YORK and CLARK, companions
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Updated: Tuesday, October 16, 2012
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
York, a black man, was one of the earliest explorers of the Louisiana Purchase.
He was a “servant” of William Clark, a leader of the Louis and Clark Expedition, which was commissioned by United States President Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase, and to report back its findings in 1804.
York, whom William Clark referred to as his “servent,” was born in Virginia on William Clark’s father’s plantation. They had been playmates since their infancy.
They had done everything together as boys: play, wrestle, run, swim, hunt, fish, and look out for one another. Clark, however, was always the boss, because at that time most—but not all-- black people were the chattel slaves of some—but not all-- white people. That was the way life was back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s in Virginia.
York could also read and write and cipher—that is, he could count and figure: add, subtract, multiply, and divide. He had learned these skills along with William Clark, who had had a private tutor to teach him. Most slaves were not taught to read, write and to cipher, because their masters were afraid they might demand their freedom, or run away, once educated. But, York and Clark were practically inseparable, so they also learned together, despite the custom of those times.
York, being the body servant of William Clark, grew up in Clark’s shadow. Where you saw Clark, you saw York. And, when you saw Clark, you saw York. They were so close, even their names rhyme, Clark & York.
Now the Louisiana Purchase was a large tract of land covering 15 states, west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, and south of Canada. It easily doubled the size of the 13 original British colonies, which then comprised the United States of America. The United States government purchased this land very cheaply from France in 1803, for roughly 3 cents per acre.
France, whose leader was Napoleon Bonaparte, had been defeated on the island of Hispaniola, in the nation of “Haiti,” by the black military genius, and former slave, Toussaint L’Overture. Toussaint’s top commander, General Jean Jacques Dessalines, administered the coup de grace to French General LeClerc and 30,000 crack troops in an epochal uprising of that nation’s black slaves. It is the only successful slave revolt in world history. http://www.blackpast.org/?q=gah/haitian-revolution-1791-1804
The island of Hispaniola is the first land on which the Italian adventurer, Christopher Columbus walked, when he “discovered the so-called New World in 1492,” some 300 years earlier, claiming it for Spain, aboard three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1033.html
At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, however, “Hispaniola” was half-Spanish, “Santo Domingo” and half-French, “Saint Dominigue.” Both western European nations had enslaved and imported hundreds of thousands of African chattel slaves, to grow sugarcane and other crops. “Chattel” means personal property like cattle or horses or crops.
In addition to its land on the island of Hispaniola, Saint Dominigue, France also laid claim to vast tracts of land on the North American continent, itself, including New Orleans, Louisiana, and all lands to the west of the Mississippi River and south of Canada. These lands came to be known as “The Louisiana Territory.” A French explorer named Rene LaSalle had claimed these lands for France in 1682 after canoeing down the Mississippi River from Fort Wayne, Indiana . He renamed the Mississippi basin in honor of Louis XIV, king of France. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9-Robert_Cavelier,_Sieur_de_La_Salle These were the vast lands which Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President, commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, his fellow Virginians, to explore, to map, survey and describe
Saint- Dominique was by far and away the richest French possession in all North America. When Sainte Dominique was lost to the blacks, in a brutal and costly war, the chastened French decided to sell all of its “Louisiana Territory,” not just the City of New Orleans, which the Americans had sought for trade purposes; but to sell it all to the Americans at any price, thereby enabling Napoleon to finance and to wage other wars in Europe.
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of approximately 530 million acres (828,000 sq mi or 2,100,000 km²) of French territory in 1803, at the cost of about 3¢ per acre (7¢ per ha); totaling $15 million or 80 million French francs. Including interest, America finally paid $23,213,568 for the Louisiana territory. The land purchased contained all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota south of Mississippi River, much of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, northern Texas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. (The Oklahoma Panhandle, and southwestern portions of Kansas and Louisiana were still claimed by Spain at the time of the Purchase.) In addition, the Purchase contained small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The land included in the purchase comprises around 23% of the territory of the modern United States.
The purchase was an important moment in the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, it faced domestic opposition as being possibly unconstitutional. Although he already knew, being one of its authors, that the U. S. Constitution did not contain any provisions for acquiring territory, Jefferson decided to purchase the “Louisiana Territory” because he felt uneasy about France and Spain having the power to block American traders' access to the port of New Orleans. [http://www.glossary.com/encyclopedia.php?q=Louisiana Purchase
President Jefferson at that time was President of the American Philosophical Society, a scientific association of leading men, one of whom was its co-founder, Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson sent Meriweather Lewis and William Clark (accompanied by York) to study under and to learn from these savants, before they were sent forth on this expedition, concerning the scientific, linguistic, and anthropological aspects of their impending exploration of the Louisiana Territory.
Other explorers had preceded Lewis , Clark and York, in exploring parts of the Louisiana Territory, at least one of whom was also black. His name was Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. Not only was this black French-speaking trapper and wealthy trader renowned for founding the City of Chicago, Illinois, but he was also an early settler of, retired in, the City of St. Charles, Missouri, the first state capitol. http://www.dusableheritage.com/history.htm
Ironically, during the American Revolution, in 1779, Point DuSable, the black trader, was arrested briefly by the British for having helped William Clark’s brother, American Gen. George Rogers Clark to win at the critical battle of Vincennes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baptiste_Pointe_du_Sable So, as York helped William Clark, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable was alleged to have helped another Clark, George.
The exploratory party set out from Illinois, in May 1804, near the juncture of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and traveled upstream on the Missouri River in keel boats and pirogues some 1500 miles. Along the way Lewis and Clark kept journals, collected samples and made astronomical observations from which they drew lines of longitude and latitude and mapped the river and its environs.
What ever happened to York, who had tasted the freedom of the wilderness is a very interesting historical question. My research discloses that after returning to St. Louis and discovering that his wife had been sold “down the river” from Kentucky into the Deep South to parts unknown, that he returned to Indian territory, up the Missouri, and finished out his days with 4 Indian wives.
Below I set forth additional research on this interesting subject.
“YORK”: BIG, BLACK, MEDICINE MAN
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.
Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, according to an April 1, 1804, “Journals” entry, included York, a “negro slave of Captain Clark’.” York is included among the roster of persons on the Lewis and Clark expedition, who were not on the “official pay-roll” (p.12, footnote 1). Other non-payroll roster members included: “Two interpreters, George Drewyer (or Drouillard) and Toussaint Charbonneau; an Indian woman, Sacajawea (“Bird Woman”), Charbonneau’s wife.
Passed a projecting rock on which was painted a figure and a Creek… opposite a verry bad Sand bar of several miles in extent, which we named Sand C, here my servent York Swam to the Sand bar to geather Greens for our dinner, and returned with sufficient quantity wild Creases [Cresses] or Tung [Tongue] grass… (p.40) (June 4, 1804)
“I saw Pelicans to day on a sand bar, My Servent York nearly loseing an eye by a man throwing Sand into it…” (p. 53) (June 18, 2004)
According to William Clark, in a journal entry dated October 9, 1804,
States that the Indians were “much astonished at my black Servent, who did not lose the opportunity of displaying his powers Strength &c. &c. this nation never saw a black man before.” (p.185) “By way of amusement [York] to them that he had once been a wild animal, and caught and tamed by his master; and to convince them showed them feats of strength which added to his looks made him more terrible than we wished him to be.--Biddle (I, p. 101).
In a rare pamphlet entitled Adventures of Zenas Leonard (Clearfield, Pa. 1839)--for information regarding which see Chittenden’s American Fur Trade, I, p. 397--is an account of a negro residing (1832-1834) in the Crow village at the junction of Bighorn and Stinking rivers, who apparently was Clark’s servant York. He told Leonard that he first went to that country with Lewis and Clark, with whom he returned to Missouri; and he afterward accompanied a trader up the Missouri, and had remained with the Indians
ever since (about ten or twelve years). He had, when Leonard saw him, four Indian wives, and possessed much reputation and influence among the Crows, from whom he secured the return of some horses which they had stolen from Leonard’s party.---Walter B. Douglas (St. Louis). (p. 185, n.1) (April 1, 1804)
“I Derected My all Servent York with me to kill a Buffalow near the boat from a number then scattered in the Plains. I saw at one view near the river at least 500 Buffalow, those animals have been in view day feeding in the plains…” (p. 143) (September 8, 1804)
“Several of the Curious Chiefs whome wished to see the Boat which was very curious to them viewing it as great medison, (whatever is mysterious or unintelligible is called great medicine) as they also viewed my black Servent.” (p.209) 10/28/1804
Those people are much pleased with my black Servent. Their womin verry fond of caressing our men &c. (p.194) 10/15/1804)
Those Indians were much astonished at my Servent, they never Saw a black man before, all flocked around him & examin him from top to toe, he Carried on the joke and made himself more turribal than we wished him to doe. (p. 186) October 11, 1804.
“[W]e made up the presents and entertained several of the curious chiefs whome, wished to see the Boat which was verry curious to them viewing it as great medison, (whatever is mysterious or unintelligible is called great medicine) as they also Viewed my black Servent.” (p. 209) (October 28, 2004).
“I found them much pleased at the Dancing of our men, I ordered my black Servent to Dance which amused the Croud Verry much, and Somewhat astonished them, that So large a man should be active…” (p. 243) (December 28, 1804).
York was also an interpreter. He is listed among other interpreters as “a Black man by the name of York, servant to Captain Clark.” (p. 284) April 7, 1805; also (p.229) November 30, 1804. “the method of Lewis and Clark’s communications with the Indians: “A mulatto, who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the Captains, so that a single word to be understood by the party required to pass from the Natives to the woman [Sacajawea, Indian wife of Charboneau, who could not speak English], from the woman to the husband, from the husband to the mulatto, from the mulatto to the captains.”--Ed. (“Mulatto” reference to York, or someone else?) (p.229, n.1) (November 30, 1804)
“[T]his day being Cold Several men returned a little frost bit, one of the men with his feet badly frost bit my Servents feet also frosted & his P----s (penis?) a little…” (p. 235) (December 8, 1804)
Interpreters, George Drewyer and Tauasant Charbono also a Black man by the name of York, servant to Capt. Clark, an Indian Woman wife to Charbono with a young vhild, and a Mandan man who had promised us to accompany us as far as the Snake Indians with a view to bring about a good understanding and friendly intercourse between that nation and his own… (p.284) (April 7, 2005)
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