Sign-Talker (67 page)

Those familiar with the journals will see that excerpts I’ve used in this book do not change the authors’ idiosyncratic
spelling or phrasing. I have condensed by excerpting, and by omitting or deleting independent clauses and other connective matter, not by changing or paraphrasing the authors’ own words. Thus their information and style remain intact. I have not always used ellipses to mark omissions because they can distract the reader from the sense and flow of the text.

This is the story of a métis, or mixed-blood Indian, a tan man who in his time would have been considered far down the scale of innate human worth. By excelling in these excruciating tests, he showed again and again that human worth is measured in the heart, not the skin.

That’s a lesson that can’t be taught too often. As many such lessons are, it is woven through the pages of great literature—in this case, the journals of Lewis and Clark, who were white supremacists, whether we like to admit it or not. York, who came to appreciate his own worth as a man during the expedition, kept pestering Clark for his freedom until it was granted in 1811, only after he had become more trouble to Clark than he was worth as a servant.

Though there is no written proof of it, I tend to believe that Drouillard and the many other Indians along the way inspired York’s determination to be a free man.

William Clark kept his promise to supervise the education of Sacagaweah’s son, Jean Baptiste. His higher education was completed in Europe. Then he returned to America for an adventurous life as a Western guide and prospector.

Meriwether Lewis, ill, depressed, paranoid and confounded by drink and drugs, shot and cut himself to death in 1809. (A few scholars cling to a notion that he was murdered.)

As plans for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial observances develop, Western tribes are arranging to participate. They will give their own interpretations of the historic passage through their domains, and the impacts it had on their way of life. For the first time in two hundred years the other side of the great adventure will be vividly shown and told, and this masterpiece of American lore will be much enriched.

The story has always been that the Voyage of Discovery succeeded because of the vision of Jefferson and the courage and resourcefulness of the young explorers. That remains true, but the neglected side of the story is that they would have failed, and probably perished, without the help of the native peoples, who have been suffering the loss of their freedom and sovereignty and country ever since.

Last year, acting on a proposal from Richard Drouillard of Everett, Washington, a relative of this story’s protagonist, the United States Board on Geographic Names agreed to change the name of 8,236-foot Mount Drewyer in the Lewis and Clark National Forest to Mount Drouillard.

So someone finally corrected Lewis and Clark’s spelling.

—James Alexander Thom
May 1999