Sakakawea Statue in the US Capitol

Photo credit - WWP team

In the exhibition hall at the US Capitol stands the statue of Sakakawea (also Sacagawea, Sacajawea), representing North Dakota to the National Statuary Hall Collection (NSHC).

In 1999 North Dakota state legislature approved the donation of the statue of Sakakawea to the NSHC. The statue committee decided to send a replica of the Sakakawea statue that has been standing on the North Dakota State Capitol grounds since 1910.

The State Historical Society and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of North Dakota worked for more than three years to raise $200,000 for the 1,200-pound bronze casting of the statue.

The Women’s Clubs of North Dakota, then called the North Dakota Federation of Women’s Clubs, also commissioned the original statue and chose Leonard Crunelle to sculpt it. That was one of the first sculptures that honored a woman in the nation. The North Dakota Federation of Women’s Clubs erected it in celebration of the contribution of North Dakotan women to the history of the US. To create an authentic depiction, Crunelle traveled to the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota to sketch Hidatsa figures, learn their costumes, and meet Sakakawea’s granddaughter, Hannah Levings Grant, also known as Mink Woman, who modeled for the statue.

Since each state can honor two figures and the Sakakawea statue also depict her son, only she appears on the plaque that reads:
“North Dakota
Sakakawea
A member of the Lewis and Clark expedition
1804-1806”
Still, North Dakota is the only state that presents three figures in the NSHC.

Her statue was the first nonwhite woman in the NSHC and the 7th of a woman. Two years later, Nevada donated Sarah Winnemucca’s statue to the NSHC. Sakakawea and Winnemucca, along with a depiction of Pocahontas in a painting, are the only Native-American women included in the US Capitol.

The statue’s dedication was part of the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Members from the Three Affiliated Tribes participated and performed in the dedication ceremony on October 16th, 2003.

Sakakawea(b.1788, death unknown) was a Native-American woman who was one of the members (and the only woman) of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Ocean. She was born into the Shoshone tribe in what is now Idaho. Around the age of 12, Hidatsa Indians captured and took her to live with them in the area that is now North Dakota. Several years later, they sold her to marry a French-Canadian fur trader. In 1804, Lewis and Clark came to the area to prepare for the expedition to the wild west; they hired her husband and took her as an interpreter for the Shoshone people. She gave birth to her son, Jean Baptiste, and carried him on her back on the journey. Sakakawea had a significant role in the expedition’s success, contributing as a diplomat, guide, and translator.

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