Sherry Chandler

Heart of Darkness in Kentucky

In the entry on York in The Lewis and Clark Companion (Henry Holt, 2003), Stephanie Ambrose Tubbs and Clay Strause Jenkinson have this to say about William Clark:

This whole episode reveals the dark side of William Clark’s character. Clark was a superb leader, a good friend, a loving husband, but he was also a Kentuckian and a slaveholder.

I was struck by this linking of “Kentuckian” and “slaveholder” as flaws in Clark’s character, as though just being a Kentuckian is damning. And perhaps it is.

Any evidence at all about York’s life is scarce and about his life after the expedition it is scarcest of all. From what we know, however, it’s apparent that York had trouble settling into his old role as slave, particularly because Clark moved to St. Louis but York’s wife was left behind in Kentucky.

The “episode” in question? Here is Frank X. Walker from Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York [Note: I think that being sold to New Orleans was particularly to be feared because it condemned the slave to the cotton plantations, á la Uncle Tom's Cabin]:

Souvenir

promit him to Stay a few weeks with his wife, he wishes to Stay there altogether and hire himself which I have refused. He prefers being Sold to retun[ing] here, …if any attempt is made by york to run off, or refuse to provorm his duty as a slave, I wish him sent to New Orleans and Sold, or hired out to Some Severe master until he thinks better of Such Conduct. — William Clark, in a letter to his brother Jonathan, Nov. 9, 1808

Massa Clark sent his brother several boxes
filled with pelts, horns, moccasins an other
Indian goods received in trade back home,
I sent my wife a buffalo robe
to put her in mind a me when winter come again.

I been carrying some gifts a Indian corn, a seashell
from the ochian, a grizzly bear tooth, an some
rocks rubbed smooth by the M’soura in the medicine bag
I keeps ’round my neck.

Though it been three long winters since I seen
her smile, Massa be so set in his old ways
I fear that next time I sets my eyes on her might be my last.

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