2 pirogues
176 pounds of gun powder
420 pounds of sheet lead for bullets
not enough whiskey
minus gifts a 12 dozen pocket mirrors
4,600 sewing needles
10 pounds a sewing thread
130 plugs a tobacco
for ’bout 15 miles per day
for 3 years
an over 8,000 miles
equal 2 heros
double pay for all
320 acres a land for the men
1600 acres for the captains
an
nothin’ for York.
His Own Domain
Master of His Own Domain
William Clark
Give (a slave) a bad master and he aspires to a good
master; give him a good master, and he wishes to
become his own master.
—Frederick Douglass
I love my servants as much or more
than my friend Lewis
loved his fine Newfoundland, Seaman.
They have become so much a part of this family
it would grieve me mightily to lose any
or to have to sell them off.
I have had to give the lash to almost all my people
since my return,
as they had developed a most sour attitude
which had begun to affect their work.
Any interruption of work
or challenging of my authority
costs me time and money.
I have never cut off a limb or finger,
starved near to death, cuffed women in irons,
or beat any of my negroes stupid like other men.
I provide for their food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.
I treat them like my own children
until they are buried in the grave.
Others think me cruel for not granting manumission
to my boy, York, but what rational business man
would cut a hole in his own purse?
Five Things
Five Things I Don’t Know
William Clark
I fear you will think I have become a severe master.
—William Clark
I don’t know why he thought
he had earned his freedom.
I don’t know why he thought
he was more than just a slave.
I don’t know why he won’t just quit
that woman of his.
I don’t know why God made them as easy
to train as mules but twice as ungrateful.
I don’t know why he insists
on making me prove who’s boss.
Homing Signals
Homing Signals
If freedom mean never again
hearing one a Ol’ York’s stories,
never fussing with his Rose,
or getting to hold my wife an family
If it mean never laughing or hunting
with my brothers Juba an Scippio
or teasing Daphny an Nancy
than it not be something
I would barter for.
None a us be free
lessen alla us gets to come an go
as we please.
I never run ’cause alla my family
still belong to Capt. Clark.
Too Many Wifes
Too Many Wifes and None
Rose
I wish I could feel bad for dat boy, York,
but I can’t. He had some hurt comin’.
I feel bad for his wife though,
no tellin’ what she gone have t’ do
t’ survive down south.
Blisterin’ sun an’ cotton fields
ain’t no place fo’ a woman.
She was a lil’ foolish fo’ choosin’ him,
but a good wife is what she was, too good
fo’ his heavy hands an pigheaded ways.
After she gone, maybe he’ll ’preciate
what he had. He did his share a knockin’
an’ now he gettin’ his on both ends.
Dat fool really only love the forest,
an up ’til he come back here still a slave,
was a pretty good wife to Massa Clark,
but don’t tell Ol’ York I said dat.
If dat boy fell off a cliff
his daddy say “look at my boy fly,”
Brotherly Love
Brotherly Love
Jonathan and Edmund Clark
I don’t like him nor does any other person in this
country.
—Edmund Clark
The great expedition to the Pacific
secured our brother’s career in politics
but made a monster of his boy York.
He and Lewis returned as national heroes
and York was so full of himself you’d have thought
he led the trek.
He strutted around here stirring up Negroes
and looking good, decent pillars of our society
right in the eye.
He threw everything away he’d been taught
and walked and talked as if seeing the ocean
had made him a white man.
Brother trounced him severely
and even had him thrown in the caleboos for his
impudence and drunkenness in St. Louis.
Somewhere out there he forgot his duties as a slave.
He took advantage of our brother’s weakness
for him and set a terrible example for the others.
We’d as soon see him sold south to New Orleans
or run north rather than have him around to poison
all our good Negroes.
Many Voices
Many Voices
When I says good-bye to my wife
a voice tell me to squeeze
an hold her tight ’cause I ain’t
never gone see or hold her again.
Don’t know how I knowed
but since Ol’ York took me into the woods
an introduce me to manhood
something like the truth whispers parts
a all my tomorrows an tell me things
I learns to keeps mostly to myself.
Sometime it be my Mamma’s voice
an sometime it sound like mine only wiser
warning me a danger
preparing me for a coming death
or reminding me that this body here just be a shell
that Massa might laugh at or work to death
but never know
that inside it be a buffalo
an inside the buffalo be a rock
an inside that rock be a mountain.
Irreconcilable Differences
Irreconcilable Differences
I does all I can
to help Capt. Clark
get it in his head
that I have had my fill
a our union.
When he raise his hand
to strike me
for the last time
he still have hope
he can make me mind
he believe what we had
is worth saving an that
a new pair a boots
will make it all better.
But he soon know
that he can not whip this man
into a boy again
when he stare me down
an see somebody new
in my eyes.
When he see me dressed
in my hunter’s shirt
he make quick plans
to send me back to Kentucke
curse himself for his “weakness”
an vow to never speak my name
again.
Lessons and Ghosts
Lessons and Ghosts
We start as fools and become wise through
experience.
—African Proverb
I use to think it be the job a the man
to keep his woman in line with a open hand
I use to think there be such a thing
as a good massa and that freedom
be a ghost in a dream that I couldn’t touch
I use to think I was too big to be knocked down
too old to learn something new
and too hard on the inside to shed a tear
I use to think that love was a word
that could only be used by white folks
I been wrong on all counts
an I gots plenty scars to prove it.
Queer Behavior
Queer Behavior
Lewis went into a terrible depression. In courting
a wife, his advances were rejected. Jefferson
appointed him Governor of Upper Louisiana, but he
proved utterly unsuited to politics. . . . His decline
eventually ended in suicide.
—Stephen E. Ambrose,
Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery
Why a fancy, educated man, who worked directly
with the president, traveled without harm to the ochian
returned as a hero, made chief a all the new territory
be given to such deep dark sadness, I can’t say.
But something give Capt. Lewis cause to question alla
his success, something bigger than all them books
something heavy as a mountain burrowed deep inside
him like a groundhog an emptied out all his joy.
After watching how careful he conduct himself
’round the men an learning how much he frown
on lying with Indian women, I starts to think
’bout the things the men whispered ’round the fire.
I thinks not on if it true, but on how hard it must be
to live life like it not, to walk ’round under a mask
to ignore your own nature, to smile an laugh an dance
for the pleasure a others while crying all on the inside.
Maybe his sorrow was born from fear a his feelings
or maybe he be even more afraid a what others
might think or say. I knows well how a thing like death
seem welcome when you can’t hold the ones you love.
Ol’ York say, if ain’t nothing in the barn but roosters
won’t be no eggs for breakfast. But I ain’t signifying
I’m just speculating on what ignorance an whiskey say
when they see how he carry hisself an how clean
an orderly he like his things. An it stand to reason
to ask if blue blood an education an manners can explain
all his odd ways or if he just seem a lil’ less manly
standing next to a rugged man like Capt. Clark.
All I can rightfully say is he was rich an white an a man
in a land where them three things mean nothing but power.
Why else would he take his own life, unless one a those
things wasn’t true, unless he too was a slave.
Til Death Do Us Part
Til Death Do Us Part
William Clark
Death will come, always out of season.
—Big Elk, Omaha Chief
When asked in ’32 what ever happened to my boy York,
I spoke the truth as far as I know it and even shed a tear.
I ended the gossip and told them he failed in business
and died of the cholera in Tennessee while trying to return
to me and his position as my valued servant.
And why wouldn’t he crawl back and apologize
for his foolish behavior over a woman
and for his poor conduct, instead of returning west to live
among the savages?
I was prepared to welcome him with open arms.
I would have history know
that I was not nor am I a severe master.
I understood the inferior nature of the slave.
His emotional and intellectual development
being what it was,
York couldn’t forget all the nonsense put in his head
about his blackness
nor appreciate freedom
or understand the true place and value of women.
It was my idea to take him along to serve
on the great expedition.
It ruined a good slave. It ruined a great relationship.
And that kills me.
Weighing a the Heart
Weighing a the Heart
There be a voice inside that speak
only when I feels guilty
for something ugly
that come on my heart or ’cross my mind
an even louder when I acts on it
an say or do a thing I later regrets.
I remembers that Ol’ York say
a piece a God live in every good man
an be what some calls a soul
then I look at alla wrong
I done an wonder how bad it scar
my soul to know a devil in there too.
But how easy some men must sleep
them having no guilt
an little soul.
Umatilla Prophecy
Umatilla Prophecy
Our people will be herded like buffalo
and walked backward from their own lands
until they fall off a great cliff.
Coyote will pretend to fall with them
and offer firewater and guns and beads
in exchange for their tongues and wisdom.
Young warriors will trade their best ponies
for white man clothes and iron horses.
Many will forget the hunt and the sweat.
Our storytellers will stop the winter count.
The rivers will turn to stone.
The white man will write down our truths.
But when they gather in great numbers
to celebrate their long trip to the ocean and back
many tribes will open their eyes and speak as one.
Before our feet touch the ground
we will grow eagle wings and buffalo horns
fly back to our homelands and rescue our stories.
The mountains will see us coming and weep.
The rivers will see us coming and sing.
The salmon will see us coming and dance with joy.
Gye Nyame
Gye Nyame
Ol’ York say Africans believe a person can only die
when the people no longer speak they name.
I give you these words to hold, not so you remembers mine
but so you know the truth an keeps it alive as well.
He say there be times in every man’s life when he have to
choose to hunt to feed himself or to hunt to feed his people
but only once can he choose to hunt no more forever.
He say when it all said an done there be nothing left ’cept
God.
Vision Quest I I I
Vision Quest III
In my dream I am standing in a deep deep hole
surrounded by a herd a wooly-headed buffalo
an hands as big as mine
are throwing dirt on my body.
At the edge a the hole
a old white man wrapped in a flag
is standing with his back turned away
an writing in a book with a long gold quill.
High above me in the clouds
an eagle is flying in circles.
When she folds her wings and starts to dive
I feel my body begin to float toward the surface
Her screeches are loud and piercing
They vibrate everything above and below the water.
She screeches one final time just before she plucks me
out of the river and carries me away, dancing like a fish.
Like Heroes
Like Heroes
is how the party was treated
when we returned
even me, back in the quarters
truth is
we ran out a food an supplies
before we even reached the ochian
we stole horses an anything else we could use
we pried the legs a women an girls open
let them think we had something special
something powerful to leave
with the trail a half-breeds
an sores an sickness
drunk with power an arrogance
we killed some young Blackfeet boys
then hung a peace medal ’round they neck
truth is
Indians was better people than us
instead a killing us all
they give us comfort an food
when we was starving
guides an directions
when we was lost
they traded their horses an women
for our survival an pleasure
watched us stumble all the way
to the ochian an back
we got better than we deserved from them
they got a whole lot worse
Time Line
1770
William Clark is born
ca. 1772
York is born
1799
John Clark (William Clark’s father)
dies. William Clark inherits York
and other slaves
1801
Meriwether Lewis becomes
personal secretary to newly elected
president Thomas Jefferson
1803
United States acquires Louisiana
from France
Summer 1803
Clark accepts Lewis’s invitation to
be coleader of expedition
October 14, 1803
Lewis arrives in Louisville
October 26, 1803
Lewis, Clark, York, and the nine
young men from Kentucky
leave the Falls of the Ohio
May 14, 1804
The Corps leaves the winter
camp at Wood River
August 20, 1804
Sgt. Charles Floyd dies