William Clark

Nothing in his schooling explains the maps, because there was no schooling. Clark was the ninth of 10 children born to Virginia planters who enslaved the people working their land, and he was tutored at home and never formally educated. He stayed self-conscious about his grammar and his spelling for the rest of his life. The family came down the Ohio by flatboat in March 1785 and settled at Mulberry Hill near Louisville, where his older brother George Rogers Clark taught him to live in the woods. At 19 he joined a volunteer militia in the Northwest Indian War, and his first campaign fell on a peaceful Shawnee hunting camp and killed eight people. He commanded riflemen at Fallen Timbers in 1794 and resigned his commission, sick, at 26.

Meriwether Lewis recruited him in 1803, at 33, to share command of the Corps of Discovery. The Senate refused the captain's commission Jefferson asked for, so Clark held a lieutenancy on paper and equal authority in fact, at Lewis's insistence, and the men were never told the difference. He drew the maps, ran the supplies and led the hunting parties across the continent and back. Afterward he stayed in the West and administered it — brigadier general of the territorial militia and federal agent for Indian affairs from 1807, governor of Missouri Territory from 1813, and from May 1822 until the day he died the superintendent of Indian affairs for by far the largest district in the country. He negotiated 37 ratified treaties, one-tenth of every treaty the United States ever made with Native nations.

On the expedition York carried a rifle, hunted for the corps and cast a vote equal to any white man's when they chose where to winter. Then they came home. York asked to be hired out near his wife in Louisville. Clark refused, complained to his brother that York had got such a notion about freedom and his emence services, and sent him to a strict nephew instead. Clark whipped the people he enslaved and bragged about it in letters, and York was among those beaten. Two decades later he told Washington Irving he had freed York, given him six horses and a wagon, and heard him say he had never had a happy day since. No manumission paper has ever been found. Clark enslaved people until the day he died and willed some of them to his children.

Missouri voted him out in 1820, in the first election after statehood, for Alexander McNair. When he died 18 years later the funeral procession ran more than a mile and cannon fired over it. He was buried on his nephew's land and moved to Bellefontaine Cemetery on October 23, 1860. In 2001 President Bill Clinton gave him the captaincy the Senate had denied him. The rest has not settled. Clark collected Native artifacts into a museum and had portraits painted while carrying out Andrew Jackson's removal policy, watched millions of acres pass through his hands, and issued an extermination order against Black Hawk. Whether the sympathy in his letters counts for anything, historians are still arguing.

William Clark's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Field journals of the Corps of Discovery book
  Kept daily across the continent, in his own spelling 1806
• Master map of the West other
  The cartography was his assignment on the expedition and his lasting contribution to it 1810
• Fort Shelby, Prairie du Chien building
  The first US post in what is now Wisconsin — the British took it almost at once 1814
• Museum of Indian artifacts, St. Louis company
  Assembled while he was removing the same nations from their land —
• 37 ratified Indian treaties law
  Negotiated across three decades, one-tenth of all such treaties 1838

• March 1785 aged 14 The family comes down the Ohio by flatboat to Mulberry Hill His brother George Rogers Clark taught him woodcraft in Kentucky.
• 1789 aged ~19 Joins a militia at 19 and starts the journal habit he never dropped The campaign attacked a peaceful Shawnee hunting camp and killed eight people.
• July 4, 1796 aged 25 Resigns his army commission at 26, citing poor health
• 1803 aged ~33 Lewis asks him to share command of the Corps of Discovery
• January 5, 1808 aged 37 Marries Julia Hancock at Fincastle, Virginia She died in 1820. He married her cousin Harriet Kennerly Radford that year.
• July 1, 1813 aged 42 Becomes governor of Missouri Territory Reappointed by Madison in 1816 and by Monroe in 1820.
• 1820 aged ~50 Loses the first election after statehood to Alexander McNair
• May 28, 1822 aged 51 Becomes the first superintendent of Indian affairs He held the largest of the four superintendencies until his death.
• September 1, 1838 aged 68 Dies at St. Louis at 68 The funeral procession ran more than a mile.

• Meriwether Lewis 1774–1809
  Co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which mapped the American West to the Pacific Ocean. shared command with
• Thomas Jefferson 1743–1826
  Principal author of the Declaration of Independence and third President who oversaw the Louisiana Purchase. commissioned by
• Sacagawea 1788–1812
  Shoshone woman who guided the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the Louisiana Territory. travelled with
• Andrew Jackson 1767–1845
  Seventh President whose populist policies and Indian Removal Act left a deeply contested legacy. carried out his removal policy
• Black Hawk 1767–1838
  Sauk leader whose 1832 resistance to removal from Illinois lands became the Black Hawk War. ordered war against
• Washington Irving 1783–1859
  Early American storyteller whose Sketch Book gave the country Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow. told his version of York to