The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark

What it is

This is a novel written by Eva Emery Dye and published in 1902, held by the Library of Congress. It retells the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Why it matters

Dye's book made the name 'Sacajawea' widely known across the United States, using the spelling popularized earlier by Nicholas Biddle in his 1814 edition of the expedition journals. Before this novel, most Americans outside scholarly circles had barely heard of Sacagawea. Dye's romantic portrayal turned her into a heroine-guide figure, a version of her story that suffragists later embraced as a symbol, even though some descendants of her people do not recognize this spelling or pronunciation.

Look closer

• Why might a novelist writing over 90 years after the expedition change how people remembered a historical figure?
• What does it mean that a non-Native writer's spelling became the common version of her name?
• How might popular fiction shape history differently than firsthand accounts?