William Clark
William Clark co-led the expedition that crossed North America to the Pacific and back, and spent the rest of his career administering relations with the peoples it had met. Born in Virginia in 1770, the ninth of ten children, he moved as a boy to Kentucky. His elder brother George Rogers Clark was a Revolutionary War commander. He joined the militia at nineteen and fought in the Northwest Indian War, serving at Fallen Timbers in 1794. Meriwether Lewis served briefly under him, and the two became friends. In 1803 Lewis was appointed by Thomas Jefferson to lead an expedition to find a water route across the continent after the Louisiana Purchase, and asked Clark to share the command. Clark's promised captain's commission never came through — he was formally a lieutenant — and Lewis concealed this from the party, who addressed them both as captain throughout. Clark was the expedition's principal cartographer and riverman, and produced maps of remarkable accuracy considering the instruments available. He also managed the boats and much of the discipline, and his journals, spelled with cheerful inconsistency, are the fuller record. He handled most of the negotiations with the peoples they encountered, and his enslaved manservant York was a member of the party throughout. They reached the Pacific in November 1805 and returned in September 1806, having lost one man to what was probably appendicitis. He was afterwards Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St Louis for nearly thirty years and governor of Missouri Territory, negotiating dozens of treaties that transferred enormous territory. He kept a museum of objects from the expedition, and died in 1838.
- Lived: 1770 CE – 1838 CE
- Nationality: American
- Roles: explorer, soldier
