Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about history's most interesting dead people. In each episode, Alex and Kelly dive into the life of a famous person that you have heard of, but probably don't know much about. Our stories are about actors, entrepreneurs, politicians, musicians, inventors, explorers and more! We also cover things that used to be popular but have fallen out of favor. Things like pet rocks, drive in theaters, Jolt Cola, and many other trends of yesterday make up our "dead ends". But whether we are talking about interesting historical figures or past trends, the show is funny, light-hearted, entertaining, informative and educational. You will definitely learn something new and probably have some laughs along the way. Everyone will eventually move to Dirt Nap City, so why not go ahead and meet the neighbors?
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Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
The Story of York - Little Known Member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition
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Uncover the powerful, often overlooked story of York, an enslaved man whose contributions were vital to the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806). As William Clark’s lifelong enslaved companion, York became the first Black man to cross the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean, serving as an essential participant on a perilous journey that reshaped American history.
Throughout the journey of the Corps of Discovery, York played far more than a supporting role. He was a skilled hunter, scout, and crucial negotiator. Indigenous tribes, having never seen a Black man before, regarded him with deep respect and revered him as "Big Medicine." In pivotal moments—such as deciding where to build winter quarters at Fort Clatsop—York was granted a vote alongside every other expedition member, a rare instance of full equality in early 19th-century America.
Despite his vital role in navigating uncharted wilderness and securing the expedition's survival, York returned home to a stark reality. While white members received land grants, double pay, and national acclaim, York remained enslaved. His requests to Clark for freedom or relocation to be near his wife were repeatedly denied, leaving his immense sacrifices unrecognized for generations.
In this episode, we dive deep into York's extraordinary legacy, the complexities of his freedom narrative, and modern efforts to restore his rightful place in American history. Tune in to explore the life of a true hero of westward expansion whose courage and legacy were kept in the shadows for far too long.
Keywords: York, Lewis and Clark Expedition, Corps of Discovery, Black History, Enslaved Explorers, William Clark, American History Podcast, Westward Expansion, Hidden History.
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Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!
Hello, everybody. I think we're gonna come up with a name for that. Yeah, we're gonna come up with a name for that for that method.
SPEAKER_04It's uh oh the the backing up and then Yeah.
SPEAKER_02If people can't see you, you have to know that Alex learned, you know, in season one that when he's too close to the mic and he does that, it it gets a little too distorted. But now he starts way back and moves up, and it it gives me chills. It it just makes yeah, it just feels great. It's a good effect. I'm glad it is a good effect.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's good to see you. Good to see you, Kelly. Welcome to another episode of Dirt Knap City, the podcast about interesting dead people. I got a good one today. This is this is one that I've always had on the list, but frankly, I I didn't have the time to devote to um to preparing for this one until uh recently. So this is this is one of the epic ones that I've had on the list. This isn't some frivolous Alan Funt nonsense.
SPEAKER_02Was this with this shot on IMAX?
SPEAKER_04Is it that epic? Yeah, yeah. This is yeah, this is an epic for me. But ironically, um for something so epic, I'm gonna do one basically on a person that you've probably never heard of. We don't really know um when he was born, and we don't really doesn't even have a last name. Is this Adam? Yes, it's Adam of Adam and Eve fame. Yeah, yes, yes, born Adam and Eve. Yeah, what what year was he born?
SPEAKER_02Back in the day. Born back in the day. No, no. Before Zero, BC, way before zero, B Z, B Zero BC. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Just born at zero. Is it not Adam? No, it's it's it's not Adam. Born actually around 1770. You're not gonna guess. Um between 1770 and 1775, born in Virginia colony, right? Virginia is a state.
SPEAKER_02So wait, this is an American? Uh yes. Well, uh, or a colonist American. Okay, I I was thinking somebody more mythical based on your early description.
SPEAKER_04Right, right. Died sometime after 1815, and we'll talk about that.
SPEAKER_02You know, we already did Johnny Appleseed, right? Right, right. Okay, right, right.
SPEAKER_04Somebody along those lines, though? No, no. And he participated in one of the most famous events in American history, but we don't really know much about him. But today, I'm gonna give him his just due because he was a badass and he was mistreated back then, and I'm gonna I'm gonna give him the respect that he that he deserves today. Is this Daniel Boone? His name was York. Just York. His name was just York. Never had a last name. Wait, how do you spell that? Y OK. The reason he didn't have a last name is because he was a slave. Uh-huh. And he was the slave of a gentleman named William Clark. Okay. Who with his uh uh co-explorer Merriweather Lewis uh went on an expedition to uh find the American West. I've heard of those guys. And what you've heard of Lewis and Clark. I'm not I'm gonna talk about Lewis and Clark today, but I'm gonna talk about Lewis and Clark as like you know, the background.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04York um was somebody that was did just as much as those guys and was terribly treated before, during, and or maybe not during, but before and after for sure. So let me just paint a picture for you of America in 1803. All right. Yeah, yeah. USA's like just over 25 years old, you know. Uh Thomas Jefferson's the president, and the western edge of the United States is the Mississippi River. Okay, that's as far west as you can go, is the Mississippi River. Beyond that is this huge area that Europeans in the United States don't know anything about.
SPEAKER_02And all the radio stations start with W instead of K. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04You know, I was just telling my son about that the other day when we crossed over the Mississippi. I said, you know, when I was a kid, this was a big deal because the radio stations, and I realized then I wasn't making any so I wasn't making any sense to a to a new new.
SPEAKER_01He said, shut shut up, boomer.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Whatever boomer.
SPEAKER_04Jefferson, Thomas, the president, um, in 1803 bought Louisiana from France and the famous Louisiana Purchase, right?
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep, I've heard of that.
SPEAKER_04Now, when I say Louisiana, I'm not just talking like Shreveport, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, what we know now with the little boot. I'm talking what we know now. Louisiana was like what we know now is Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, parts of Texas, like East Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Like that's all Louisiana back then.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_04It was over 800,000 square miles from basically the Mississippi River to the Rockies. Okay. And the land wasn't empty. I don't want anyone out there thinking that it was the U.S. all scrunched up from the Mississippi and then a bunch of nothing. That was, and it wasn't even really unknown in any meaningful sense of the word.
SPEAKER_02People had been there.
SPEAKER_04People had been there. Natives have been there for uh thousands of years, and the French had been there for, you know, uh as in turn not really French people as much as traders, people um um free trade, you know, people trading with with natives, but that was French. Uh they owned that land, so they used it for training, but it was all native land, and so it was a place that people existed, it wasn't just wide open wilderness or anything like that. But the U.S. government was completely ignorant about that region. They didn't know anything past the Mississippi, they hadn't really gone out there. Um, and like I said, the French used it for fur trade, they used it um, and then they would trade the um, they would take the fur, um, and they would they would get the fur and they would trade that for guns, metal tools, and blankets from Europe they would bring and then they would get uh fur in return and send it back to France.
SPEAKER_02So like natural resources in the US and then uh and then manufactured goods.
SPEAKER_04Not really natural resources, but fur. Like that was a thing like natural resource. Sure, but I mean that was about it, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay, okay, fair.
SPEAKER_04So the big cities in that area, in what we would have called Louisiana back then, the two big cities were New Orleans and St. Louis. Those were the big, like right on the both of those cities were right on the Mississippi.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the arch were the archway, was the arch was the symbol of the West. And the arch wasn't up yet. Yeah, yeah, many years later.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, the um, but those were big French outposts. If you had gone to New Orleans in 1803, you would have seen a lot of um um, you know, fur traders, but it's not like French people live there. It was those areas were controlled by indigenous people, and the but um, and you know, they used some French money, they used some uh US money, they had their own border systems. There wasn't really uh it wasn't like complete wild west wilderness, like they were, you know, it was a proper place, those were proper cities, um, but they were basically controlled by you know natives, indigenous people. The French had a plantation colony, especially around New Orleans, and they did bring Africans into the colony, and it's actually a little bit complicated because of the Seven Years War. Have you ever heard of the Seven Years War?
SPEAKER_02I have heard of it, but I don't know much about it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was almost like a world war back then. Um, in North America, we called it the French and Indian Wars, like our part that's the same thing, yeah, Seven Years Warren. Yeah, okay, it happened all over the world, but the part that happened here, we call it the French and Indian Wars. And that was in the 1750s. So after that war in 1763, Spain controlled Louisiana for like 40 years, and then France secretly reacquired it in 1800, they didn't tell anybody, and Napoleon didn't actually take possession until 1802, and then he sold it to Jefferson in 1803. So the people that lived there were actually had been under Spanish rule for like 40 years, so it wasn't like it wouldn't have felt like France to you. Okay. Um, it was, you know, an area that had been controlled by Spain and then kind of bandied about or anything. It would be kind of like, you know, uh a Caribbean island today that would be, you know, under maybe Dutch rule and then Spanish rule, but it was it had its own vibe, right? It was its own vibe. More tacos than crepes. I don't know if they were yeah, maybe. Yeah, Spanish plus natives, maybe tacos. I don't know. Um, probably more like um, yeah, who knows? I think a lot of the American food was just being uh like invented back then. So it was the confluence of French and Spanish and and native, you know, that makes that delicious um, you know, Louisiana food that we that we love. So it wasn't an empty area, this Louisiana. It was an area that had like centuries of relationships between native nations and all the different native nations, and French traders and Spanish officials and British traders were there, and also like slaves, enslaved Africans, and then freed slaves also were were milling about and settlers. What you so some of those states um it wasn't the case back by 1803, it wasn't the case that every black person in the South was a slave. There were some states where they had um like slavery was permitted, but it wasn't like every time you saw a black person you thought that they had like escaped their plantation or anything like that. There were freed people living among slaves. It was a very kind of a uh strange time in a lot of those states where they hadn't really settled it or where it was like permitted. Um it was it must have been crazy to to live back then.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, especially, especially if you were a freed slave or or a black person living as a free person.
SPEAKER_04Or or not, or or seeing other black people that were free and wondering why you weren't, yeah. So when Jefferson like wanted to find out what was going on west of the Mississippi, it wasn't like they were discovering America, they were entering a world that already existed and trying to understand that world. So, you know, I think when we're younger, you know, this idea that it's just this wide open land that nobody has, you know, and we're gonna discover it. That really isn't the case. So Jefferson created this expedition called the Core of Discovery, and the Core of Discovery is 45 people led by Meriwether Lewis, who is like 29, Army officer, and he was actually Thomas Jefferson's personal secretary. Okay, Merriweather Lewis. But he had his shit together, so Jefferson is like, you're good, why don't you lead this? So he had been in the army with William Clark, and he asked William Clark to join him. William Clark's like 33, um, and he had been in the army, but he also like was a woodsman and he'd been a hunter and a map maker, and those, you know, and they were buddies from the army. They were partners. There wasn't like one, it wasn't like Lewis was in charge and Clark was his subordinate. They were partners. But I think you and I probably, or I won't speak for you, but I always assumed it was like Lewis and Clark in a boat, the two of them go off on their own.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah, I didn't I didn't think there were 45 people. No, no idea.
SPEAKER_04It was 45 people in this core of discovery. So here's what Thomas Jefferson gave them. This is their task. They had to do all these things. It's a lot. They had to map the territory, right? Right there. That's something that most people today don't know how to do, right? Find the best route west, investigate the Mississippi River, figure out if there was a practical route to the Pacific. For all we knew, there was like a river that went out to the Pacific, you know, document plants and animals along the way, record the geography and the climate along the way, learn about all the different native nations that they come in contact with, establish diplomatic and trade relationships with all those different native nations, assess the economic resources of those areas, and then gather information about possible future settlements, like where can we grow the U.S., like any place that we want to go. That is a very large task list. Right. So Clark decided to bring his slave York. Um, every other person in the core volunteered, you know, they wanted to be a part of this thing. Of course, York didn't volunteer, he was a slave. None of this was, he didn't have any agency or uh, you know, any consent of any of this. He was voluntary. Yeah, right. There were people in this core that were good at hunting, there were people in the core that were good at negotiating, there were people that were brought because of their map making skills, there were people that were brought because they were good at building things, there were people that could translate, they were good at there were people that could keep records. Like for every one of those things on that list, there was the expert, and then there was York, who was just um, you know, Clark's body man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Now, interesting thing about York is that he was about the same age as Clark. He was 34, Clark was 33. Um he was married, and his wife was enslaved by someone else, not Clark, so they didn't even couldn't even live together. She lived in Louisville, uh, Kentucky, and his father was old York, and his mother was Rose, and they were also his mother and father were also enslaved by William Clark's family, so they were passed he York was passed down in his father's will. So he was born into the family. Now you might think that his name could be York Clark, you know. Um, that wasn't the case, and that wasn't always the case with slaves. They didn't always, or even I don't think, usually take their enslavers' names. Um, sometimes you did. Sometimes you'll see people with the last name of Jackson or Jefferson or something to even to this day, you know, that that came from that. But York would not, he in the like the all the records that are kept from back then, he was never listed as York Clark, it was always just York. So that's what we'll call him today. But basically, because he was passed down in a will, York and Clark grew up together.
SPEAKER_02Grew up together, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they he was assigned as William Clark's body servant when he was 14. You know? So it was like his valet or his attendant, you know. Um, he would shave him, he would um you think of what you could do for a what would you do to like a 14-year-old boy where you could be his body man? Well, you're shaving him, you're running errands for him, you're basically tending to him. So it was only natural that Clark, when he's like, when he's like, Oh, I'm gonna go away for a couple years, it was only natural that he would just take his his guy with him.
SPEAKER_02Did it um did did you did you uh interpret or figure out were they friendly to each other?
SPEAKER_04I mean, were you know was it uh definitely a enslaver-slave relationship, but I think he was not um cruel to him at when he was when they were growing up together. Okay, yeah. I mean, I guess. I'm not gonna get so far and say there was a mutual respect or anything like that. Like he was an enslaver. So those guys lived in Virginia, and then they lived and they moved um Kentucky. Um, so when they left for the expedition, they had lived in Kentucky, um, but not in Louisville. So, like I said, York couldn't live with his his wife. So, how long do you think the expedition, the Lewis and the so-called Lewis and Clark expedition lasted? Um, was it three years? 28 months, yeah. Okay, but they weren't they weren't gone, they weren't like traveling the whole 28 months. They would go somewhere and then they would hunker down for the winter, and then they would go somewhere and they would call hunker down for the winter. So it wasn't 28 months of continuous traveling, but it started at Camp Wood, Missouri, okay, which is near St. Charles. You're familiar with Missouri geography, right?
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. On May 14th, 1804. They probably got leeches in the Osage Fork River.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, definitely. Do you know St. Charles?
SPEAKER_02Uh I don't know St. Charles. Is that your Ozarks? Uh or the Ozarks. That and the Ozarks, yeah. Where is St. Charles? So the um, I don't know. Is that northern?
SPEAKER_04Um no, because yeah, I think so. Because um Lewis, Merriweather Lewis was actually when they started on May 14th, he was still in St. Louis wrapping up his business. So he didn't even he wasn't even there at the beginning. But Clark started the kicked off the expedition and they went up the Missouri River from St. Louis or up to uh from from uh Camp Wood up the Missouri River, and then Lewis joined them a few days later. And they started with a keelboat and two um pierogis.
SPEAKER_02Not the delicious little uh yeah, little little dumping Cleveland, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um carrying 45 people and a bunch of equipment and supplies, and it wasn't really at the beginning, it wasn't really uncharted territory. You know, it was very populated river. There was all kinds of natives and traders along there, lots of people. Um they kind of knew what to expect. That was in May. Once you get to the summer going up the Missouri River, the summer of 1804, it's slow and it's brutal. They're averaging 15 miles a day up the river.
SPEAKER_02That actually seems like a lot. I mean, that actually seems like a lot for uh for them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but yeah, can you imagine though? We do that in 15, 10, 15 minutes by car. Yeah, yeah, of course. Uh it was hot. You can imagine Missouri and the well, you don't have to imagine. You've been to Missouri in the summer. Insects were leeches. Yeah, there were people getting sick, people getting hurt all the time. And York is hunting, he's carrying stuff, he's helping with the boats, he's helping with the camp. I'm guessing he's doing like all the work, probably.
SPEAKER_02He's keeping them alive, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. He's he's doing everything. Like he's the he's the guy like making it all happen. And the you know, I'm not gonna say Lewis and Clark were pansies, but I'm just saying I think I think York was doing all the heavy lifting and they were like getting their getting the photo ops, you know. Okay, yeah. You know, you you picture those those those uh those pictures you see, you know, like in the Smithsonian of Lewis and Clark, and I think they like step in front of the there's no camera, obviously, but yeah, yeah. They step in front of the other 40 guys, right? Definitely in front of York. Get this angle. York, you take this picture, yeah. Um well on August 20th, something happened. Um, Charles Floyd, who was one of the um expeditioners, uh He died from a ruptured appendix. Can you imagine rupturing an appendix in that environment?
SPEAKER_02In the wilderness. No, I can't imagine it in this environment.
SPEAKER_04Right. Um, he was the only one that that ended up dying on that whole expedition. Um, that was on August 20th. So they had been out for like three months. They buried him with um in what is now Iowa. So they had gotten as far as Iowa in three months. Can you imagine? That's not very far, like from Missouri to Iowa. No. Um, they meet not lots of Native tribes along the way, establishing relationships, and most of the Native Americans had never seen a black man. Um and so York was a curiosity to them, and but also slavery was a curiosity to them.
SPEAKER_02And they were interested in the ownership of anything, right? No, they didn't know. They didn't believe in ownership of land or no property.
SPEAKER_04And so they're like, you know, when Clark would say things like, Well, this is my, you know, I don't know what he called him. I don't know if they used the term slave back then. I wonder what they did call him. I body man, this is my my valet, my attendant, or whatever. They probably like had a hard time grasping or just watching maybe the way he treated him, you know, while he was Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02What does this all mean?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um well, October 27th, 1804. So they had been gone, what, five months? They're in North Dakota, what is now North Dakota, and they build Fort Mandon um and decided to spend the winter there. So they're late August Dakota. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, they know it's probably about to get really cold. They stay there for 161 days.
SPEAKER_02Wow. They they wintered.
SPEAKER_04That's like think that's longer than they had been gone, right? They've been gone like 150 days.
SPEAKER_02I mean, that's kind of like fall, winter, and maybe a little bit of spring.
SPEAKER_04They lived among the Mandan and the Hidatsa communities, and they traded lots of gathering information, information about the area. And there they meet this guy named Toussaint Charbonneau. You ever heard of him? Uh French sounding. Toussaint Charbonneau. He was a French Canadian trader. So he was a Canadian guy, but French Canadian, so that's all part of this equation, you know. And his wife, who you've probably heard of, her name was Sacajawea.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. I have heard of her. She made she had the dollar.
SPEAKER_04And they um joined them on the uh in their uh fort, um, and they had their infant son Jean-Baptiste. Oh yeah. Um, and like I said, the people around were really don't understand slavery or what that really means, especially now. You're um I'm sure, and I'm sure on the other side you're seeing Clark seeing this uh white man married to a native, you know, it's probably so progressive, blowing his mind, you know.
SPEAKER_02That's blowing his mind, yep.
SPEAKER_04Like this is a real cultural uh exchange, right? Um so April 7th, 1805. Now they've been gone almost a year. Um, eleven people in the party, they leave Fort Maine and they they head back to St. Louis. Um, they did all they came to do. And only one person had died. Yeah. And that stayed this is this way. So Lewis Clark and York and 30 others head west into even more uncharted territory, headed to the Rockies. Okay. And now you're really in the wilderness, though. From North Dakota to the Rockies, you can imagine. I mean, that's like Yellowstone, right? That's and this is this is in the spring or the summer. Yeah, April of 1805. So now it's nice, nicer weather. They have to abandon the boats, right? They're so far they'd just been in the river the whole time. So they have to get out of their boats and they have to get horses, and they cross the mount into the mountains, they cross the uh these different mountain ranges, they're into the they cross the Rockies. Um, you can imagine what that must have looked like, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah. No roads, no bridges.
SPEAKER_04They get to the Columbia River and finally reach the Pacific Ocean on November 15th, 1805. They got all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Um they built Fort Clatsop there and spent the winter there. So now it's November. They're up in that northwest, Pacific Northwest area. Um, so here's the thing though. Everybody on this uh expedition is writing their perspective of what's happening. We have journals from Lewis, we have journals from Clark, we have journals from all these people, these 30 people that are on this um voyage or uh this expedition. And you can imagine what what you know we can we don't have to imagine, we can read their words about you know reaching the Pacific, what that looked like. But you know who wasn't writing down their perspective? York. York. Yeah, doesn't know how to write, doesn't know how to read, doesn't know how to write, because he I was prohibited from you know from never never taught. Never taught. So we don't have his perspective. Other people are writing about York, so we know about him through all these other people's writings. Um, March 23rd, 1806, they've been gone about two years, and they start to head home. And at Traveler's Rest, which is now near what is like Missoula, Montana, they split the expedition up. Lewis takes 10 people and go north of Montana to see what's going on there, and Clark takes 23 people south. Is this just to cover cover more territory? Yeah, and and I think they were like mapping it out, and maybe there was just like this gray area where they hadn't been to. Okay. Right? You can picture like what Jefferson asked them to do. It's like this blank. I'm picturing like the US map, and half of it's blank.
SPEAKER_02He's got it circled and and and like an arrow pointing to it. Figure this out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they're like, shit, we didn't go to Montana. All right, I'll take Montana. And then uh Clark takes 23 people south from Montana down, and they plan on meeting back at the Missouri River. Now that part kind of blows my mind. Let's meet back. Like how what?
SPEAKER_02You can't even meet somebody back in Costco, right? It's like it's like, hey, I'll meet you. Uh I'm gonna go grab this, I'll meet you at the shop at the checkout. You know, it never happens.
SPEAKER_04No, I'll meet you at the Missouri River, somewhere between, you know, New Orleans and Minnesota. I'll meet you. Um, so at that point, um, Lewis heads south, I mean heads north, and he his he and it's only 11 of them, him and his 10 guys, they're confronted with eight um black feet. That's a a tribe, a native tribe, um, in Montana, and two black feet were killed. Oh, that was the only fatal encounter they had with natives along this journey was that um that encounter. Um, but it was like eight on eleven kind of situation, and the eleven had guns, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had an advantage, sure.
SPEAKER_04Right. So there was some kind of uh um, you know altercation. Altercation. You know, there were violent, um, there was a lot of violence back then. I'm not gonna paint it as like, you know, three guys on horses, you know, looking at the beautiful land. There were mostly trading, a lot of negotiation, but every now and then, you know, there would things would get violent. This was the only time anyone was killed. It was two two black feet. Um they finally get to back to St. Louis on September 23rd, 1806. They've begun a year and a half, 28 months, um, um after 8,000 miles. That um two and a half years, not a year and a half, two and a half years.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think that that is a long way to go in a car or a plane, but but to go that far feat and and boats and you know, horses.
SPEAKER_04I mean, we took a 34-hour road trip this summer, and that was like I felt like I was Lewis and Clark. Like that felt like a feat. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and that was like four days in a car, you know. This is two and a half years on a boat and horses, and I mean it's hardcore. And like I said, York was doing a lot of the heavy lifting, so they get back to St. Louis, and York has to go back to slavery.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Everyone else on the expedition, um, man, they got treated they probably got paid, they got to go speak, yeah. Do like look kind of like Shackleton, right? They got to go do speaking engagements.
SPEAKER_04Dude, they were. I mean, the they were they were famous. They were like, you know, there wasn't a lot of celebrities back then. They were famous. Um, everyone on the expedition got double pay. They so they got twice of what they originally promised by Jefferson, they got double pay, and every person on the expedition, except one, got 320 acres of land gifted to them by the U.S. government, except York, and he goes back to slavery. Wow.
SPEAKER_02He had done so much of the work, you know.
SPEAKER_04That's that's and not just like when I say the work, not just like, oh, carry this, you know, and and you know, not just the heavy lifting, literally, but like the negotiation. And you know, some people's writings talk about, you know, the only thing we know is from people's writings, and some people talk about how you know he had a way of getting along with the natives that was different. You can imagine, you know, he wasn't white.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so they see him as a different type of person.
SPEAKER_04And I think he probably saw them as different type of people than his, you know, I mean, he had to have looked at the people he was with. Uh, you know, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how people that were born into slavery felt about slavery, like if they consciously thought of those people as being like evildoers or bad people, or if it was, I don't know, I can't get in their heads. The sad part is, you know, none of them wrote down what they were thinking because they didn't know how to write. Right, right. So we can only assume though, but when he was meeting with native people, people described him as a good negotiator, people described him as a great hunter. He was a big guy, so he was, you know, doing a lot of building and lifting um and all that stuff. He was doing everything, probably except for the map make map making and writing and things like that that he didn't have the the skill for because he hadn't learned. Um, but um he asked Clark for his freedom, not because he did the expedition, it wasn't like now that I did this, I should get my freedom. He wanted freedom so he could go live with his life or be with his wife in Louisville. Yeah, he wanted to go leave live town and go live the rest, like he had done a big thing and he wanted to go live with his life, and Clark said no. Wow, and Clark did free another guy, uh, this the slave that he had named Ben in 1802. So it wasn't like this was an unreasonable request. He had freed a slave before. York says, let me go to Louisville, I'll hire myself out, and then I'll send you the money. Like, I'll just give me let me free, be free, I'll get a job, and then I'll send you all my money. So essentially I'll still be a slave. Right, just let me go and be with my wife. And Clark said no. Now that that's a deal, right? Like that's it's a shitty deal for York, but it wasn't like he wanted to live in um in glory or money or anything like that. He just wanted to be with his wife.
SPEAKER_02Was there ever a reason given?
SPEAKER_04Um, yeah, there were um, yeah, because it was hit, he was his, and it was like he I personally from like what I've gathered, I'm not sure Clark thought he could survive without York. You know what I mean? Like he was dependent, he was doing everything for him, you know. That's my personal opinion. He never actually wrote that down. Um, and we'll get into some of the stuff that he wrote down in a minute. But um eventually Clark did let York visit his wife for a for a little bit, but he couldn't, he wasn't allowed to stay there. Um, and and actually Clark started getting mad from his writings, he starts getting mad about York's insistence on freedom. He wrote a letter in 1808, and he wore he wrote in this letter that if York tried to run away or if he refused to perform his duties as a slave, that he would send him to New Orleans and sell them to a quote severe master. Wow. Like he was like, uh uh can you believe this guy keeps wanting his freedom? If he wants freedom, I'll show him. He'll wish he was back on the uh with me, you know. He he felt no appreciation. He felt no No, no, no. In 1809, he described York as insolent and sulky and um bragged about giving him a severe trouncing uh for wanting to be free. Um, keep in mind, these guys grew up together, they were the same age. Yeah, they were 14 years old together, right? They crossed the continent together. You know, I mean, you know the bonding you get when you're on a road trip with somebody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. With no with no consequences, right? It's all everything's gonna be fine. You know this, but this was life or death with the two of them.
SPEAKER_04You're on a road trip with a guy you've known since you're 14. So you're asking if they like had a friendship. No, not really. Uh, when all is said and done, Clark was just an enslaver. Um, so you know, was he treated like a slave on the expedition? That was what I wanted to know. Like while he was gone, was he did he have a treated like one of the guys? Was he one of the boys? Well, he had no choice, couldn't refuse, he didn't get paid. So, in those respects, no, he wasn't treated like one of the guys, but he did hunt with a gun, and slaves were not allowed to have guns. Um, so he tr there was some trust there, you know. I mean, he could have just killed York and killed all 30 guys and headed back to Louisville by himself, but he wasn't killed Clark. He could have killed everybody, yeah. Yeah, he could have killed everybody, right? Yeah, York could have killed Clark, he could have killed all the other 30 people, he could have gone on a mass murdering spree, but that's not how he was, right? Um, he cared for the sick, he was like a medic on that trip, he participated in the scouting. These are things that slaves typically didn't do. Yeah, the natives treated him as an important person as part of the delegation, right? So he was treated with more negotiations. Negotiated than a typical slave would. Um, interestingly, when they were trying to figure out where we should spend the winter, you know, the first time in in Fort Mandon, North Dakota, the second time in uh on the Columbia River, um, they took a vote and he was included in the vote, which is really interesting to me.
SPEAKER_02Like he was that wouldn't have that wouldn't have happened back at home.
SPEAKER_04No, so in some respects, like they were treating him as part of the crew.
SPEAKER_02He got a taste of of a little bit of what it was like to not be a second-class citizen.
SPEAKER_04I mean, he was, but a little taste in a way, and in a way that makes it worse, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. It does. He didn't get his, it would have been such a cool story if they got back, these guys get double pay, and York gets his freedom, but that's not how it went down. Wow. Um, in there is a story that in on June 20th, 1804, during this expedition, one of the guys threw sand at York as a joke, and the sand got in his eyes. And Clark recorded that incident. He wrote it that down. The um national, you know, a lot of this information we have that compiles a lot of this is from the National Park Service. They have they have great, like they have all they were documenting everything officially, right?
SPEAKER_02Officially for Jefferson.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but then also, like, yeah, that's true, and probably personal journals too. The Park Service says that we can't really tell if that was that throwing sand was ordinary horseplay, like they were always messing with each other, or that went just went wrong, went too far, or if York was being bullied because he was a slave and maybe that happened all the time. But it was this one particular incident that's notable that they talk about where he threw sand and it got in his eyes.
SPEAKER_02What did Clark say?
SPEAKER_04I think he just wrote it down like this they threw sand and it got in his eyes. Yeah, basically, right? Well, what we do know is that when the expedition was over, any of those freedoms he did have were over, you know, no more guns and no more caring for the sick. Um man, but you know, the takeaway from this that I got, besides the York part, is that Lewis and Clark didn't cross the continent alone. And I don't know how many people out there are hip to this. That, you know, like there are probably people like going, you dummy. Of course you didn't. But I was always on the assumption there were like at least the two of them. And I was shocked when I found out there was a third. I was really shocked when I found out there were 31 other people on this.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, right. And and and I always imagine them meeting locals, you know, and help getting help from the local, you know, from the local tribes and such.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and like having a Thanksgiving in every town, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, well, they crossed with 31 other people and one person who wasn't even free to decide whether he wanted to go. Wow. Well, the postscript to this is eventually York, um, Clark hires out York to an enslaver for a couple years, and that guy was harsh. He was he was not a good um, he was not kind, he was violent. Uh and here's the bad part is that um he uh finally gets to Louisville and York's wife has moved away, so he never gets to see her. God. Um I know it's a gut punch, isn't it? Yeah, from yeah, from 1814 to 1832, there's almost no documentation for York. We don't know anything that happened to him. Um, but we do know that in 1815, so this is nine years axe after the expedition is over, he was still enslaved. Okay. And because there was a business agreement between Clark and his nephew for a uh a drayage. Have you ever heard of drayage? That's what they called trucking back when they weren't trucks, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it was a horse, like uh uh I think a dray was called uh uh it was a horse that pulled a cart, or maybe it was like a trucking company though, and you're hauling stuff, it's a drayage.
SPEAKER_04So there was some kind of a business relationship in Louisville, and we know that uh so in 1820, Clark and uh his wife and her her father die, and there were estate issues, so he could have freed him then. And so we don't know though, we don't know what happens. This is all kind of a mystery. Um, we don't know. He could have we all know we do know in 1815 he was a slave. In 1820, he could have been freed because there was like an estate thing in 1832. Clark, now 1832, now we're you know 25 years after the expedition, right? Clark is interviewed by Washington Irving. You know Washington Irving?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04He's the guy that wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and okay that that stuff, right? He was an author, but he was doing a piece uh for a magazine where he interviewed William Clark about you know 25 years ago when you had this expedition. And Clark says in this interview that he freed York, um, and that York went into the freighting business, failed because he was lazy, uh, became unhappy with his freedom and begged to return to Clark. He said and he said, Damn this freedom, I want to come back. I think we can look at that as with skepticism. What do you think?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I I that that feels like uh that feels like gaslighting.
SPEAKER_04Unreliable narrator, but I think it's fascinating. Like he's telling this story about his life. He's an old man at this point, you know. Clark is. I think he died like three years later.
SPEAKER_02And and what does it matter? Why does he have to tell the story this way? You know, why does he have to paint it this way?
SPEAKER_04Because he's still, yeah, he well, and and particularly like. I freed him, but he couldn't even hold a job because he's too damn lazy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And he needs he needed me. I really think you you hit the the modern word of codependency a while back. But I think he needed him. And he in retelling it later, he was like, Yeah, this guy couldn't survive without me when really it was him that probably couldn't survive without York.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, and he said in this interview that on his way back to St. Louis, the that York caught cholera in Tennessee and died. But actually, and this is the kind of cool kind of DB Cooper part that we this is like one of those stories that we just have to go, I don't know. In 1832, a fur trader named Zenus Leonard reported seeing an older black man in a living among the crow tribe in Wyoming. But we in Wyoming. Way up in Wyoming.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And this older black man says that he traveled with Lewis and Clark, returned, and went back west with a traitor. And that's how he got up there. Wow. And this Zenus Leonard, it's the story that like went around and it became legend in Wyoming that like he was seen in 1832, which was the same year that Clark did his interview with Washington Irving. Like, so he was like apparently still around, yeah, according to that guy. I was gonna kind of believe that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. He had found camaraderie and respect with those people, right? With during that expedition.
SPEAKER_04That would be cool if that's how it ended, right? But we just don't know. Um we and Clark in that interview said that he still to that day, Clark still had slaves, um, just not York. Here's the the real tragic I mentioned about his wife like being in in Louisville and and then moving away. Yeah, and you know, like I said earlier, these states had confusing to me now, maybe not confusing then, but like the laws and every state was different. Um, it wasn't just like in the 1800s, maybe in the 1600s it was like this, but in the 1800s it wasn't like you had slave people and free people. It was like a patchwork of you had enslaved black people, free black people who weren't completely free, right? I mean, they still didn't have more civil rights. But they were but they still could get a job and get money. Then you had white people, white cit white males, right? White citizens, and every state had different rules, and the rules could change when you crossed a river. So, like Louisville, if you've ever been to Louisville, it sits on the Ohio River, and right across the river is Indiana territory, which was a part of the Northwest Territory where slavery was prohibited. So if he had been free and had gotten to his wife, all they would have had to do is cross the river, and slavery was illegal there, and they could have been free. They could have been free, but he never saw his wife again. Hopefully, he got up to Wyoming and lived free there. Um but in um in 2001, President Clinton posthumously made York an honorary sergeant. This gets me choked up, an honorary sergeant in the US Army. Wow. And he did the same thing with Sacajawea on that same day. He made Sacagawea an honorary sergeant in the US Army, but it it chokes me up that like he didn't just say that this guy existed, he actually made him a m an honorary like sergeant. Like he gave him rank and he gave him like he gave him an identity. This this guy didn't even have a last name, you know. He gave him an identity and said that he's an important American hero and that he belongs like as an as an American military hero because he was on a military expedition that he was a part of. And I mean it took you know almost 200 years, but he I think that's really cool that he that he got the honorary sergeant. You know, it's like there's been feature films made about Lewis and Clark, but York gets the you know, documentary, he gets the PBS, you know, right 25-minute documentary, but never the feature film. His story, though, to me is way more interesting than Lewis and Clark. You know, you've got this guy that was a born into slavery in 1770, grows up alongside William Clark, crosses the entire continent, encounters all these different. I mean, how many people got to encounter so many different native nations?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_04Reaches the Pacific Ocean. Like, who does that?
SPEAKER_02Nobody had done it at that very few people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he comes home, he demands his freedom, he gets beaten by his enslaver, maybe he becomes a businessman, maybe disappears into American West. We really don't know what happens to him. That's a movie. Why has nobody made this movie?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Now it's just a Dirtnap City episode.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's a good start. It's a good start. I'm sure many, many movies will be made from episodes.
SPEAKER_04So this gets me thinking, like, you know, sometimes like I think like Dallas Buyers Club was a movie made from a Texas monthly article, right? Like a seven-page article that made into a feature film. I think that maybe this episode of Dirt Knap City, so like Steven Spielberg, if you're listening. Yeah, you know, Christopher Nolan, if you want to tackle your next project. Shoot it on IMAX, that's fine. This would be a great IMAX. Can you imagine? It's Lewis and Clark, but not Lewis and Clark. It's York's story. Different perspective. Yeah. I'd call the movie York, parentheses, and Lewis and Clark.
SPEAKER_00Before the maps had names for rivers, before the fire hills met the sky, a man called York walked westward with them. Where cotton wood and thunder rolled by. He carried more than packs and powder. He learned the water trail and flame. When hungry camps were losing courage, the nation's new and spoke his name. You saw the country opening your cross for no road, ran through the hero. Two captains in the story, but every mile was marked by you. York, the wind still keeps your footsteps in the grass beyond the normal. Hansome hard beneath the banner who was not yet free when he came home. He stood beside the river cross. He hunted traded heeled and led. His presence changed the way we welcome no single journal police. He met the people of us Whisper suspicion. Man held back by another's power. When the canoes came east twisting, and the long road turned toward the door. No land, no wage, no promised freedom. For all the danger he had known, the nation took the maps and left him. Still belong to someone else at home. Some say he has to go back westward. Some say the mountains called him on Toward Wyoming's wide open country where a man could vanish with the dawn. No certain grave, no final witness, only the rumor old and bright, that York found kin among the nations, and chose the western sky for life. York, you saw the country open, and you crossed for an old rope, ran through there. Two captains in the story, but every mile was marked by you. York, the wind still keeps your footsteps in the grass beyond the knoll. An unsung heart beneath the banner, whose road went farther than their.
