In an article in the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia called Searching for Sacajawea: Whitened reproductions and endarkened representations, Wanda Pillow Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana) examines the changing image of one of the most romanticized women in American history.
A Variegated Image of the Past
Accessing the wide variety of modern media, Pillow examines the image of Sacajawea as it--the image, not the woman--morphed over time. For the first 100 years after the Corps of Discovery returned, no one paid much attention to her. The image of Sacajawea was first 'created', if you will, at the turn of the 19th century by white female suffragettes, who were looking for strong female roles as support for the voting rights for (white) women.Searching for Sacajawea
Since then, of course, Sacajawea has been seen in many different ways, as strong and knowledgeable, as exploited and dismissed, as romanticized and commodified. In her search for the woman underlying the hype, Pillow looks at books, articles, poetry, movies, and the Ken Burns documentary, and finds each illuminating and obscuring in its own way. Was Sacajawea the plucky 'Indian maid' who led Lewis and Clark through the difficult patches of the expedition? Was she the downtrodden and exploited wife of French Indian trader Charbonneau? Was she the (gulp) love interest of William Clark?I recommend "Searching for Sacajawea" to anthropologists because in this thoughtful essay, Pillow describes both the cultural baggage of created light and shadows around this iconic woman, and her own longing to find the person within, find the reality beneath the fog. Surely an anthropological quest if there ever was one.
