History, as they say, is written by the victors. It’s also written by those with ready access to pen, paper, and, in many cases, patronage. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark certainly fit this bill; they’ve gone down in national lore as the heroes who led the Corps of Discovery on a treacherous 8,000-mile trek to find a route to the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century. The expedition, along with the Louisiana Purchase, opened up the country to new possibilities of expansion, empire, and exploitation.
But Lewis and Clark had a lot of help, as Craig Fehrman argues persuasively and poetically in his new book “This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark.” Without minimizing the contributions of the two complicated men known (at least casually) to school children far and wide, Fehrman makes room for a supporting cast that was really much more than that. As Fehrman writes, “The success of Lewis and Clark depended on more than Lewis and Clark.” This is vivid, character-based history with a dramatis personae that includes figures familiar and relatively obscure — those celebrated by the official record, those lost to it, and those who fall somewhere in between.
Among the latter group are two names usually included as footnotes to the standard narrative: York and Sacajawea. York was Clark’s body servant — his personal slave — a brawny man who served many functions on the voyage, from hunting to caring for Clark when he fell ill during the expedition. Fehrman uses lost documents and oral histories — and a high usage of “perhaps,” “probably,” and “must have” — to provide a notably full portrait of York. We learn that Clark was loath to give York credit for his contributions to the Corps — this was, after all, a master-slave relationship — and that York, enjoying at least a brief sensation of autonomy, embraced the fun of pretending to be a bear for the amusement of Native children. Even this annoyed Clark at first, until he realized that York’s games were in fact smoothing the path for crucial and delicate negotiations with various Native peoples, who were endlessly fascinated by York’s dark skin.
More is known about Sacajawea. A Lemhi Shoshone and Hidatsa woman and wife (really more of a slave) to the translator Toussaint Charboneau, she ended up assisting Lewis and Clark more than her husband could. She was a guide, a natural historian, and a sort of all-purpose Native cultural ambassador. Sacajawea gets more credit in Lewis and Clark’s journals than York did, but Fehrman turns her into a three-dimensional character with her own hopes, dreams, and regrets. (Boston’s Megan Kate Nelson also provides keen insight into Sacajawea’s life in her fine new book, “The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier.”)
The chapters of “This Vast Enterprise” rotate between the perspectives of the principal characters, who also include the working-class soldier John Ordway, the Lakota leader Black Buffalo, the Clatsop leader Coboway, the Piikani teenager and master equestrian Wolf Calf, the Arikara leader Piahito — and, yes, Lewis and Clark. President Thomas Jefferson also gets a chapter, which details the political finagling it took to work around Federalist opposition and get the Corps off the ground (or, rather, in the water).
This character-based approach pays enormous dividends, as Fehrman weaves a tale that uses human stories to go beyond hard facts and calcified myths. You get a real sense of what it might have felt like to tow the Corps’ barge over an endless series of sandbars, or engage in a tense, multi-day standoff between Corps members and the Lakota, led by the proud, patient, and strategically adept Black Buffalo.
Fehrman also makes clear that many of those corps members, like many Americans of the period, were rough around the edges. Actually, they were pretty rough between the edges as well.
Lewis and Clark tried to emphasize compassion and diplomacy with their men whenever possible. This grew more difficult when relatively minor infractions — say, taking more than one’s allotted share of whiskey — grew into more serious ones, like desertion. Paul Reed, recaptured after deserting, was made to walk “the gauntlet” between two lines of men who beat him mercilessly with branches and other weapons. “Reed walked and then surely staggered,” Fehrman writes, “the blood pouring not just from his back but from his face and arms, until he was covered in gore.” Otoe and Missouria leaders on hand to witness the beating were horrified. As Fehrman writes, “Clark estimated that, by the time the party finished, Reed had received close to a thousand blows.”
“This Vast Enterprise” moves Lewis, Clark, and their crew out of the realm of myth and into a world not just of blood and sweat but also negotiation: with the land, with Native peoples, and with each other. Fehrman’s approach to this well-trodden historical chapter is fresh and inclusive. It also makes for a ripping good read.
THIS VAST ENTERPRISE: A New History of Lewis & Clark
By Craig Fehrman
Avid Reader Press, 515 pages, $35
Chris Vognar can be reached at chris.vognar@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram at @chrisvognar and on Bluesky at chrisvognar.bsky.social.