Who was York? < Main Page

Who was York?

"His name was York - just York, nothing more, for he was a slave who had no legal right to own anything, even a last name."
     Robert B. Betts In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark

York is not a fictional character. York was real, and he is a true African American hero. Wherever the Lewis and Clark Expedition is spoken of, York must be remembered.

York was a slave, the personal body servant of Captain William Clark. York had been born into the Clark household and probably began his service to William Clark (who was roughly the same age) as a young boy.

When William Clark joined with Meriwether Lewis to search for a route from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, he took his slave with him. York worked alongside the other men. He carried a gun and hunted for food like the others. He shared in the dangers and the toil and traveled to the shore of the Pacific Ocean. York was the only African American member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and for all intents and purposes he served as an equal member and was granted freedoms and responsibilities beyond anything he had known back East.

When the expedition encountered Indians who had never seen a black man before, York was a marvel to them. His black complexion was seen as a mark of great honor. The very thing which marked York as mere property and a slave in the United States was seen as a sign of special worth and dignity by the Natives. The Arikara, for instance, were astonished at the Black man and considered him "big medicine."

When the expedition returned to the United States every member received not just the money and land they were promised by the government, but double portions of land and money. Only York received no payment. As a slave, he was owed nothing. All of his work was the property of his master, William Clark.

York's life after the expedition seems to have been one of struggle, continuous set backs, and eventual freedom. But our knowledge of York's life is really very sketchy. We know that York was married and that his wife was a slave owned by a different master. We know that his wife's master moved away and that William Clark forbade York from visiting her. We know that York agitated for his freedom and that William Clark denied his requests. We know that Clark grew increasingly annoyed at his slave's wilfulness. We know that in desperation or disgust Clark hired York out for a time to a severe master. And we know that through all of this York continued to demand his freedom. It is this defiant spirit of freedom that our music drama honors.

York: The Voice of Freedom is not a documentary, it is a dramatic work of art. As such, it starts with the facts of York's life and tries to explain through music and drama what that life meant. A work of history deals strictly with the facts; a work of art must seek for the truth that lives within those facts: how did the obedient slave come to understand that equality is not a gift to be passively accepted but a right to be seized and passed on to one's children?

York: The Voice of Freedom hopefully shines some small light upon the dark facts surrounding the hundreds of thousands who were forced into lives of servitude. The stories of most of those victims have been lost, their voices silenced. York: The Voice of Freedom is a song of hope that resurrects the story of one man: York, the slave who traveled to the end of the earth and came back a free man.

LINKS
Learn more about York

On-Line Links

PBS Online - Lewis and Clark: Inside the Corps
http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/inside/york.html

Fallout Over Freedom by Ahati N. N. Toure
http://www.lewis-clark.org/YORK/yo_menu.htm

York and Slave Society
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~sjboyd/lc/

Suggested Readings (taken from Ahati N. N. Toure's Web site)

Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1996.

Berry, Mary Frances and John Blassingame. Long Memory: The Black Experience in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Betts, Robert B. In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark. Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1985.

Franklin, John Hope and Albert A. Moss, Jr. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans. Seventh edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Gates, Henry Louis, ed. The Classic Slave Narratives. New York: Mentor, 1987.

Harding, Vincent. There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America. New York: Vintage Books, 1981.

Holmberg, James J. (editor) Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathan Clark. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Moulton, Gary E., ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. 12 vols. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-1999.

Taylor, Quintard. In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.

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