York was the first African American to cross the United States from coast to coast. Born a slave belonging to the Clark family, he was assigned as a boy to be William Clark’s servant, moved with the family from Virginia to Jefferson County in 1785, and grew to maturity on the frontier, learning the skills needed to survive in the wilderness. An experienced traveler by horse and boat, he traveled extensively in the U.S. with Clark. In July 1803, when Clark accepted Meriwether Lewis’s invitation to join the exploring venture to the Pacific ordered by President Thomas Jefferson, Clark recruited men from the Louisville area for the Corps of Discovery and decided York would also go, though he was never an official member of the corps. On October 14, 1803, Lewis and Clark met in Louisville, and on October 26, the captains, the “nine young men from Kentucky,” and York pushed off from Clarkesville, Indiana, down the Ohio. York shared in the expedition’s work, dangers, and hardships and gained a degree of equality and freedom he had never before experienced as a slave. He risked his life searching for Clark, Sacagawea, and her baby in a flash flood, hunted and fished, nursed the sick and injured, went on scouting expeditions, and traded with American Indians. His important contributions were recorded in the expedition journals. The captains allowed him to voice his opinion on where the 1805-1806 winter quarters should be established, showing the equality and respect he had earned. Among Indians who had never seen a Black man before, York’s skin signified someone special and spiritually powerful; they considered him superior to his white companions, were amazed by his strength and agility, and named him “Big Medicine.” The captains used the influence he wielded to help advance the expedition. After the corps returned, York was expected to resume life as a slave, but the equality, superiority, and even freedom he had experienced on the expedition had changed him. When Clark moved to St. Louis in 1808 and took York with him, York was separated from his wife, and the lifelong relationship between master and slave ruptured. After the summer of 1809 the two men were rarely together. York was hired out in Louisville to different men, some of whom mistreated him. Clark eventually granted him freedom, but not until at least ten years after the expedition’s return. York’s ultimate fate is uncertain. One account places him back in the Rocky Mountains as a respected chief among the Crow Indians. The most likely account, as reported by Clark, has him set up in a freight hauling business, losing it, regretting his freedom, and dying of cholera in Tennessee sometime before 1832. Whether he returned to the West he had explored or ended in an unmarked pauper’s grave, York made an important contribution to the greatest exploring venture in American history.
