Sacagawea Recognizes Home — Three Forks

At the Three Forks of the Missouri, Sacagawea recognized the landscape of her childhood — the very place where she had been captured by a Hidatsa raiding party five years earlier. Lewis recorded the story in detail.

“Our present camp is precisely on the spot that the Snake Indians were encamped at the time the Minnetares of the Knife river first came in sight of them five years since.”

The three forks were named Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin after the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury. The expedition followed the Jefferson fork, the westernmost branch, as they searched for the Shoshone people and the horses they desperately needed to cross the mountains.

Sacagawea’s recognition of the landscape confirmed the expedition was nearing Shoshone territory and increased hopes of making contact soon.