Sacred Sun was probably born around 1809 in an Osage village on the Missouri River, perhaps in what is now Saline County. Mi-Ho’n-Ga was her Native American name. The Osage were nomadic hunters, who also spent periods of time in their villages. As a baby, Sacred Sun would have been strapped to a cradleboard and fastened to a tree branch while her mother worked with other Osage women tending gardens, preserving meat, sewing clothes, and making domestic tools and vessels.

Because the Osage had been trading furs with the French for European goods for nearly a century, Sacred Sun would have been in close contact with French fur traders. She may have even been the country wife of a French fur trader. Sacred Sun would have seen American settlers steadily move into Osage territory. Since the United States had purchased the land west of the Mississippi in 1803, her tribal homeland had become sprinkled with forts, trading posts, and pioneer homesteads. With the coming of settlers and the United States Army, traditional life for the Osage people changed dramatically. By the time Sacred Sun was twelve or thirteen, she would have heard about, or experienced, many hardships due to war, starvation, disease, and the relocation of her people and other Indian tribes.

In 1827, eighteen-year-old Sacred Sun made plans to travel to France with eleven other people from her tribe. David Delaunay, a French-born resident of St. Louis organized the trip and would be their guide. Other Osage had taken trips to France and Washington, D.C. in the past. Though the exact reason for their trip is unknown, the Osage hunted game and prepared furs for four years to pay for their journey.

After loading their furs on a raft, the twelve Osage set off on the Missouri River for St. Louis. As they neared the city, the raft wrecked and all the furs were lost. Half of the Osage decided to return to their village while the other half —Sacred Sun (Mi-Ho’n-Ga), Little Chief (Ki-He-Kah Shinkah), Hawk Woman (Gthe-Do’n-Wi’n), Black Bird (Washinka Sabe), Big Soldier (Mo’n-Sho’n A-ki-Da Tonkah) and Minckchatahooh —continued. They soon joined Delaunay and his assistants and took a steamboat called Commerce down the Mississippi to New Orleans. There they boarded a ship named New England and set sail for France.

Sacred Sun arrived in Le Havre, France, on July 27, 1827. She was greeted by a crowd of excited French citizens. According to French newspaper descriptions and drawings, the six Osage looked exotic and interesting. Sacred Sun was particularly beautiful with her large, lively eyes and small frame. Both she and Hawk Woman wore their black hair in the traditional Osage fashion with it parted down the center with a red line painted down the parting. This red line represented the dawn road of Grandfather the Sun. Sacred Sun wore a red tunic over her knee-length dress, mitas—or gaiters—made of beaver skin over her shoes, and strands of shells around her neck.

At first, Sacred Sun and her group were treated well by the French. They stayed in nice hotels, ate rich food, and rode in carriages to attend operas and other places of interest. They met King Charles X at his palace in St. Cloud. Before long, however, the French lost interest, and David Delaunay found it difficult to feed and afford lodging for the Osage. He tried various ways to raise money. He sold tickets to see them in their hotel rooms. He arranged an event at which the Osage agreed to perform their native dances, and Little Chief went up in a hot air balloon. Eventually, however, Delaunay ran out of money.

Meanwhile, Sacred Sun had another important matter facing her. She was pregnant and wanted to return home to deliver her baby in the safety of her tribal village. Newspapers reported that she wept in public. On February 10, 1828, about six months after arriving in France, Sacred Sun gave birth to twin daughters in a hotel in Belgium. Both girls were given French names. For unknown reasons, Sacred Sun let a wealthy Belgian woman adopt one daughter while she kept the other. Around the same time, Delaunay was imprisoned for not paying his bills. The Osages were left to survive on their own.

Sacred Sun and the other unhappy Osages spent the next two years traveling in Europe, trying to survive and find a way home. They begged for food and lodging. Eventually, a newspaper wrote about their dire situation. The Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolutionary War, sent Sacred Sun, her baby, Black Bird, and Minckchatahooh back to America. Sacred Sun and one of her daughters arrived safely at Norfolk, Virginia, in late 1829, but Black Bird and Minckchatahooh supposedly died of smallpox aboard the ship. Little Chief, Hawk Woman, and Big Soldier returned to America a few months later. The Osage were reunited in Washington, D.C.

Thomas L. McKenney, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1824 to 1830, had the artist Charles Bird King paint a portrait of Sacred Sun and her baby while she was in Washington, D.C. The portrait hung in the National Indian Portrait Gallery until 1865 when it was destroyed by fire. Copies of all the portraits in the gallery, including Sacred Sun’s, had been made before the fire. They were printed in the book History of the Indian Tribes of North America.