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Museum of Human Beings
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Wikipedia article
'Museum of Human Beings', included in the National American Indian Heritage Month Booklist, November 2012 and 2013[http://www.npl.lib.va.us/bibliographies/2012aihm.pdf// American Heritage Booklist November 2012]. is a novel written by Colin Sargent, which delves into the heart-rending life of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea.[http://eventful.com/washington/events/views-field-alan-cheuse-and-colin-sargent-lectur-/E0-001-018248392-2// Eventful.com via Smithsonian Institution] Sacagawea was the Native American guide, who at 16 led the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Summary
At the turn of the nineteenth century, the young Indian woman Sacagawea leads Lewis and Clark to the Pacific. But what about that tiny infant in the commemorative engraving, perched on Sacagawea's back? He is her son, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the youngest member of the Expedition, a child caught between two worlds who grows into a man haunted by the mother he barely knew and the wilderness she betrayed.
Sacagawea is only sixteen when she leads the Expedition and catches the eye of William Clark who finds her exotically appealing. Afterwards, Clark takes in Sacagawea and her child, and raises Baptiste as a foster son. When the teenage Baptiste attracts the notice of the visiting Duke Paul, Prince of Wurttemberg, Clark approves of the duke's experiment to educate the boy at court. A gleeful Duke Paul exhibits Baptiste throughout Europe as a half gentleman-half animal. Eventually Jean Baptiste turns his back on the Old World and returns to the New, determined to find his true place there. He travels deep into the heart of the American wilderness, and into the depths of his mother's soul, on an epic quest for identity that brings sacrifice, loss, and the distant promise of redemption.
Reviews
The expedition papoose Charbonneau appears on the front of the Sacagawea gold one-dollar coin (2000 to 2008) and remains in circulation in the United States today.[http://coins.about.com/od/famousrarecoinprofiles/p/sacagawea_coin.html// Famous Rare Coin Profiles: Gold Dollar].
Calling the story heart-wrenching, Smithsonian Institution[http://smithsonian.com/ Smithsonian Institution]. has recognized the work of fiction with a publication reading at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Described by publisher McBooks Press[http://www.mcbooks.com// McBooks Press]. of Ithaca, New York, as haunting, the novel tracks the young man's descent into deepest, darkest civilization in a search for his place in the world: At the turn of the nineteenth century, the young Indian woman Sacagawea leads Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean. But what about that tiny infant in the commemorative engraving, perched on Sacagawea's back? He is her son, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the youngest member of the Expedition, a child caught between two worlds who grows into a man haunted by the mother he barely knew and the wilderness she betrayed.
Duke Paul of Wurttemberg's journal 'Erste Reise nach dem nordlichen Amerika in den Jahren 1822-1824', translated by W. Robert Nitske and edited by Savoie Lottinville as 'Travels in North America, 1822-1824', includes individual entries documenting the botanist nobleman's taking the precocious young Charbonneau, whom Clark had adopted and educated in St Louis, to Germany with him with the promise of further education, departing New Orleans aboard the brig 'Smyrna' in January 1824. Adept at languages including Mandan, French, Latin, English, German, and Spanish, the young Charbonneau spent over five years at court. In the novel, young Baptiste travels across the Levant with Duke Paul and the prince's painting companion Vogelweide, and performs piano in the presence of Beethoven.
According to 'Publishers Weekly':[http://publishersweekly.com/ Publishers Weekly].
Notes
The 'Museum of Human Beings' in the title alludes to the notorious museum that General William Clark built beside his home in St Louis after he returned from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Inside, Clark kept relics and specimens related to his various American Indian affairs.
Further reading
*Sargent, Colin (2008). 'Museum of Human Beings'. Ithaca: McBooks.[http://mcbooks.com/ McBooks], Ithaca, USA.
*'Publishers Weekly', Sara Nelson, ed. September 1, 2008. New York: Reed Business.
*Paul, Duke of Wurttemberg (1824). 'Erste Reise nach dem nordlichen Amerika in den Jahren 1822-1824', W. Robert Nitske, trans., Savoie Lottinville, ed., as 'Travels in North America, 18221824'. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
References
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