The argument that Marie’s experience was “harder” than Sacagawea’s is not particularly productive.

Both women faced genuine and specific difficulties.

What is productive is the recognition that they were different women with different experiences in different contexts, and that the difference in their historical recognition reflects factors other than the difference in their achievements.

Sacagawea became famous partly because she appeared in a well-documented, widely published, government-sponsored expedition narrative.

Marie Dorion did not.

The coin test is illustrative.