My intent when sculpting Sacagawea with her baby, Pompy, is to give some insight into what this teenage mother might be feeling when she finally encounters her people again. Sacagawea was born into the Shoshone tribe and was kidnapped at age twelve in 1800 by the Hidatsa Sioux and taken from her native Idaho to North Dakota. Soon after she was taken as a wife by French trapper, Toussaint Charbonneau.

Shortly before joining the Lewis and Clark expedition, Sacagawea (sometimes spelled as Sacajawea) gave birth to her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, nicknamed Pompy. Then in August of 1805, the Lewis and Clark party located a Shoshoni tribe and discovered that the tribe's chief was Sacagawea's own brother.

I often wondered what she must have felt when seeing her people for the first time after five long years. I wanted to capture the conflicting emotions Sacagawea may have felt when seeing her Shoshoni lands and tribe. Some reports were that many of her family were killed during her capture and she may have been uncertain that any of her family survived.

Would she know anyone still ...and would they know her?