Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (February 11, 1805 – May 16, 1866) was an American explorer who is best known for traveling across North America as an infant with his mother Sacagawea as part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was the son of Sacagawea and her French-Canadian husband, trapper and interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau. Expedition co-leader William Clark nicknamed the boy Pomp or Pompy .
Charbonneau's image can be found on the Sacagawea dollar coin. He is the only child ever depicted on United States currency. Pompeys Pillar on the Yellowstone River in Montana and the community of Charbonneau, Oregon are named for him.
Childhood
Charbonneau was born at Fort Mandan in North Dakota, the encampment at which the Lewis and Clark Expedition wintered in 1804-1805. His father, French-Canadian trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, had been hired by the expedition as an interpreter. Captains Lewis and Clark agreed to bring along his then-pregnant Native American wife Sacagawea when they learned she was of the Shoshone people, as they knew they would need to negotiate with the Shoshone for horses and guides at the headwaters of the Missouri River. Meriwether Lewis noted the boy's birth in his journal:
The party that were ordered last evening set out early this morning. the weather was fair and could wind N. W. about five oclock this evening one of the wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy. it is worthy of remark that this was the first child which this woman had boarn and as is common in such cases her labour was tedious and the pain violent; Mr. Jessome informed me that he had freequently administered a small portion of the rattle of the rattle-snake, which he assured me had never failed to produce the desired effect, that of hastening the birth of the child; having the rattle of a snake by me I gave it to him and he administered two rings of it to the woman broken in small pieces with the fingers and added to a small quantity of water. Whether this medicine was truly the cause or not I shall not undertake to determine, but I was informed that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before she brought forth perhaps this remedy may be worthy of future experiments, but I must confess that I want faith as to it's efficacy.—Charbonneau traveled from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean and back as an infant, carried along in the expedition's boats or upon his mother's back. His presence is often credited with reassuring the native tribes the expedition encountered, as it is said they believed that no war party would travel with a woman and child.
In April 1807, two years after the expedition, the Charbonneau family moved to St. Louis, at Clark's invitation. Toussaint Charbonneau and Sacagawea departed for the Mandan villages in April 1809 and left Jean Baptiste behind. In November 1809 the parents returned to St. Louis to try farming, but left again in April 1811. Jean Baptiste continued to reside with Clark.
Clark's two-story home, built in 1818, was spectacular because it contained a brilliantly illuminated museum 100 feet long by 30 feet wide. Its walls were decorated with national flags and lifesize portraits of George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, Indian artifacts and mounted animal heads. Upon visiting the museum, Henry Schoolcraft, a geologist and ethnographer, wrote, "Clark evinces a philosophical taste in the preservation of many subjects of natural history. We believe this is the only collection of specimens of art and nature west of Cincinnati, which partakes of the character of a museum, or cabinet of natural history." Presumably Charbonneau spent time learning from the vast collection.
Clark paid for a more formal education for Charbonneau, at St. Louis University High School, taught by Baptist reverends John Peck and James Welch. Their classroom was located in the storehouse of another of Clark's friends, trader Joseph Robidoux, and the expense was considerable for the time. Brothers James and George Kennerly paid for Charbonneau's supplies for 1820 and were reimbursed by Clark.
- January 22, 1820: payment to J. E. Welch for two quarters tuition of J. B. Charbonneau, a half Indian boy, and firewood and ink. Amount = $16.37
- April 1, 1820: to J. & G. H. Kennerly for one Roman History for Charbonneau, a half Indian, $1.50; one pair of shoes, $2.24; two pairs of socks, $1.50; two squires of paper and quills, $1.50; 1 Scott's Lesson, $1.50; 1 dictionary, $1.50; 1 hat, $4.00; four yards of cloth, $10.00; one ciphering book, $1., one slate and pencils, $.62.
- April 11, 1820: to J. E. Welch for one quarter’s tuition, including fuel and ink. Amount = $8.37.
- June 30, 1820: to Louis Tesson Honore for board, lodging and washing. Amount = $45.00.
- October 1, 1820: to L. T. Honore for lodging, boarding, and washing from 1 July to 30th September at $15.00 per month. Amount = $45.00
- March 31, 1822: to Louis Tesson Honore for boarding, lodging and washing of J. B. Charbonneau, a half Indian.
In June 1820, Charbonneau lived in St. Ferdinand Township near his father's 320 acres of land. He lived with Louis Tesson Honoré, a Clark family friend and member of his church, Christ Episcopal, which the general helped organize in 1819.
Adult life
On June 21, 1823, at age eighteen, Charbonneau met Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, the nephew of King Freidrich I Wilhelm Karl of Württemberg. Charbonneau was working at a Kaw Indian trading post on the Kansas River near present-day Kansas City, Kansas. Wilhelm was traveling in America on a natural history expedition to the northern plains under the guidance of Toussaint Charbonneau. On October 9, 1823, he invited the younger Charbonneau to return to Europe with him, which was agreed upon. The two men set sail on the Smyrna from St. Louis in December 1823. Jean Baptiste lived there for nearly six years and learned German and Spanish. He already spoke French, the dominant language of St. Louis, which enabled conversation with the Duke. According to Wilhelm, Charbonneau was "…a companion on all my travels over Europe and northern Africa until 1829."
In November 1829, Charbonneau returned to St. Louis, where he was hired by Joseph Robidoux as a skin trapper for the American Fur Company in Idaho and Utah. He attended the 1832 Pierre's Hole rendezvous while working for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and fought in the bloodiest non-military battle preceding the Plains Indian wars that began in 1854. From 1833-1849 he worked in the fur trade in the Rocky Mountain Trapping System with other mountain men such as Jim Bridger, James Beckwourth and Joe Meek.
From 1840-1842 he worked from Fort Saint Vrain floating bison hides and tongues 2,000 miles down the South Platte River to St. Louis. On one of the voyages he camped with Captain John C. Frémont on a cartographic expedition. In 1843, he guided William Drummond Stewart on a lavish hunting expedition. Seeking employment again, in 1844 he went to Bent's Fort in Colorado to be chief hunter and trader with southern plains Indians. A traveler who met him, William Boggs, wrote that Charbonneau "…wore his hair long, was…very high strung…" Moreover, "…it was said Charbenau (sic) was the best man on foot on the plains or in the Rocky Mountains."
In October 1846, Charbonneau, Antoine Leroux and Pauline Weaver were hired as scouts by General Stephen W. Kearny. Charbonneau’s experience with military marches, such as with James William Abert in August, 1845, along the Canadian River and his fluency in Indian languages qualified him for the position. Kearny directed him to join Colonel Philip St. George Cooke and Lieutenant William H. Emory on an arduous march from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to San Diego, California, a distance of 1,100 miles. Their mission was to guide 20 huge Murphy supply wagons to California for the military. A Mormon contingent of 339 men accompanied U.S. cavalry on the uncharted trail. The marchers became known as the Mormon Battalion. A memorial to the battalion stands at the San Pedro River, one mile north of the U.S./Mexico border near Palominas, Arizona. Cooke noted that from November 16, 1846, to January 21, 1847, Charbonneau assisted 29 times on the march. Although only eight wagons reached Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, four miles from today’s Oceanside, California, the expedition was a success.
Cooke wrote, "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry." Known as the Gila Trail, the wagon road was used by settlers, miners, stagecoaches of the Butterfield Stage line and cattlemen driving longhorns to feed the gold camps. Parts of the route became the Southern Pacific Railroad and U.S. Route 66. In February 1848, knowledge gained about the region helped assemble the basis of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which established the United States-Mexico border in December 1853.
In November 1847, Charbonneau accepted an appointment from Colonel John D. Stevenson as alcalde at Mission San Luis Rey de Francia. This position made him the only civilian authority – sheriff
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