Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness - Hardcover

Slaughter, Thomas P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375400788 ISBN 13: 9780375400780

Publisher: Knopf, 2003

Synopsis

Most Americans know that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led our nation’s first trans-continental exploratory expedition, which was sent west by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. Their journey is one of the most celebrated events in American history and one of the most written about. But most of us do not know any more than what the explorers told us, or what they wanted readers of their voluminous journals to know, or anything other than what they understood about themselves and their wilderness experiences.

Exploring Lewis and Clark probes beneath the traditional narrative of the journey, looking beyond the perspectives of the explorers themselves to those of the woman and the men who accompanied them, as well as of the Indians who met them along the way.

It reexamines the journals and what they suggest about Lewis’s and Clark’s misinterpretations of the worlds they passed through and the people in them. Thomas Slaughter portrays Lewis and Clark not as heroes but as men—brave, bound by cultural prejudices and blindly hell-bent on achieving their goal.

He searches for the woman Sacajawea rather than the icon that she has become. He seeks the historical rather than the legendary York, Clark’s slave. He discovers what the various tribes made of the expedition, including the notion that this multiracial, multiethnic group was embarked on a search for spiritual meaning.

Thomas Slaughter shines an entirely new light on an event basic to our understanding of ourselves. He has given us an important work of investigative history.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas P. Slaughter is the Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.
He is the award-winning author of three previous books—most recently, The Natures of John and William Bartram—and is the editor of three others, including the Library of America edition of William Bartram: Travels and Other Writings. He lives in South Bend, Indiana, with his wife and two children.

From the Back Cover

"This book unquestionably establishes Thomas Slaughter as one of the subtlest, most insightful historians writing today. Readers will emerge from this exploration with a new understanding of Lewis and Clark and their famous expedition."
--Thomas Fleming, author of Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America

"Tom Slaughter’s Exploring Lewis and Clark is a sometimes wickedly delightful re-examination of our legend of the Lewis and Clark expedition."
--Kenneth A. Lockridge, author of The Diary amd Life of William Byrd II of Virginia, 1674-1744

“[The book] to read first. . . Slaughter marches into the voluminous pages of the journals of the expedition (and the legend that has grown around them) and performs a scintillating close reading, thinking deeply about the attitudes, wishes, and dreams of the men who wrote them. . . Slaughter at his best is wise and observant, even empathetic. . . other chapters, though, delve deep and ask questions that will forever change my reading of these men.”
–Bill Roorbach, Newsday

“A rueful reading of the historical record that delights in considering some of the thorniest questions within it. . . Three million words of firsthand history cannot tell us, but Slaughter gives us some reasonable and altogether fascinating guesses. They could not be timelier. . . and deserve our close attention at the dawn of yet another American empire.”
–Gregory McNamee, Washington Post Book World

“In a provocative new book. . . Thomas P. Slaughter argues that [the mythology of the explorer] was even pursued by Lewis and Clark, neither of whom was what he seemed.”
–Edward Rothstein, New York Times

“Slaughter’s fascinating new book. . . stands on the shoulders of the past century’s scholarship. It also stands some of the scholarship on its head. Where Thomas Jefferson saw ‘courage undaunted,’ Slaughter rediscovers the daunting challenges that inspired both anxiety and valor.”
–John Kukla, Times-Picayune

From the Inside Flap

Most Americans know that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led our nation's first trans-continental exploratory expedition, which was sent west by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. Their journey is one of the most celebrated events in American history and one of the most written about. But most of us do not know any more than what the explorers told us, or what they wanted readers of their voluminous journals to know, or anything other than what they understood about themselves and their wilderness experiences.

Exploring Lewis and Clark probes beneath the traditional narrative of the journey, looking beyond the perspectives of the explorers themselves to those of the woman and the men who accompanied them, as well as of the Indians who met them along the way.

It reexamines the journals and what they suggest about Lewis's and Clark's misinterpretations of the worlds they passed through and the people in them. Thomas Slaughter portrays Lewis and Clark not as heroes but as men—brave, bound by cultural prejudices and blindly hell-bent on achieving their goal.

He searches for the woman Sacajawea rather than the icon that she has become. He seeks the historical rather than the legendary York, Clark's slave. He discovers what the various tribes made of the expedition, including the notion that this multiracial, multiethnic group was embarked on a search for spiritual meaning.

Thomas Slaughter shines an entirely new light on an event basic to our understanding of ourselves. He has given us an important work of investigative history.

Reviews

In this interesting but overwrought reconsideration of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Slaughter (The Natures of John and William Bartram) performs a "deep reading" of the travelers' journals and examines contemporaneous sources to probe the lines between history and myth. His investigation, which is thematic rather than chronological, suggests that the fable of Sacajawea's leading role in the expedition disguises the fact that she was a slave ("we have mythologized our history by denying her enslavement, her life, and her voice"), and that the explorers were the first wave of environmental despoliation, bolstering their masculinity by slaughtering buffalo, bears and especially snakes. The expedition was a clash of civilizations, pitting the Indian's holistic worldview, in which " the past and the present, nature and human are one," and "the white men's distinction between waking and dreaming makes no sense," against Lewis and Clark's rational, secular mindset, which was stuck in "linear, sequential time" and oblivious to the "spiritual implications of hunting." Slaughter's revisionism-especially his account of the contentious relations between Clark and his slave York, and his skepticism about the explorers' complaints of Indian thievery-often provide a needed corrective. But some may find his theorizing about the ways in which the expedition serves as "a better guide to our souls than...to our skins" overly academic-not hard to follow, but somewhat difficult to swallow.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Fans of Lewis and Clark, valiant trailblazers of the West and icons of American mythology, may resent attempts to humanize their heroes, but fans of honesty and historical accuracy will enjoy this reevaluation of the explorers and their famous journey. Leaving behind the traditional, linear, St. Louis to the Pacific Northwest and back narrative, Slaughter instead examines the explorers' journals and other historical evidence thematically, exploring Lewis and Clark as men and mapping out the ideological foundations of their expedition. The explorers emerge as thoroughly human, if rather bigoted, and very nineteenth century: they enjoy hunting, killing snakes, and being the first to set foot somewhere; they don't trust the natives and they own slaves (Sacajawea, for example). In short, Lewis and Clark are fascinating historical figures, but they don't quite live up to the myth that we get from Bernard DeVoto and Walt Disney. It may be easy to dismiss as a nitpicking revisionist potshot at our beloved heroes, but as the expedition's bicentennial approaches, this book's perspective will help keep our understanding well nuanced and grounded in fact. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

In a series of fascinating essays, Slaughter (Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History, Notre Dame) utilizes the journals of explorers Lewis and Clark to investigate their epic journey and its subsequent mythical status. What becomes quickly apparent is that these were imperfect men who have become legends. As with all legends, only part of the story is true. For example, many believe that the journals of Lewis and Clark are original notes taken in the field on a daily basis. Actually, some of the entries were written days after an event, and the journals were edited many times by the explorers and finally by a multitude of editors. Various essays explore the Corp of Discovery's relationship with the game they hunted, their view of possessions and how this created conflicts with the Native Americans they met, and even the Corp's experiences with snakes. Two interesting essays look at how York (Clark's slave) and Sacajawea were depicted in the journals, the conflicting theories surrounding what happened to them after 1806, and the modern usage of these slaves to illustrate the supposed all-inclusive nature of the expedition. Highly recommended.
Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1
Dreams

In the beginning the surface of the earth was all water and there was darkness." In this darkness and on these waters First Creator and Lone Man walked. They came across a duck-a mud hen in some versions-diving under the water and were curious. They asked the duck what she ate and she returned from a dive with sand in her beak, which they used to create the earth.

The First Creator made broad valleys, hills, coulees with timber, mountain streams, springs, and, as creatures, the buffalo elk, black-tailed and white-tailed antelope, mountain sheep and all other creatures useful to mankind for food and clothing. He made the valleys and coulees as shelter for the animals as well as for mankind. He set lakes far apart. Lone Man created for the most part level country with lakes and small streams and rivers far apart. The animals he made lived some of them in the water, like beaver, otter, and muskrat. Others were the cattle of many colors with long horns and long tails, moose, and other animals.

First Creator and Lone Man compared their creations and found fault with each other's. "First Creator said of the land north of the Missouri River, 'The things you have created do not meet with my approval. The land is too level and affords no protection to man.' " Lone Man thought that First Creator had made the land south of the Missouri too rough. They agreed, though, to leave all as it was and to allow humans to use the south side until its resources were exhausted and then move across the river to the north. "So it was agreed between them and both blessed their creation and the two parted."

Lone Man watched humans multiply and was pleased. He worried, though, about evil spirits among them and decided to be born as a man. He chose a Mandan virgin for his mother, turned himself into a kernel of corn, and entered her when she ate him. "In the course of time the child was born and he grew up like other children, but he showed unusual traits of purity and as he grew to manhood he despised all evil and never even married. Everything he did was to promote goodness."

There are other stories about the creations, about the origins of Lone Man and his good deeds on behalf of humans. Mandans said they had come from a cavern on the north bank of a river at the ocean's shore. They told Lewis and Clark that they came from a village under the earth, from which they climbed on a grapevine. They knew that Lone Man never married or engaged in a sexual act. They believed that light-complexioned people would come from the east, because that was prophesized from the time of creation. And they anticipated trouble from the white men when fur traders and explorers arrived. When First Creator saw the whites that Lone Man created, he disapproved. "You have made a queer kind of men-they will always be greedy!"

"In the beginning God created the Heaven, and the Earth." Important stories repeat. The earth is created three times in Genesis, and the Mandan told their creation story in multiple versions too. "So God created man in his own Image, in the Image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Again: "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, & breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Lone Man breathed life into his creations too, and not always in the same way.

Myths vary in the repetition. Both the variation and the repetition are essential. "And God spoke to Noah, saying, Go forth from the Ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee: Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and cattle, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth." Myths, by their very essence, can be and must be replicated. We repeat them-both the telling and the acts-over and over again.

Myths create binaries-heaven and earth, man and woman, good and evil, beginning and end, first and last, God and man. The middle ground between these binaries is scary, violent, evil or holy, and unnatural-a place to avoid (taboo) or approach through ritual in an attempt to resolve the danger of the binary or opposite. These are places for shamans. Even Jesus and Lone Man faced great danger in these liminal (in-between) spots when they became humans. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the LORD God had made." That, it seems, was its undoing. "And the LORD God said to the Serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat, all the days of thy life." Cursed, again, the serpent remains between God and humans, man and woman, nature and the unnatural, although always identified more closely with the second in each of these binaries-humans, woman, and the unnatural-thereby branding each by association. We are, in the Genesis myth, forever snake and not snake over and over again.

Where, Lewis and Clark asked the Mandan, did your people come from? We live under the water, where we have a village and gardens. Then, before we remember, we come out through a hole and settle on the Missouri River. Lone Man is born to a Mandan virgin, who conceives him by ingesting a kernel of corn. . . . "Several little anecdotes told me today," Clark wrote, not even bothering to enter the (to him) silly stories that he dismissed charmingly. Ignoring the belief of some Mandans that they came from the south-First Creator's land-and the west-a cavern on the banks of a river at the ocean's edge-Clark postulated that they were descended from "a more civilized state" to the east.

The explorers believed that the Mandans were too "white" to be full-blooded Indians. The tribe's comparatively fair complexion was a sign of racial connections to Europe, Lewis and Clark reasoned. The Indians spoke of a garden and a great flood, demonstrating shared mythical origins. The explorers sought other evidence of the Mandans' biblical knowledge, since an American "lost tribe" remained a distinct possibility, as did a Welsh genealogy. There were stories about Prince Madoc's discovery of North America and possibly some Mandans had heard about fair-complexioned ancestors who came from the east with stories about a garden, a snake, and a flood.

Such apparently simple issues as directionality were devilishly difficult to establish with the Mandan, though. Some came from below; some came from over there; some responded positively to Clark's suggestion that they came from the east. More than one traveler remarked that Indian responses to such questions were useless. According to the fur trader David Thompson, "persons who pass through the country often think the answers the Indians give are their real sentiments. The answers are given to please the querist." Hospitality dictated that answers please the guest, so the Mandan told Clark what they thought he wanted to hear. He did not appreciate their stories set westward, to the south, or underground. If he wanted them to say that they came from the east, they would provide that response, too. The eastern origin and the descent from civilization were Clark's theories. The directions were part of his mythical baggage. The desire for racial linkages between Indians and Europeans was his culture's, too. The Mandans knew better and did not share the dream that their peoples were one. Their "charming anecdotes" were true. They knew who the white men were and where they had come from.

Mandans saw their myths unfolding in the present, as did Hidatsa, Nez Perce, Shoshone, and Sahaptan-speaking peoples whom Lewis and Clark met, while the explorers believed their culture's origin stories in the past tense if they believed them at all. These explorers, like most educated Americans of their day and ours, alienated the teller from the tale, the present from the past and future, and humans from the natural world in which the stories were embedded. When Lewis or Clark asked a question in the past tense, Mandans gave answers that seemed unresponsive. The explorers wanted "facts" they could write down. What they got often seemed inappropriate for transcription. Readers of their journals are left, then, with vague references to the stories and ridicule of the storytellers.

Where are you from? Lewis and Clark asked the Nez Perce. We are the Nee-mee-poo, the "People," who live in this place. But where did you live before you came here? Ah, there are stories about a time before the memory of humans when the earth was covered in water.

The water wandered among the pine trees with no paths to follow. There were only animals then, which made the earth ready for the arrival of the People. Skunk, who was a great mystery man, and Bear wanted to dig a path for the water so that the People could find berries and roots on dry land. Coyote, who liked to do big things, volunteered to dig a ditch from the ocean, through the mountains and onto the level plains. He dug high, which is the falls, and low, which is the valley. "So were the rivers formed and things made ready for The People."

Lewis did not bother to write such answers down and neither did Clark on the outward leg of their journey. They could, however, try to rephrase the question. How is it that your people came to live in this valley? Ah, you want to know about Bear and the boy.

A boy wandered in the mountains at the time when the People were coming to take the place of animals on earth. He could not find his parents, but did meet up with the grizzly bear. "Bear growled until the mountains shook and echoed his anger." The boy, unlike the animals, did not show fear and answered bear's growls in calm words. "I can only die. Death is only part of life. I am not afraid." Bear was full of w...

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375400788
• ISBN 13: 9780375400780
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256