"SACAJAWEA: Her True Story" is, I believe, a very important and very topical book. It is important because, better than anything that has gone before, it validates the Shoshoni version of Sacajawea's death, which took place in the pre-dawn of April 9th, 1884, on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation (which remains the only place she has ever been buried). However, many white historians to this day maintain that Sacajawea died in 1812 in South Dakota and this includes recent misinformation widely promoted by, perhaps, America's two highest profile historians -- Ken Burns and Steven Ambrose. Rich Haney, who has avidly studied Sacajawea and her Shoshoni people for forty years, felt compelled to set the record straight and, in doing so, explain how and why noted historians such as Burns and Ambrose settled on an egregious mistake concerning when and where Sacajawea died and where she is buried. The topical nature of Mr. Haney's book, released in Feburary of 2000, is quite apparent. Already, without doubt, Sacajawea is the most honored and memorialized female in America's history but, certainly, her greatest memorial is her depiction on the 2000 Golden Dollar Coin, which the U. S. Government is determined to make the most ubiquitous and most famous coin in the world. A billion of the coins have been printed and will officially be released, with unprecedented fanfare, in March, 2000. But already, in Feburary, Wal-Mart is releasing 100,000,000 of the coins and another unprecedented government promotion with General Mills will release countless more in Cheerios and other cereal boxes. So, the Golden Dollar Coin, bearing the image of Sacajawea, will surely add enormously to her fame; and, for heavens sake, she was already, by far, the most memorialized female in American history! Mr. Haney's book, to my mind, is vastly important because it totally convinced me, and will convince others, that, at age 96, Sacajawea died on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation on April 9th, 1884 -- not in South Dakota in 1812. And I truly believe it is important for Americans to know where the most honored female in America's history is buried. Wyoming's governor, Wyoming's two senators and Wyoming's sole member of the U. S. House of Representatives all read the galley of this book and all four of them heartily support it. I have lived all four decades of my life in Wyoming; I own and manage five Laramie business; I am a university computer teacher and I have recently been elected to the Albany County School Board. Therefore, I believe that Wyoming and American history should be as accurate and as informative as possible; and, therefore, I believe firmly in the accuracy of Rich Haney's new book, SACAJAWEA: Her True Story.
Betsy Barrett, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
SACAJAWEA: Her True Story is a stunning new book. It is a beautifully written and starkly documented biography...
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