The mistake should never be made that the two men were friends. They were master and slave, owner and property, superior and inferior. As close as that relationship was for the many years and countless miles they were by each other’s side, for all the dangers and hardships they shared their relationship always was based on William as master and York as servant.
Category: People
Jean Baptiste’s Final Journey
Perhaps he was seeking new gold fields, maybe California was getting too crowded, or maybe he simply wanted to see the mountains and prairies of his mountain man days. After a long life, the journey would be his last.
Jean Baptiste in California
After a brief service as Alcalde of San Luis Rey, Jean Baptiste moved to the gold fields around Auburn, California where he lived for 19 years.
Jean Baptiste, Military Guide
As a military guide in the U.S.-Mexican War, Jean Baptiste and the Mormon Battalion were involved in a defining moment in the American Southwest.
Jean Baptiste, Mountain Man
Jean Baptiste’s 17-year career as a mountain man comes from a scattering of writings from some of the most notable trappers of the era.
Jean Baptiste in Europe
Jean Baptiste’s European experiences with Duke Paul of Württemberg were the capstone of an education that started in a Hidatsa village and developed in St. Louis under the sponsorship of William Clark.
Educating Jean Baptiste
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau’s education began in a Hidatsa village. In St. Louis at the age of five or six, his classical education began under the guardianship of William Clark.
Jean Baptiste in the Journals
The captains’ journals give us a small glimpse into the experiences of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau as he traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
André Michaux
In 1792, André Michaux approached members of the American Philosophical Society informing his potential sponsors that he was “ready to go to the sources of the Missouri and even explore the rivers that flow into the Pacific Ocean.”
Henry Dearborn
As Secretary of War during the expedition, Henry Dearborn made several decisions critical to the it’s success, and he was the one who gave Clark’s the military rank of lieutenant.
George Rogers Clark
Jefferson put in George Clark’s hands the creation of an entire military infrastructure to defend the West. Clark was asked to whip together all the administrative structure of an army: quartermasters, commissaries, artificers, officers, and even washerwomen to keep the men uniformed, armed, disciplined, and fed.
Related Naturalists
As describers of the natural world they encountered on the expedition, Lewis and Clark influenced—and were influenced by—several people who could now be called naturalists.
Concomly
Concomly was a prominent Chinook citizen and leader whose people lived on the north side of the Columbia estuary, on the shore of Haley’s Bay. On November 17, 1805, he introduced himself to Lewis and Clark at Station Camp.
Albert Gallatin
To help the Lewis and Clark expedition, Gallatin asked Nicholas King to prepare a new map of western North America incorporating the main features of nine of the most recent maps by other explorers.
Carl Linnaeus
Even in Lewis and Clark’s day, new species were being classified using a system developed by naturalist Carl Linnaeus.
Tetoharsky
Tetoharsky, along with Twisted Hair, accompanied the expedition down the Clearwater and lower Snake Rivers, acting as river guides and interpreters. They continued down the Columbia to The Dalles.
Twisted Hair
Twisted Hair helped Clark locate a canoe-building site, drew maps of the route to the mouth of the Columbia, and along with Tetoharsky, traveled with the expedition to The Dalles of the Columbia.
Toby, Indispensable Guide
Toby, the name used by Lewis and Clark for the Shoshone guide who took them across the Bitterroot Mountains on their journey to the Pacific, was one of the more important, if enigmatic, of the many Native Americans who assisted the explorers on their epic trip.
Constantine Rafinesque
Rafinesque took a scientific interest in the plants and animals mentioned by Lewis and Clark. In addition to the six species of conifers, he also established the scientific name for the prairie dog, the white-footed mouse and the mule deer.
Thomas Nuttall
Everywhere Nuttall went he found new and curious plants. Unlike most who came before him, he collected even the unattractive plants. From him, long-leaved sage and white sage, first collected by Lewis, became known to science.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.