Sacajawea

Sacajawea Monument in the cemetery in
 Ft. Washakie, Wyoming where most historians 
believe she is buried.

In April, 1804, just 2 months after giving birth to a son, 16-year-old Sacajawea set out with Lewis & Clark on their famed expedition across uncharted territory to the Pacific Ocean. She provided crucial services as a guide and interpreter, but as an Indian woman, she also served to keep the Indians they encountered from seeing the white men as a threat since no war party traveled with a woman. Lewis and Clark's very difficult and dangerous, but eventually successful 2-year journey opened up the west to the people of the United States and changed the course of a nation. It has rightly been called one of the greatest feats of exploration of all time. 

Sacajawea later gave birth to 4 more children before she became sick and passed away at the age of 25 on December 22, 1812. Although there is some doubt as to her burial place, a very old Native American cemetery in Fort Washakie, Wyoming is generally accepted as the place where she rests. The remote, hard-to-find, but still-active cemetery now known as Sacajawea Cemetery contains not only her grave and headstone, but also a monument to her.