Sacajawea (1788 –1812) was a Shoshone Indian princess. Her people lived from the Rocky Mountains to the Plains. Their main resource (= risorsa) was buffal (=bufalo): they hunted on horseback (= a cavallo) using the buffalo for food, clothing, homes, and tools. One day, while Sacajawea and her brother were hunting, the Minnetaree Indians attacked their Shoshone village; they killed Sacajawea’s father and captured her.
Then she was sold to Charbonneau, a trapper (= cacciatore) from Canada who married Sacajawea and took her to the Mandan village.
One day some white men guided by Lewis and Clark arrived in the Mandan village led by the loud beating (= battere) of the tom-toms. Lewis and Clark needed a guide to go West and Charbonneau said he would travel with them when the spring came. Captain Clark wanted Sacajawea to travel with the group because she spoke the Shoshone language and could ask the Shoshone Indians for horses. The Indian girl had just had a child, Pomp, and she took him with her. Sacajawea and her baby represented peace because war parties did not travel with women and children.
The journey was long and difficult: the group had to face strong winds while on rivers, heavy rains in the canyons, to overcome waterfalls (=cascate), and they also ran into rattlesnakes (= serpenti a sonagli) and grizzly bears.
When Sacajawea and her group reached her tribe, the Shoshone, she found her brother and he gave them horses for their trip west.
At that point she could decide if to live with her tribe or lead the men to west. Sacajawea decided to go and she travelled with Lewis and Clark by horseback over the Rocky Mountains . Other three months passed before they reached the Pacific Ocean and there they built a fort.
In the spring Sacajawea could go back to her people, she could no longer find her brother.