Sakakawea, a Shoshoni woman from near the Big Horn mountains in Montana, became the guide of Lewis and Clark on their trip to the Pacific in 1805. Captured in a tribal conflict and taken to North Dakota as a war captive, she was purchased by fur trader Tousant Charbonneau, who according to custom made her his wife. When Lewis and Clark sought to hire Charbonneau as an interpreter for their westward trip, he refused to go unless Sakakawea could accompany him, and the explorers reluctantly agreed. By her courage, endurance, and unerring instinct she guided the expedition over seemingly insuperable obstacles, and its leaders frequently credited her for the venture's success. After returning east, Charbonneau and Sakakawea settled at Fort Manuel, about 30 miles north of here near Kend, South Dakota, and on December 20, 1812, the fort's daily journal recorded that she died of a putrid fever. No further record of her exists, and her grave is believed to be somewhere near the site of old Fort Manuel.