William Clark and the Shaping of the West

What impresses immediately about this biography is the fact that it's a FULL biography and is not just concerned with the famed Lewis & Clark Expedition (only one of the ten chapters deals with it). Clark was born in 1770 (one of his older brothers was George Rogers Clark, the "hero of Vincennes" during the Revolutionary War), and took part in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 (it was on this campaign that he first met Meriwether Lewis). Resigning his commission from militia duty two years later, he retired to the family farm in Kentucky (near present-day Louisville). It was here that Lewis contacted Clark in 1803 proposing co-leadership roles in the expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Clark was the chief mapmaker on the journey, and also was preferred over Lewis as the one to negotiate with the Indians. After the successful completion of this extraordinary exploring venture, Clark was named the principal Indian agent at St. Louis. He established Ft. Osage on the Missouri River and began dealing with Native American concerns, building a reputation as a fair, friendly, and compassionate (for his day) agent. He was present at Prairie du Chien during the late 1820s to help conclude major treaties with various tribes. He died in St. Louis in 1838. Clark has been praised often as a brave and able explorer, and a successful Indian agent. He was human, though, and there were dark sides to Clark as well, which Jones is willing to point out. Once when he had "trouble" with one of his slaves, he paid a man 50 cents to whip him. Tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly removed from their lands while he was Indian agent, most notably the Cherokees, who were made to walk to Oklahoma from their lands in the southeastern US along what became know as the "Trail of Tears" because of the death and misery endured along it. Heroes, like everyone else, are not cut from a single cloth, and whether the reader thinks of Clark as a hero at all, Jones provides a balanced and fair account of Clark's life on which to decide.

This book is much more than one would expect for the biography of William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame. William Clark, after his great journey, is the center of all the major dealings with the Indians along the Mississippi and the western interior. Clark, as Indian Superintendent of the Louisiana territory, is involved with all the major warfare and peace out breaks between the Indians and whites for 30 years. He executes the majority of the treaties after his return in 1807 until the end of his career in the late 1830s. He personally meets and deals with every maybe chief from the friendly Osages to the less friendly Sauxs, Sioux, Rees, Blackfoot and many others along with the tragic removal of the five civilized tribes that Jackson evicted from the east of the Mississippi to the ever crowding of Indian tribes in the west. The first part of the book is virtually a biography of the famous brother George Rogers Clark who is not only a revolutionary war hero for his military feats against the British and their Indian allies but also an explorer and leader of western migration. William follows his brother's footsteps in Indian campaigns some of which are actually more disastrous than Custer's Little Big Horn. Rogers's serves directly or indirectly with a number of famous individuals such as "Mad" Anthony Wayne and the infamous General Wilkinson who intrigued with foreign powers about the future of the West. Clark also works closely with the founding fathers of St. Louis and perennial traders, the Chouteau family. Clark's dabbling in trade in the early years seems to have bent the ethics line as many other officials did. The author provides a short but thorough history of the Lewis and Clark exploration that demonstrates that Clark was the experienced outdoorsman and leader of the men. He also had a calm steadying influence on Lewis' sometimes-mercurial temperament. Although both returned to St Louis in official capacities, Lewis seems to collapse under the weight of political pressures and Clark's marriage that seemed to cause a natural physical separation but not of friendship. The author literally demonstrates that Clark was an excellent diplomat with Indian chiefs who respected his dealings from strength. The unfortunate aspect is that Clark executed treaties that continually shrank Indian lands on behalf of his government. Aside from steadying Lewis, Clark also supported his brother whose alcoholism literally bankrupted him. Clark is a great witness to all the Indian affairs and even replaces Lewis as Governor for quite sometime. Towards the end of the book, the author is critical of the Virginia born Clark's dealings with slavery, which may not be completely fair since he like Jefferson may have been reflected their times and environment. However, it is disappointing that Clark rids himself of his slave York who was his youth playmate and who accompanied him during the Lewis and Clark expedition. But the biography of Clark is, at its best

Not merely another treatment of a Great American Road Trip, this book is worth the price of purchase for the prologue and first chapter alone. The author reveals the life of Clark - and that of his family and peers - within the opportunistic, fatally optimistic, and conflicted context that they deserve. In all its grand absurdity, the great expedition of 1803-06 is often presented so removed from the motivations, participants, and its immediate effects that they all are overshadowed and obscured. Jones does well to place the expedition and many other equally important episodes within the context of the lifetime of an individual. By extracting events from an idealized or mythical status and placing them firmly in the entirely human hands of Clark (and others) - Jones honors the history, its cast of characters, and what the future may gain through understanding them better.

Landon Jones can write! and he has turned his considerable skills at description to a big story. William Clark had an astounding career as a soldier, an explorer, and a pioneering government official in a time when commerce and government were inseparable. As a tasty appetizer, Jones provides vivid, often hideous, descriptions of Clark's older brother George Rogers Clark's campaigns in the old Northwest and a particularly spellbinding recitation of St. Clair's defeat. Jones makes no apologies for the subject of his biography, pointing out clearly and simply how Americans of his era conquered and occupied the lands we now call the Heartland. It's a great book. Every person interested in the Lewis and Clark epic should allow Jones to show them what came before the Corps of Discovery and what the results were in the three decades that followed, when Clark was the leading man of the West.

This is a fascinating book- a gripping narrative of a life hitherto known for a single oft-told episode - and of Clark's central role in the in the teeming, tragic years in the West between Jefferson and Jackson. Jones is a great storyteller and an evenhanded, toughminded historian. He clearly delineates complex issues and events and creates a rich portrait of a heroic, flawed public servant and a nation whose heedless growth demanded the removal of its indigenous peoples.