A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION, Recognizing the commemoration of the 200^th anniversary of the reported death of Sacagawea in present day South Dakota.

    WHEREAS, in his journal of Fort Manuel Lisa, which overlooked the Missouri River near the present day city of Kenel, Corson County, South Dakota, the trading post clerk John Luttig reported on December 20, 1812, “This evening the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake woman, died of a putrid fever. Aged about 25 years. She left an infant girl.”; and

    WHEREAS, Sacagawea is most historically famous for being the only American woman, who with her husband and infant son, accompanied Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on U.S. President Thomas Jefferson's Corps of Northwestern Discovery Expedition to the Pacific Coast and on the return trip during the years 1804 to 1806; and

    WHEREAS, The Encounters On The Prairie - Central South Dakota Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation known as Keepers of the Story, Stewards of the Trail will be hosting a Regional LCTHF Meeting which will be open to the public in the South Dakota cities of Fort Pierre, Pierre, Mobridge, and Kenel on September 28, 29, and 30, 2012, to commemorate the bicentennial of the reported death of Sacagawea with presentations by scholarly Sacagawea, Lewis, and Clark speakers; and

    WHEREAS, the South Dakota public, joined by historians and citizens from across the United States, are invited to join in the bicentennial commemoration honoring the life, death, and burial of Sacagawea outside the stockade walls of Fort Manuel Lisa in Corson County near Kenel, South Dakota:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the Eighty-Seventh Legislature of the State of South Dakota, that the South Dakota Legislature recognizes the efforts to honor and to show respect for the memory of Sacagawea, commemorates the 200^th anniversary of the reported death of Sacagawea, and commends those who are organizing and those who will be participating in this historic bicentennial commemoration.