The hero York

Let me warn you. This story violates sensibilities. It lays to ruin our corporate sense of justice and mercy, our belief in something good abiding in every human heart. What I'm about to tell you should not have happened, but it did. 

William Clark, who, after the immensely successful first-time explorations up the Missouri and across to the Yellowstone, over the Rockies, and, incredibly, all the way west to the Pacific, and then back--you know, that William Clark, who, after the most famous westcoast trip of them all, stepped into national prominence so encompassing he could have ridden down Fifth Avenue on a Rose Bowl float, had there been a RoseBowl, that same William Clark, appointed thereafter to be the commissioner of Indian Affairs, a position he held and honored for years--that William Clark, as in, you know, "Lewis and Clark, owned a slave. . .well, more than one; but, as you likely know, he took one of them along on the journey, a man named York, who Clark himself called his boyhood buddy his "playmate." 

Now don't go thinking shackles and chains. This man, York, while on the expedition, hardly fit the sad profile of what we consider a "slave." Often enough, William Clark and Meriweather Lewis stuck a rifle in York's hands--no black man back in Virginia carried a gun. Not only that, more than once York was sent out on his own to bring back victuals. I mean, he could have escaped, right?  Could have just walked away from the entire Corps operation and been over-and-done with the nation's despicable institution, could have been free as a bird. And, get this!--York got the vote a full sixty years and a Civil War before African-Americans were granted that right. You can't think of him in leg irons, but a gun, a little free time, and a vote doesn't mean Clark's York wasn't a slave.

From what we know about his behavior, it's fair to say--a little blushingly--that York was a ladies' man. Occasionally, the corps parked for a time near a band of Native husbands who appeared to consider it hospitable of them to offer their guests their wives. It's clear from the journals that York, the only black man, drew a crowd. No journals record his turning down such friendliness. 

York was a slave, even up the Missouri, when he didn't act like one--nor was he expected to. On board, he was just another grunt, and well-muscled, a valued member of the crew who did more than his share of tugging that pirogue upstream, from the bank or in the water. He was the guy you want on your team, the clean-up hitter, that mad dog outside linebacker. Were he a Hawkeye, he would have been a tight end.

It's perfectly understandable that, once home, York wanted nothing to do with slavery. He hadn't been treated like one, so he fully expected to be freed--his master, the honorable William Clark--admitted that himself. But it seems clear from his own words, that Clark got all huffy when York insisted he wanted to slam the door on slavery. He wanted his freedom, even refused to chase down some runaway slave as "his master" had demanded.

Then what? York's story has two endings. You've got a choice. One of them is the story told by William Clark. Clark claimed he'd set York up on a draying business--driving delivery wagons, a 19th century truck driver. Clark told people York's business went belly-up because York was plain-old lazy, enjoyed sleep more than work. That's Clark's story.

But there's another too, this one turned in by trappers, who claimed York, on his own, returned a place where he was loved. Those trappers claimed he just went back up the river and took up residence with the Crows--they'd seen him in the company of his wives, of whom there were four. It was, for sure, a place he was loved.

I'm happy to say right now that most 19th century historians believe the trappers.

York was a tough hombre, like all the rest of the Corps, a wilderness man who took advantage of the gifts he was given as a member of the expedition. 

Next time you walk through the Lewis and Clark Center down there at the riverfront, where he has a prominent place, give the man a smile. Do me a favor and thank him. He's a veteran who served his country even when his country didn't serve him.

York's a hero.