There has been a movement for some time to have the image of an important American woman replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Over 600,000 people voted online to select the right symbolic person, and on Mothers Day, May 10, 2015, it was announced that Harriett Tubman had edged out Eleanor Roosevelt as the top vote-getter. In June, the Treasury Secretary announced that a woman’s image would appear on a new issue of the $10 bill (talk about an instant devaluation of an entire gender!). In a surprise question toward the end of the second Republican presidential debate, the candidates were asked who their choice of woman would be for this honor. Caught off guard, the respondents made awkward suggestions that ranged from their mothers to Margaret Thatcher and Mother Teresa (neither of whom were Americans).

Shortly after this, we were vacationing in the beautiful area around Missoula, Montana. It was there in the Bitterroot Valley that the Lewis and Clark Great Expedition of 1804-6 recognized that the east-flowing rivers were petering out in the mountain passes and discovered the streams that ultimately led them to the Salmon River, then to the Columbia and on to the Pacific Ocean. It was fascinating to actually be able to locate sites where these epic events had taken place, with the help of two books I was following, and to share in some of the feelings of excitement and joy the 33 members of the exploring party must have experienced.

So forgive me if I put my two cents into the image-on-the-money controversy. I vote for Sacagawea, the only woman who was part of that pioneering group and one of the persons most responsible for their safe journey through treacherous landscape and hostile tribal territories. She was a fifteen-year-old pregnant Shoshone girl whose French fur-trapper husband had won her in a bet from some men of the Hidatsa tribe who had taken her as a slave after a raid on her village. Can you imagine what it would be like to be her?

She was virtually powerless. Yet she was indispensable to the Expedition’s success. Powerless and indispensable – that’s a good description of the role of women through most of America’s history. That’s why I’m suggesting her image as representative.   But this young woman was not helpless. She took the few resources she had — her knowledge of Native peoples, their languages and cultures, as well as her familiarity with the terrain, the climate, food sources, etc. — and she made them into a way of surviving and protecting her baby when he was born. And in the process, she managed to live a positive life. An author who has studied her extensively has written, “Sacagawea had a powerful, calming, peacemaking impact by her mere presence and upbeat personality on the men of the Expedition and Native peoples they met.” *

Sacagawea also reminds us that America has always been multicultural and multiethnic. In delicate negotiations with a wary Shoshone war party, the communications went from the chief to her (in Shoshone), from her to her husband (in Hidatsa), from her husband to a bilingual Yankee (in French) and finally to Captain Cook (in English). The response traveled back through the same channels. This gives a striking picture of our Nation’s complex cultural origins. Later, fur trappers would fill the valleys, then miners. More and more settlers would homestead on plots of land, The U.S. Army would be called in to subdue Native tribal groups and, one by one, move them to reservations. Finally, large corporations would bring in heavy equipment that could chew up whole mountains for the mineral ore. Because of all the economic forces at work over the two centuries since, Montana’s population is now 90% white. Sacagawea’s face on a $10 or $20 bill would say to us, “Wait a minute; our roots are a lot more colorful than that.”

Since Sacagawea’s day, America has become the greatest power in the world, both economically and militarily. Some people think we’ve arrived,; others among us believe it’s clear we still have a long way to go. It’s obvious that unbridled capitalism has led to a very unhealthy uneven distribution of wealth among American’s citizens. Also, National growth has come at the expense of the natural environment, which Sacagawea and her people seemed to respect and care for intuitively. Just what are our goals as a Nation? (This girl has me thinking very deep thoughts.)

As I considered all of this, I realized Sacagawea was telling me that the story of America is not the account of land grabs and reservations, of trappers, miners and giant corporations, of political struggles between conservatives and liberals. It’s the story of little people,
who have hardly any power or opportunity,
who climb one mountain only to face another,
who have to make the best of a bad situation,
who realize they’ll never inherit the land.

Yet, they trudge on, wishing a better deal for their children. Sacagawea lived to see the day when her son Jean Baptiste was taken into the home of Captain Cook and began a classic education in solid schools. Then she died at 25.

Is that all there is? Has Sacagawea fulfilled her purpose in life? Has America?   No, a more radical answer is found in the Bible. I was led to the passage in the New Testament Book of Hebrews, which reviews the history of faith in this way:

Yet, they trudge on, wishing a better deal for their children. Sacagawea lived to see the day when her son Jean Baptiste was taken into the home of Captain Cook and began a classic education in solid schools. Then she died at 25.

Is that all there is? Has Sacagawea fulfilled her purpose in life? Has America?   No, a more radical answer is found in the Bible. I was led to the passage in the New Testament Book of Hebrews, which reviews the history of faith in this way:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. . . . .

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them. . . . .

All these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better. . . . (Hebrews 11:8-10, 13-16, 40)

Even the Promised Land for which Abraham was searching would not satisfy: “God had provided something better.” Better than Israel at her loftiest; better than America at her grandest.

Sacagawea may not make the $20, or even the $10. But she’s already been on the $1 coin since the year 2000. And maybe that’s better symbolism anyway. Every time a little person, full of hope, drops her image into a Las Vegas slot machine he’s dreaming of the big payout. I pray that he sees Sacagawea smiling and saying, “Not now; God’s preparing an eternal payout for you. Trust him.”

– Pastor George Van Alstine

* Dale A. Burk, Lewis and Clark in the Bitterroot, (1998), p. 14