A researcher has discovered a historical map in a US archive that sheds a new, negative light on Missouri’s discoverer and first governor, William Clark. Because the map from 1816 reveals how Clark, in breach of contract, denied the Indian tribes who were then native to Missouri a piece of land the size of Switzerland. An allegedly already existing border line helped the white settlers to this land – and cheated the Indians out of their territory.
William Clark is best known today as an explorer as part of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition, which from 1803 explored the country between the Mississippi and the Pacific coast of North America, which was new to the whites. Clark was later appointed Inspector of Indian Affairs and fought in the British-American War of 1812. After the American victory, the Treaty of Ghent in 1813 also recorded territorial claims against some Indian tribes, some of which had fought on the side of the British during the war. Clark was then appointed governor of the newly formed Missouri Territory.
Map mismatched
Now, a map kept in the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington DC reveals that William Clark played a crucial – and inglorious – role in the white takeover of Missouri – and not just in military terms. This was discovered by historian Dr Robert Lee of the University of Cambridge when he examined a map originally attributed to Captain Eli B. Clemson in this archive. The unsigned and undated map shows around 50 named features in ink and pencil, including rivers, springs, settlements and boundary lines. In addition, there are another 150 landscape features and settlements that are not described in detail.
As noted by Lee, some of the features shown on the map did not match the putative author and age of the map. Instead, the handwriting, style, and symbols suggest that this map was by Clark and must have been drawn by him in 1816. The crucial point, however, is that there is an unmarked line on the map that was apparently intended to mark a territorial boundary. “That line comes close to an admission in Clark’s own hand that he stole a huge chunk of land from the Sauks, Meskwakis, and Iowas,” says Lee. Because with this boundary line, Clark suggested that a piece of land the size of Switzerland had already been granted to the white settlers before the Treaty of Ghent.
Supposedly old boundary line
“This amazing map shows how William Clark overturned the US-Native American treaty system to give settlers supremacy at a time when he was renowned for protecting Indigenous lands from illegal settlers,” says Lee. “Now we see just how scheming and devious he really was.” The map likely helped Clark deny the Sauk, Meskawaki, and Iowa tribes more than five million acres of land. While they were entitled to that land, Clark used his map and a clever reinterpretation of the 1808 Osage Treaty to refute the Indian claim, the historian explains.
“Clark’s land grab worked because he simply denied that his borderline was post-war,” Lee explains. “Instead, he maintained the fiction that he had only drawn an old, already existing line, not a new one. This plan worked so well that historians to date have either believed Clark or overlooked the whole event entirely.” As a result of this land grab, thousands of white settlers flocked to the new territories, many hiring slaves to till their fields. The natives who originally lived there were expelled.
Source: University of Cambridge; Article: William and Mary Quarterly, doi: 10.5309/willmaryquar.79.1.0000