Did the Lewis and Clark Expedition Include a Slave?
Did the Lewis and Clark Expedition Include a Slave?Answer: Yes. One member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was not a volunteer, and according to the law at the time, he was the property of another member of the expedition. He was York, an African-American slave who belonged to William Clark, the expedition’s co-leader. York was born in Virginia in about 1770, apparently to slaves who were owned by the family of William Clark. York and Clark were roughly the same age, and it seems likely they had known each other since childhood. In the Virginia society in which Clark grew up, it would not have been uncommon for a boy to have a slave boy as a personal servant. And it appears that York fulfilled that role, and remained Clark’s servant into adulthood. Another example of this situation would be that of Thomas Jefferson, who had a lifelong slave and “body servant” named Jupiter. While York was owned by Clark’s family, and later Clark himself, it seems that he married and had a family befo
