A Slave Crosses A Nation
By Christmas the party had reached the Mandan village. On New Year's Day several of the expedition's men celebrated the occasion with the Indians, bringing with them a fiddle, a tambourine, and a horn. While celebrating, Clark "ordered" York to dance for them. Whether or not York wished to do so isn't mentioned in Clark's notes, but perhaps, in light of the slave's earlier antics, he may have enjoyed the dancing.
On November 18, 1805, the slave York was amongst the group of Lewis and Clark's men who camped on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. I can not help but wonder if York, at this time, thought of another ocean, one that his own ancestors had crossed aboard slave ships, bucking and grinding its way to the land of the free.
One year later, on November 5, 1806, the Columbian Centinel of Boston, Massachusetts announced, on a back page, that the Corps of Discovery was home.
There are conflicting stories about York's future adventures. Clark did, in time, free York and set him up in the freight-hauling business with a wagon and six horses. But York's good fortune was not to last. After two of his horses died he sold the others and went to work for wages. It seems that Clark believed, but was uncertain, that York had died of cholera in Tennessee. York was supposedly on his way back, at the time, to enter his old master's service.
There is, however, a tale of a Negro living amongst the Crow Indians, in 1832, who claimed to have come to the country with Lewis and Clark. It was said that he was a chief, had four wives, and was treated with much respect by the Indians. Strange, but this tale also, except for the part about coming west with Lewis and Clark, is very similar to the claims made by the Black Mountain Man James Beckwourth. But who knows for sure? It would be wonderful to believe that York lived out his final days in such a free and friendly environment.
To learn more on the Internet about Mountain Man James Beckwourth and other Blacks in the west, please see:
Blacks in the West http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1379... African American homesteaders, cowboys, mountain men, and soldiers, as well as many other occupations, looked to the West to start a new life.
Jim Beckwourth http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1379... As a young mulatto, he goes west as a fur trapper and becomes a member of the
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