Lemhi Shoshone
The Lemhi Shoshone (Agaidika, or "Salmon Eaters") inhabited the Lemhi River valley and surrounding mountains in present-day east-central Idaho, occupying a critical geographic position at the Continental Divide. Their encounter with the expedition in August 1805 was one of the most consequential of the entire journey: Chief Cameahwait, who turned out to be Sacagawea's brother, agreed to provide horses and guides essential for the expedition's crossing of the Bitterroot Mountains. Lewis and Clark found the Lemhi Shoshone lacking guns and metal goods but rich in geographic knowledge and horsemanship, and desperately eager to obtain firearms to defend themselves against Blackfeet and Hidatsa raiding parties. The reunion between Sacagawea and her people remains one of the most dramatic episodes in the expedition's narrative.
Biography
The Lemhi Shoshone were the specific band of Northern Shoshone, led by Chief Cameahwait, who encountered the expedition at the Continental Divide in August 1805. They were Sacagawea’s birth people — the band from which she had been captured as a child.
The Lemhi Shoshone lived in the Salmon River country of present-day central Idaho, a resource-rich but geographically isolated region. They possessed many horses but few guns, making them vulnerable to raids by the better-armed Blackfeet and Hidatsa.
The band’s decision to trade horses to the expedition — influenced heavily by Sacagawea’s reunion with her brother Cameahwait — was one of the most consequential moments of the journey. Without Shoshone horses, the expedition could not have crossed the Rocky Mountains.
The Lemhi Shoshone were later removed from their ancestral lands and placed on the Fort Hall Reservation in southeastern Idaho in 1907 — a removal they have contested ever since.
