York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark An African-American's Part in the Great Expedition Chapter One The Early Years Imagine a boy of twelve or thirteen being the slave of a fourteen-year-old master! That took place on a plantation in Caroline County, Virginia, in 1784, when an enslaved black boy was assigned to be Master William Clark's personal "body servant." Like many other slaves, this boy didn't have the legal right to a last name. Family names were for whites only. He was just York, called "that Negro York" or "that boy York." York and William had been playmates ever since they were old enough to walk. Growing up, they played together as equals, roamed in nearby woods, and taught themselves to swim in its streams and ponds. These carefree days were fated to end. As soon as York and William became adults -- both over the age of twelve -- they were bound together in a changed relationship. The contrast was as clear as white against black. William became the master whose commands had to be obeyed; York was his slave, his lackey, who had to heed all of William's wishes. One could say that York was lucky that John Clark, his owner, chose him to become body servant for William, the youngest of his six sons. It was, indeed, a privileged position. York had been singled out not only because he was William's companion, but also because he was strong enough to be a bodyguard, efficient enough to accompany an up-and-coming Virginia gentleman, and smart enough to use good judgment. All that is known about York's parents are their names, which were listed in John Clark's will, dated 1799. York's father was called Old York; his mother was named Rose. Old York may have been John Clark's personal servant, and Rose may have been a house servant. Black household servants, like York, were "upper-class slaves." As a personal body servant, York slept in the Clarks' home within earshot of William. He wore clothing that matched the style and quality of his master's (probably hand-me-downs from William and his older brothers). He ate fine foods from the Clark family kitchen, acquired polished manners, and had a way of speaking that sounded "white," with hardly a trace of a slave's speech patterns. He was much better off than Clark's field-workers. After turning twelve, these slaves were ordered to work from dawn to dark tending the plantation's tobacco crops and vegetable fields. They wore coarse shirts and trousers that were made by slave women. Their masters supplied shoes, to be used when the weather was raw or when the ground was rugged. Most of the time they went barefoot. Their diet featured corn, molasses, beans, and gristly scraps of pork. To sleep, they coiled themselves on top of straw-covered boards inside dingy huts where floors were dirt and tables and chairs were boxes. All slaves -- even household servants like York -- were forbidden to learn reading and writing. Books were deemed dangerous in the hands of slaves, because reading about freedom might incite them to revolt against their bondage. They might start a rebellion. They might run away. It was a crime to teach them to read, give them books, or show them how to write. Masters were constantly haunted by the threat of slave revolts. They were so alarmed that slaves who tried learning to read were whipped, branded, or had their ears cropped; sometimes they were put to death. Owners were so edgy that horns and drums were banned because slaves sounding them could signal the start of a rebellion. That had happened in 1739, when slaves near Charleston, South Carolina, used drums to send messages to one another, then rose up in pitched battle against their masters. Before this uprising was put down, thirty white men and forty-four black men had been killed. Stories about this revolt, called the Stono Uprising, were passed down by the enslaved and the planters for generations. Many southerners were also upset by the existence of free blacks. They feared that the very sight of them set a bad example for slaves, who might be prompted to seek their own liberty. Free blacks had to carry certificates of freedom in every southern state at all times, but even with these identification papers, they risked being seized and sold into slavery. In the South, special patrols were set up to cross-examine free blacks and arrest stray slaves. If York wished to wander outside of the plantation, he had to carry a handwritten pass from his owner, called a "remit," for his own protection. Any white person could stop him, and if he did not have this pass he could be whipped before being returned to his master. Fear of straying slaves was so strong that, according to codes in South Carolina and Georgia, it was legal to kill any slave who was found away from his or her plantation if he or she was unaccompanied by a white person. Runaway slaves posed a serious problem that worried owners. The problem became especially alarming during the Revolutionary War, when an estimated thirty thousand slaves ran away from Virginia and a total of one hundred thousand escaped from the South to find freedom for themselves. News about freed slaves and runaway slaves undoubtedly reached slave quarters, as did worrisome reports about William's five older brothers, who were fighting for American freedom. York was four or five, and William was only six years old, when they learned that William's brother John was imprisoned on a British ship. Everyone on the plantation was affected by the news. John came home after six years of prison, his health broken, and he died in 1783. Richard died during the war; his body was never found. Jonathan, Edmund, and George Rogers survived the war and returned as heroes. George Rogers Clark was famous. He had led astounding battles that defeated British forces in the Ohio Valley. York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark An African-American's Part in the Great Expedition . Copyright © by Rhoda Blumberg. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark: An African-American's Part in the Great Expedition by Rhoda Blumberg All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
