Gwynedd, named Madoc, who came to America in 1170.
It took her ten years to write about the first woman to go with a military contingent, with a baby in a cradleboard, half way across the North American continent. Anna Lee is now writing a sequence of books that began in Wales in the twelfth century called the DRUID CIRCLE series. These books are based on the elusive history of the son of Prince Owain Gwynedd, named Madoc, who came to America in 1170.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 516 reviews
September 28, 2012
I read this book when I was in 4th and 5th grade. I realize this book was written for adults, but I was obsessed with learning more about Sacajawea at that age. My dad said it would be okay for me to read it, so I did. It took me close to a year to complete the whole thing--but I eventually wrote a 5th grade book report on it when we were assigned to read a historical fiction piece. My teacher rewarded us with a piece of licorice for every 40 pages we read. As you can imagine, with a book over 1000 pages--I got a lot of licorice. Needless to say, I was VERY popular with my 5th grade classroom the day I delivered my book report.
July 15, 2018
I realize I never wrote a review for this book and it deserves such high praise. Waldo studied Sacajawea's (Shoshone Tribe) life for so long and did such a great job. It is easily in my top 10 books. It was long, 1000 pages, so I wasn't sure if I could handle it but I'm so glad I tried. I couldn't get enough of her life and how brave she was. Pocahontas has nothing on her!
The book is basically about her 8,000 mile journey with the Lewis and Clark expedition as an interpreter of Indian languages. This was a journey that shouldn't have happened bc 1. She was a woman 2. She had just finished giving birth to a baby boy. She marries a horrible Canadian-French man, Toussaint Charbonneau, that mistreats and belittles her but she perseveres and becomes a wonderful, smart historical figure all before feminism was a "thing."
I wish historians knew what became of her later life and when and how she died or even what became of her son, Jean "Pomp" Baptiste, but that will always be a mystery.
Highly recommend if you are into Native American subject matter.
The book is basically about her 8,000 mile journey with the Lewis and Clark expedition as an interpreter of Indian languages. This was a journey that shouldn't have happened bc 1. She was a woman 2. She had just finished giving birth to a baby boy. She marries a horrible Canadian-French man, Toussaint Charbonneau, that mistreats and belittles her but she perseveres and becomes a wonderful, smart historical figure all before feminism was a "thing."
I wish historians knew what became of her later life and when and how she died or even what became of her son, Jean "Pomp" Baptiste, but that will always be a mystery.
Highly recommend if you are into Native American subject matter.
August 21, 2008
Simply put, this is the most amazing story I know and the book is incredibly written. i read this very long book about 14 years ago, and I remember my mother reading it about 10 years prior to that. I still have the actual book that she and I read. It's very special to me, not just for the connection to my mother, but because the story of Sacajawea is so well depicted within it's covers. I remember laughing on one page, then sobbing to the point of having to put the book down on the next. It's depressing, enlightening, romantic, devastating, heart-warming. It's real.
I cant wait to read it again and pass it down to my daughter.
I cant wait to read it again and pass it down to my daughter.
June 13, 2019
'Sacajawea' by Anna Lee Waldo is the most detailed historical fiction novel I have ever read. The rumor is it took Waldo ten years to write the novel. Yet, despite that Waldo includes every aspect of life - hunting, building shelters, marriage, raising children, social customs - for various North American Indian tribes between the Mississippi and the Pacific Northwest, she never neglects the inner life of human joy, love and suffering of all of her cast of characters. The personalities are each finely drawn and vivid to the eye and heart.
Sacajawea was one of the child wives of Toussaint Charbonneau, a 19th-century French-Canadian hunter and trapper reknown for his braggart blowhard speeches, his crude manners and general lazy negligence. Middle-aged Charbonneau treated his twelve- and thirteen-year-old wives like packhorses and slaves - which is why he preferred native girls. For Sacajawea, he was her fourth master. She had been traded to tribe after tribe after she was kidnapped from her murdered family, the Shoshonis (lived in what is now Montana), when she was about ten or eleven, ending up in the Dakotas with the Mandans. She first was raped while enslaved with a Minnetaree tribe. Charbonneau won her when her Mandan owner lost her in a gambling game at a Native-American trading fair. She was thirteen, most likely.
Two years later, the Lewis and Clark expedition traveled up the Missouri River, arriving at a trading post where Charbonneau was living. The two explorers asked around for an English-Shoshoni translator. Charbonneau got the job. It apparently was not understood his wife was the Shoshoni translator as Charbonneau claimed her accomplishments for himself. Captain Meriwether Lewis did not want a woman along on the exploratory trek across the new territory America had bought from the French emperor, Napoleon, but he reluctantly gave his assent. Time, and various adventures, soon exposed Charbonneau's true character to the expedition. Everyone soon realized Sacajawea was an enormous asset, knowing the sign language common to many northern and plains tribes, knowing the territory, knowing how to prepare killed animals for food and clothes, knowing the plants which were medicinal or edible. She was smart as hell. Arguably, her biggest contribution was simply being a female with a baby. Yes, a baby. She had had her baby at the beginning of the gig. Tribes saw the armed White men had a woman and a baby with them, and so put their weapons down, thinking no war party would have women and children with them. Charbonneau got the paycheck and the peace medal from President Jefferson, however, when they returned from the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean beach.
The foregoing is not the end of the story. This is what happens to Sacajawea up to page 700. The novel has 1,408 pages in total.
When Lewis and Clark return to Washington D.C. to hand in their maps, journals and animal/plant/Indian artifacts, Sacajawea has become aware each Indian tribe treats women differently and has learned the different Indian customs regarding what is right and wrong. Upper-class Lewis and Clark are very different from the rude White and half-breed trappers with whom she has become familiar. Captain William Clark offers Charbonneau a job, land and a paid education for his now family of two boys (one from Sacajawea). Charbonneau finally accepts Clark's offer a few years later, which was still open, after some business matters trapping and interpreting do not go well. In St. Louis, Missouri, Sacajawea learns how White women live.
Before Sacajawea's story is over, she spends time with the Comanche, finds true love, learns Spanish in addition to her English, French, Mandon, and other Native-American languages, has more children, meets the Mormons in Utah, and lives through a few more attacks. She saw the famous Mandan ceremony of hanging from a ceiling suspended by skewers inserted under their skin, exactingly described. She endured multiple incidences of starvation, wildfires and awful weather.
Wow.
While this is a fictionalized biography of the real Sacajawea's life, it is often backed by hard evidence as well as rumors, stories and myths. The hard evidence is collected from many witness journals, letters, and third-hand tales written down in family histories. The author researched many Native-American tribal histories and lore as well as anything mentioning Sacajawea. To call this book in-depth does not do it justice. It is encyclopedic.
One of the stories say Sacajawea died at age 24 of a fever, but there is evidence she lived to an old age, scattered as it is. The author assumes Sacajawea lived a long interesting life of adventures, and follows the more opaque written records of her travels after she left the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Waldo mostly avoids taking a stance or opinion on cultural customs and beliefs, but she makes obvious what those customs involved. I think she also minimizes the growing knowledge of Native-Americans that their land was being stolen with the resulting aggressive reactions and sorrows. Waldo puts in Sacajawea's mouth late in the book dialogues and thoughts about accepting change and reservation life simply because it was inevitable due to the superior force of many more White people. She notices Native-Americans were beginning to fail as a culture because of the transmission of European diseases to natives, many of which were fatal, the despoiling of animal life and hunting. She is told of one tribe with whom she lived no longer exists. When Sacajawea is old, she sees mountain men, trappers and Indians despairing about all of the civilians moving in.
'Sacajawea' is a wonderful book I highly recommend about the American West and the Native-Americans of the early 19th century, before what we now call the Wild West period. This time period is just before and during when many Western native tribes met White men for the first time, just before the years covered wagons and steam engines pulled households across the plains, when buffalo and other types of animal life were plentiful in the warm seasons. However, we readers often romanticize the Indians and the cowboys and the trappers and the mountain men - but I suspect most of us women would not actually want to return to the old social customs expected of women no matter the society. Wow, was it hard being a female in earlier centuries, even when one was a woman whose personal qualities were recognized as being above the common crowd.
The book includes an extensive non-fiction fact-based epilogue, a Notes section and a Bibliography.
Sacajawea was one of the child wives of Toussaint Charbonneau, a 19th-century French-Canadian hunter and trapper reknown for his braggart blowhard speeches, his crude manners and general lazy negligence. Middle-aged Charbonneau treated his twelve- and thirteen-year-old wives like packhorses and slaves - which is why he preferred native girls. For Sacajawea, he was her fourth master. She had been traded to tribe after tribe after she was kidnapped from her murdered family, the Shoshonis (lived in what is now Montana), when she was about ten or eleven, ending up in the Dakotas with the Mandans. She first was raped while enslaved with a Minnetaree tribe. Charbonneau won her when her Mandan owner lost her in a gambling game at a Native-American trading fair. She was thirteen, most likely.
Two years later, the Lewis and Clark expedition traveled up the Missouri River, arriving at a trading post where Charbonneau was living. The two explorers asked around for an English-Shoshoni translator. Charbonneau got the job. It apparently was not understood his wife was the Shoshoni translator as Charbonneau claimed her accomplishments for himself. Captain Meriwether Lewis did not want a woman along on the exploratory trek across the new territory America had bought from the French emperor, Napoleon, but he reluctantly gave his assent. Time, and various adventures, soon exposed Charbonneau's true character to the expedition. Everyone soon realized Sacajawea was an enormous asset, knowing the sign language common to many northern and plains tribes, knowing the territory, knowing how to prepare killed animals for food and clothes, knowing the plants which were medicinal or edible. She was smart as hell. Arguably, her biggest contribution was simply being a female with a baby. Yes, a baby. She had had her baby at the beginning of the gig. Tribes saw the armed White men had a woman and a baby with them, and so put their weapons down, thinking no war party would have women and children with them. Charbonneau got the paycheck and the peace medal from President Jefferson, however, when they returned from the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean beach.
The foregoing is not the end of the story. This is what happens to Sacajawea up to page 700. The novel has 1,408 pages in total.
When Lewis and Clark return to Washington D.C. to hand in their maps, journals and animal/plant/Indian artifacts, Sacajawea has become aware each Indian tribe treats women differently and has learned the different Indian customs regarding what is right and wrong. Upper-class Lewis and Clark are very different from the rude White and half-breed trappers with whom she has become familiar. Captain William Clark offers Charbonneau a job, land and a paid education for his now family of two boys (one from Sacajawea). Charbonneau finally accepts Clark's offer a few years later, which was still open, after some business matters trapping and interpreting do not go well. In St. Louis, Missouri, Sacajawea learns how White women live.
Before Sacajawea's story is over, she spends time with the Comanche, finds true love, learns Spanish in addition to her English, French, Mandon, and other Native-American languages, has more children, meets the Mormons in Utah, and lives through a few more attacks. She saw the famous Mandan ceremony of hanging from a ceiling suspended by skewers inserted under their skin, exactingly described. She endured multiple incidences of starvation, wildfires and awful weather.
Wow.
While this is a fictionalized biography of the real Sacajawea's life, it is often backed by hard evidence as well as rumors, stories and myths. The hard evidence is collected from many witness journals, letters, and third-hand tales written down in family histories. The author researched many Native-American tribal histories and lore as well as anything mentioning Sacajawea. To call this book in-depth does not do it justice. It is encyclopedic.
One of the stories say Sacajawea died at age 24 of a fever, but there is evidence she lived to an old age, scattered as it is. The author assumes Sacajawea lived a long interesting life of adventures, and follows the more opaque written records of her travels after she left the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Waldo mostly avoids taking a stance or opinion on cultural customs and beliefs, but she makes obvious what those customs involved. I think she also minimizes the growing knowledge of Native-Americans that their land was being stolen with the resulting aggressive reactions and sorrows. Waldo puts in Sacajawea's mouth late in the book dialogues and thoughts about accepting change and reservation life simply because it was inevitable due to the superior force of many more White people. She notices Native-Americans were beginning to fail as a culture because of the transmission of European diseases to natives, many of which were fatal, the despoiling of animal life and hunting. She is told of one tribe with whom she lived no longer exists. When Sacajawea is old, she sees mountain men, trappers and Indians despairing about all of the civilians moving in.
'Sacajawea' is a wonderful book I highly recommend about the American West and the Native-Americans of the early 19th century, before what we now call the Wild West period. This time period is just before and during when many Western native tribes met White men for the first time, just before the years covered wagons and steam engines pulled households across the plains, when buffalo and other types of animal life were plentiful in the warm seasons. However, we readers often romanticize the Indians and the cowboys and the trappers and the mountain men - but I suspect most of us women would not actually want to return to the old social customs expected of women no matter the society. Wow, was it hard being a female in earlier centuries, even when one was a woman whose personal qualities were recognized as being above the common crowd.
The book includes an extensive non-fiction fact-based epilogue, a Notes section and a Bibliography.
October 13, 2022
4,5 sterren- Nederlandse hardcover
Recensie volgt later.
Recensie volgt later.
July 27, 2020
This was, apparently, plagiarized. Avon and Waldo eventually settled out of court and then released an "Expanded Edition" in 1984. So that's fun.
Honestly, it's wild to me that this was such a huge bestseller 40 years ago. It's...not a good book. Expansive, yes; detail-oriented, yes; unique, also yes. Good? No.
There is enough material in Sacajawea for a full trilogy. It's a huge, 1400-page monster. Today, it would be unpublishable. Not only because of its length but because of Waldo's (probably well-intentioned) racist and supremely harmful depictions of Native Americans. I've no doubt the author really loved Indians, but a white woman can love a culture and still cause harm in a ham-fisted attempt to write about something she could never fully grasp.
All in all, only my sheer determination to see this through to the end got me to the epilogue.
📌 . | | | | ŷ
Honestly, it's wild to me that this was such a huge bestseller 40 years ago. It's...not a good book. Expansive, yes; detail-oriented, yes; unique, also yes. Good? No.
There is enough material in Sacajawea for a full trilogy. It's a huge, 1400-page monster. Today, it would be unpublishable. Not only because of its length but because of Waldo's (probably well-intentioned) racist and supremely harmful depictions of Native Americans. I've no doubt the author really loved Indians, but a white woman can love a culture and still cause harm in a ham-fisted attempt to write about something she could never fully grasp.
All in all, only my sheer determination to see this through to the end got me to the epilogue.
📌 . | | | | ŷ
June 26, 2021
This is an all time favorite of mine which I read in 1984-5 when first published. It had a profound effect upon my life and deserves my in depth review but there are not enough hours in my day at this point in time.
March 1, 2021
What a remarkable book! This story made me smile, made me cry, hurt my heart, but was most definitely worth every second I invested in it!
January 26, 2011
This book is not for the faint of heart or those who want a quick read. At 1328 pages for just the story and an additional 61 pages of notes this is a titan of a read. But every page is well worth it.
It starts out when Sacajawea is a young girl and covers her capture and enslavement by the Mandan tribe. While with the Mandans she is subjected to rape at around age 11 (the book makes it somewhat hard to pinpoint her age at times), learns the art of glass making, and then is eventually sold off to another tribe. This tribe is a lot kinder to her and she has a few easy years until she is lost in a wager to her future husband (the perverted Toussaint Charbonneau).
We next see Sacajawea pregnant with her first child (John Baptiste also known as Pomp) when she attracts the attention of Lewis and Clark. As her man Charbonneau is to be an interpreter for the expedition, her wit and intelligence cause Clark to ask for her to come along as well. He also reasons that a party traveling with a woman and baby will not look like a war party.
Regarding her travels with Lewis and Clark, while the travel west was covered extensively, the return was not given as much detail. Upon their journey they meet several local Indian tribes and the author seems to really hone in that all these people are fond of the native salmon, rotting or fresh, and the character's disdain for the meal. In all, I expected this to be a large part of the book when in reality it was only 300-400 pages worth of the book. While the rest of her life was definitely worth writing about, it seems like the author could have spent more time on this subject as it is one of the more well known parts of her life. The return back east lasted only a couple of chapters and didn't seem to give as much depth as everything else.
Upon her return from the expedition they settle peacefully in St Louis where Clark's wife teaches her to sew and embroider and they have no worry of starving in the lean winter months (something that is shown quite prevalently in other parts of the books when she is with her native Indian tribes).
One day, when the beatings from Charbonneau finally push her to the breaking point, she packs up her belongings and leaves and her ten year old son Baptiste stays with his father. She is taken in by a tribe of Comanche and remarries. Over the course of 26 years she has an additional five children, but only two out of them survive childhood.
When her husband dies she leaves and seeks out the white man, hoping to find her first born son. The rest of the book follows this journey until she's well into her eighties and has settled down with her daughters and grandchildren.
Sacajawea faced many hardships and Waldo's book explores many of them. It also faces her triumphs and her sorrows and really makes you believe you know everything she went through and can take a real peek at her life. Waldo also did a wonderful job of incorporating quotes and citations from numerous journals of the time at the beginning of each chapter. It provides factual background that helps make this fictional telling more believable. Each chapter starts out with an excerpt and she bases the next chapter loosely upon that excerpt, creating a story line for each chapter within the story itself. Her writing itself is very detailed and she seems to put a lot of emotion behind her words.
It starts out when Sacajawea is a young girl and covers her capture and enslavement by the Mandan tribe. While with the Mandans she is subjected to rape at around age 11 (the book makes it somewhat hard to pinpoint her age at times), learns the art of glass making, and then is eventually sold off to another tribe. This tribe is a lot kinder to her and she has a few easy years until she is lost in a wager to her future husband (the perverted Toussaint Charbonneau).
We next see Sacajawea pregnant with her first child (John Baptiste also known as Pomp) when she attracts the attention of Lewis and Clark. As her man Charbonneau is to be an interpreter for the expedition, her wit and intelligence cause Clark to ask for her to come along as well. He also reasons that a party traveling with a woman and baby will not look like a war party.
Regarding her travels with Lewis and Clark, while the travel west was covered extensively, the return was not given as much detail. Upon their journey they meet several local Indian tribes and the author seems to really hone in that all these people are fond of the native salmon, rotting or fresh, and the character's disdain for the meal. In all, I expected this to be a large part of the book when in reality it was only 300-400 pages worth of the book. While the rest of her life was definitely worth writing about, it seems like the author could have spent more time on this subject as it is one of the more well known parts of her life. The return back east lasted only a couple of chapters and didn't seem to give as much depth as everything else.
Upon her return from the expedition they settle peacefully in St Louis where Clark's wife teaches her to sew and embroider and they have no worry of starving in the lean winter months (something that is shown quite prevalently in other parts of the books when she is with her native Indian tribes).
One day, when the beatings from Charbonneau finally push her to the breaking point, she packs up her belongings and leaves and her ten year old son Baptiste stays with his father. She is taken in by a tribe of Comanche and remarries. Over the course of 26 years she has an additional five children, but only two out of them survive childhood.
When her husband dies she leaves and seeks out the white man, hoping to find her first born son. The rest of the book follows this journey until she's well into her eighties and has settled down with her daughters and grandchildren.
Sacajawea faced many hardships and Waldo's book explores many of them. It also faces her triumphs and her sorrows and really makes you believe you know everything she went through and can take a real peek at her life. Waldo also did a wonderful job of incorporating quotes and citations from numerous journals of the time at the beginning of each chapter. It provides factual background that helps make this fictional telling more believable. Each chapter starts out with an excerpt and she bases the next chapter loosely upon that excerpt, creating a story line for each chapter within the story itself. Her writing itself is very detailed and she seems to put a lot of emotion behind her words.
July 15, 2018
I really, really liked it. More like 4.5 stars, but it was long, and not a quick read for me. Really well done. Fascinating research and history.
Also, I remember my grandmother having this book in her apartment as well, back in the 1980's, so it has sentimental value also!
Also, I remember my grandmother having this book in her apartment as well, back in the 1980's, so it has sentimental value also!
May 27, 2014
I read this book 30 years ago and loved it. So, when I saw it was the May choice of the Historical Fictionistas, I was excited to re-read it. I didn't like it as much on the re-reading. I'm disappointed to discover that, along with everyone else in the world, my attention span has been eroded by the internet and a long, detailed book is hard for me. Also, I think this book has a Mississippi delta of a plot: meandering, sprawling and muddy. The first half, describing the L&C Expedition, is pretty tight, but the second half is all over the place. It felt like Waldo couldn't bear to leave out one little bit of her historic research, so she places Sacajawea, Forrest-Gump-like, in the middle of pretty much every single thing that happened in the American West between 1803 and 1875. Instead of good dramatic scenes, there's way too much "then this happened then this happened then this happened" exposition.
But I stuck with it, and there were some things that I still like about this book. I liked the vivid detail about Native American life. I was in Chicago at a conference for a few days while I was reading it and ate a $154 dinner and couldn't help thinking how excessive that was - when less than 200 years ago the majority of the residents of the Midwest were near starvation every winter.
And I love the character of Sacajawea, so worthy and dignified even in the most difficult circumstances - and, in her old age, so wise.
But I stuck with it, and there were some things that I still like about this book. I liked the vivid detail about Native American life. I was in Chicago at a conference for a few days while I was reading it and ate a $154 dinner and couldn't help thinking how excessive that was - when less than 200 years ago the majority of the residents of the Midwest were near starvation every winter.
And I love the character of Sacajawea, so worthy and dignified even in the most difficult circumstances - and, in her old age, so wise.
August 3, 2011
I guess it isn't technically fair that I rate this book as I didn't finish it. I didn't even get to the part where Sacajawea joins Lewis and Clark, which was the whole reason I wanted to read this book in the first place. But I simply couldn't get caught up in the story as Anna Lee Waldo wrote it. I never found myself really caring for Sacajawea or what was happening to her. I'm still on the look out for a good book about this woman, but this thick novel is not it.
December 19, 2008
If you're up to reading this book get settled in and just accept that you're about to begin a very fruitful journey. Thoroughly researched and annotated, Waldo's SACAJAWEA is a historical epic worthy of being studied in high school history classes. But don't let that color your expectations, because this novel is also a sweeping tableaux of emotions and humanity.
February 6, 2022
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This book, published in 1978, was a bestseller in its heyday, despite its massive size. (My hardcover library book version is 1342 pages plus the bibliography.) When this book came out I was in the throes of my child bearing/rearing years but I always knew I would eventually get to it.
Needless to say, I loved it and I loved how it was formatted. About the first two thirds of the book was about Sacajawea’s early years and then her amazing two year expedition along with Lewis and Clark and her not so great husband, Toussant Charbonneau. Each chapter began with an actual quote from either William Clark’s personal journals or other historical publications regarding the actual Lewis and Clark Expedition. The chapter then told the story of the quoted incident in a very readable and enjoyable style.
The last one third of the book is an imagining of Sacajawea’s life related via a strong oral Indian history of her life after her supposed death in 1812. Apparently Charbonneau had three wives and one of them died in 1812, but it has never been fully proved whether the wife that died was Otter Woman or Sacajawea.
Mrs Waldo began writing this book in 1964 and it took her 10 years to complete it. She had a great interest in North American Indian lore as a child and grew up in Whitefish, Montana in the heart of the actual Lewis and Clark Trail. She was a community college chemistry teacher. She and her husband traveled the trail three times over the 10 years she took to write it. The first dozen publishers she approached rejected it. Avon finally accepted it for publication, but it was four years before it was finally released at two thirds the size of her original manuscript.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
The 52 Book Club’s Reading Challenge - 2022
Prompt #10 - A book based on a real person
This book, published in 1978, was a bestseller in its heyday, despite its massive size. (My hardcover library book version is 1342 pages plus the bibliography.) When this book came out I was in the throes of my child bearing/rearing years but I always knew I would eventually get to it.
Needless to say, I loved it and I loved how it was formatted. About the first two thirds of the book was about Sacajawea’s early years and then her amazing two year expedition along with Lewis and Clark and her not so great husband, Toussant Charbonneau. Each chapter began with an actual quote from either William Clark’s personal journals or other historical publications regarding the actual Lewis and Clark Expedition. The chapter then told the story of the quoted incident in a very readable and enjoyable style.
The last one third of the book is an imagining of Sacajawea’s life related via a strong oral Indian history of her life after her supposed death in 1812. Apparently Charbonneau had three wives and one of them died in 1812, but it has never been fully proved whether the wife that died was Otter Woman or Sacajawea.
Mrs Waldo began writing this book in 1964 and it took her 10 years to complete it. She had a great interest in North American Indian lore as a child and grew up in Whitefish, Montana in the heart of the actual Lewis and Clark Trail. She was a community college chemistry teacher. She and her husband traveled the trail three times over the 10 years she took to write it. The first dozen publishers she approached rejected it. Avon finally accepted it for publication, but it was four years before it was finally released at two thirds the size of her original manuscript.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
The 52 Book Club’s Reading Challenge - 2022
Prompt #10 - A book based on a real person
June 27, 2018
This book was simply amazing and I recommend it to anyone who likes to see history come alive! It was a very long book; however, I was totally engrossed throughout the book. Sacajawea led a very extraordinary life through her experiences with the Lewis and Clark expedition that taught her so much more than other Indian women of the period. She learned many languages and lived with several Indian tribes as well as with white explorers. The book is extremely well-written and, although it is an historic novel, many facts are woven into the story (duly footnoted so you can see the inspiration for the story and read for yourself the actual evidence available). This book had to have been researched intensively. Anna Lee Waldo brought Sacajawea to life and this book seems a tribute to her life.
December 8, 2018
1400 pages!
I first read this book in 1984 during the summer when I was working third shift at a plastic factory. I was saving money for college. I was sleeping in my brothers room because it was the darkest one in the house. It was also filled with a bunch of traps, guns and animals in various stages of taxidermy. It set the stage for an awesome adventure with Sacajawea.
The story is still wonderful all these years later.
I first read this book in 1984 during the summer when I was working third shift at a plastic factory. I was saving money for college. I was sleeping in my brothers room because it was the darkest one in the house. It was also filled with a bunch of traps, guns and animals in various stages of taxidermy. It set the stage for an awesome adventure with Sacajawea.
The story is still wonderful all these years later.
March 29, 2022
What a journey. 🪶💙 An older man that use to be a regular at the bookstore when I worked there use to come talk to me about life and my interests and soon learned that I had a heart/pull towards Native American history and knowledge. He brought in this book for me and when I looked at the size, I was like no way. But deep down, I knew I was going to read this book one day because of who it was about.
I was worried it was going to be a “knock-off� imagination of Sacajawea but after doing some research, I learned that the author had studied Native American history and alone, the life of Sacajawea for the last decade before writing this. Using historical documentation throughout, the story appears to be very real.
1,400 pages later and I can easily say I am so happy I took the time to read this book. I have learned SO MUCH, whether it’s about the life of Sacajawea, the Lewis and Clark expedition, different Native tribes and practices, geography, history and even life lessons. This woman deserves the recognition and more for all she endured and accomplished. Though she is gone, her story and legacy will forever live on. Nothing is Lost. 🌻🦬🏔🌾☀️�
I was worried it was going to be a “knock-off� imagination of Sacajawea but after doing some research, I learned that the author had studied Native American history and alone, the life of Sacajawea for the last decade before writing this. Using historical documentation throughout, the story appears to be very real.
1,400 pages later and I can easily say I am so happy I took the time to read this book. I have learned SO MUCH, whether it’s about the life of Sacajawea, the Lewis and Clark expedition, different Native tribes and practices, geography, history and even life lessons. This woman deserves the recognition and more for all she endured and accomplished. Though she is gone, her story and legacy will forever live on. Nothing is Lost. 🌻🦬🏔🌾☀️�
March 20, 2015
I felt like I finished a marathon when I finally closed this book. I really wanted to like it - I admire the scope of it, the amount of research that was involved, and normally I enjoy reading really long books. Sadly, this book became a chore for me about 1/3 of the way through - I almost gave up on it multiple times. I didn't though, mostly because I almost never quit reading a book before the end. It kind of became a challenge to actually finish the damn thing!
So what kept me from enjoying it? The writing style is super clunky, with sentences and paragraphs sprinkled throughout that don't even make any sense. The pace is slow, to say the least. The emotional highs and lows are few and far between - in fact I can't say I really felt anything while reading it, other than some surface "oh I should feel sad here" moments that popped up once in a while.
I'm guessing there are lots of other, better books about Sacajawea out there, I will probably try to track them down. The history itself was interesting - I would love to read about it in a well written book.
So what kept me from enjoying it? The writing style is super clunky, with sentences and paragraphs sprinkled throughout that don't even make any sense. The pace is slow, to say the least. The emotional highs and lows are few and far between - in fact I can't say I really felt anything while reading it, other than some surface "oh I should feel sad here" moments that popped up once in a while.
I'm guessing there are lots of other, better books about Sacajawea out there, I will probably try to track them down. The history itself was interesting - I would love to read about it in a well written book.
March 28, 2008
I read this book for the first time probably about 7 years ago and then reread it again about a year later. It is a fantastic book. Growing up you hear the story of Sacajawea in school but this book really puts a face to the legend. You really see things through her eyes and see what a hard journey it was. I would definitely recommend this book. Be sure to allow some time to finish it as it is over 1400 pages long -- but well worth the read.
May 29, 2009
1328pages and i was suddenly all alone when i finished this book. I've read it twice and i intend to again. Wonderful book.
December 17, 2015
Definitely worth reading, I enjoyed every single page./review/list...#
May 27, 2017
Amazing read! I am sorry to leave it but happy to have visited. Excellent.
April 7, 2009
I think too many of my reviews start with "I love this...", but seriously, I read this in Jr High and I LOVED IT! Actually, I remember loving about 3/4s of the 1300 or so pages. The author offers a few hundred pages of an alternate ending that kind of messed with my mind as I had been sucked in, and believed every word...then my trust in the author was whisked away as she said, "Or, it could have happened this way...". Still, the book is a remarkable feat of historical biography with enough conjecture to consider it historical probably, mostly true fiction.
August 23, 2007
I couldn't take myself away from this book. Again, I sat with my laptop looking for more pictures, maps, timelines, letters, anything I could find. This novel was an excellent bridge for me to pull together the country's infancy, westward expansion, the Mexican-American War, and the Trail of Tears. Although I have been to much of the area covered by the Lewis and Clark expedition, I would like to revisit now that I have the images described in this book to consider.
September 5, 2009
This is my favorite book of all time. It's the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Sacajawea's point of view. Historically there are two theories about what happened to her after the expedition. One claims she died several years later, the other says she lived to a ripe old age and died in the late 1800s. This story takes the second claim and imagines what her life would have been. Excellent read for any historical fiction fan.
December 9, 2008
An absolutely amazing narrative of this extraordinary woman. I truly believe that Lewis and Clark would never have survived if not for her. She had a hard life. It will make you appreciate women's rights.
Shelved as 'abandoned'
May 9, 2016This book is dry, boring and reads like a non-fiction book. I'm passing!
June 13, 2018
Very slow... Also super disappointed to learn that Waldo plagiarized heavily from author Benjamin Capps...
November 8, 2024
Had some really good moments, but be warned...
There is a lot of SA and creepiness, especially in the first third to half of this book.
2.5 Stars
There is a lot of SA and creepiness, especially in the first third to half of this book.
2.5 Stars
September 11, 2022
Rating: 5 Stars!!
Review:
Thank you to My Mom's Cousin for Loaning me this book a few weeks after My Dad Passed away last year.
This was my first time reading a book by Anna Lee Waldo so i wasnt sure if i'd like her storytelling, writing style etc but i have to say i enjoyed this one very much!!
The Characters were very intriguing to read about. Sacajawea was my favorite mainly because of her determination to help her people out in time of need, not something you see alot of anymore.
The Setting was beautifully described which made me feel like i was actually in Wyoming with the characters while reading.
Overall a Phenomenal Novel by Anna and can't wait to explore more of her books in the future!!
Review:
Thank you to My Mom's Cousin for Loaning me this book a few weeks after My Dad Passed away last year.
This was my first time reading a book by Anna Lee Waldo so i wasnt sure if i'd like her storytelling, writing style etc but i have to say i enjoyed this one very much!!
The Characters were very intriguing to read about. Sacajawea was my favorite mainly because of her determination to help her people out in time of need, not something you see alot of anymore.
The Setting was beautifully described which made me feel like i was actually in Wyoming with the characters while reading.
Overall a Phenomenal Novel by Anna and can't wait to explore more of her books in the future!!
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