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Big Hidatsa Village Site

Big Hidatsa Village Site

The pioneers, dispatched by President Jefferson to explore the new land recently acquired from the Louisiana Purchase, arrived here in 1804 and made their winter camp two miles from Big Hidatsa. It was here that they met and enlisted the French trader Charbonneau and his Shoshone wife Sacagawea to join their westward expedition, departing in the spring of 1805 into truly unknown and uncharted lands. As an interpreter, Sacagawea played a large role in the success of the mission that tripled the size of the United States of America.

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