In another journal entry, dated March 15, 1806, Lewis recorded that the expedition was “visited this afternoon by Delaskshelwilt a Chinnook Chief his wife and six women of his nation . . . this was the same party that had communicated the venerial to so many of our party in November.” For this particular visit, Lewis gave strict orders that his men were not to behave in any manner that might infect or reinfect them with VD. But for the most part Lewis and Clark did not even attempt to keep their men and the Indian women apart. “To prevent this mutual exchange of good officies altogether,” wrote Lewis, “I know it impossible to effect, particularly on the part of our young men whom some months abstinance have made very polite to those tawney damsels.”
It is unlikely that Lewis and Clark themselves totally abstained from relations with Indian women. In the middle of January 1805, William Clark wrote that a leading Minnetaree war chief had visited Fort Mandan, the expedition’s winter headquarters, with his squaw and “requested that she might be used for the night.” Clark added that the chief’s “wife [was] handsome,” but otherwise maintained a discreet silence on the topic.
Mercury was the cure for VD in the early 1800s, and it was reported that the expedition spent many an hour rubbing the medication directly into the skin or swallowing a mercury derivative in pill form. Either treatment was guaranteed to prove the truthfulness of the popular adage: “A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.”
SOURCES: Paul R. Cutright, Lewis and Clark (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1969), p. 254; Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1904–5; rpt. New York: Arno, 1969), IV, 170; John Bakeless, Lewis and Clark (New York: William Morrow, 1947), pp. 182–83.
JUST PUNISHMENT OF A WHITE MAN?
On Sunday, October 14, 1804, John Newman, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was severely whipped for insubordination. His punishment was witnessed by the chief of the Arikara Indians, who expressed alarm at what he saw. The chief was so affected by the scene that he literally broke down and cried. Clark explained that Newman had been insubordinate and had to be punished. The chief agreed that insubordination could not be tolerated. He himself had punished his own men for being insubordinate. But he did not believe in whippings. His people never even whipped their own children. The chief declared that if Newman had been one of his men, the soldier would not have been whipped—he would have been killed. Death was the only sure cure for insubordination.
SOURCE: Bernard DeVoto, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953), p. 51.
YORK AND THE INDIANS
For the Indians the most unusual item carried by Lewis and Clark was not the few trinkets the explorers handed out, or their guns, but one of the members of the expedition itself. York, William Clark’s manservant, was a black man. Early trappers and traders, even in the most remote areas, had made the Indians aware of the white man. But a man with black skin was a truly startling phenomenon. The reaction of Le Borgne, the grand chief of the Minnetarees, typified Indian surprise and disbelief. Meriwether Lewis recorded that on Le Borgne’s first visit to the expedition’s winter headquarters at Fort Mandan (now Bismarck, North Dakota) on March 9, 1805, “the chief observed that some foolish young men of his nation had told him there was a person among us who was quite black, and he wished to know if it could be true.” When York appeared, Chief Le Borgne was dumbfounded. After examining the Negro closely, Lewis recorded, the Minnetaree chief “spit on his [own] finger and rubbed [York’s] skin in order to wash off the paint.” Not until York uncovered his head and displayed a short crop of curly hair could the dubious Le Borgne be persuaded that the black man was not a painted white man.
Indian admiration for this strange visitor was genuine. In discussing sexual encounters with Indian women, Lewis recorded that “the black man York participated largely in these favours, for instead of inspiring any prejudice, his color seemed to procure him additional advantages from the Indians, who desired to preserve among them some memorial of this wonderful stranger.” Lewis reported how one Ricara Indian invited York to his house, presented the Negro to his wife, and then retired outside by the door. When one of York’s companions came by and inquired about the Negro, the Indian would not let the man enter the house until a suitable time had elapsed. Reportedly, York sired a number of mixed-blood offspring throughout the three-year trip.
SOURCE: Meriwether Lewis, History of the Expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Company, 1924), I, 180.
HOME REMEDIES THAT KILLED
In the early nineteenth century the odds were against the person who recklessly chose to receive medical treatment when sick. Doctors were not licensed then, and a good many of them were quacks. But even the respected ones did not really know what they were doing. The doctors who were most to be feared, as a matter of fact, were those who had worked hardest to develop cures. In general, the best doctors were those who resorted simply to common sense. The patient who took George Washington’s advice to let a cold “go as it came” was probably just as well off or better as the person who called for a doctor.
Exceedingly dangerous to patients were the widely touted home remedies. Some were harmless, of course, but many were absolutely lethal. The following recipe for killing worms in children carried its own warning of risk: “Take sage, boil it with milk to a good tea, turn it to whey with alum or vinegar, and give the whey to the child, if the worms are not knotted in the stomach, and it will be a sure cure. If the worms are knotted in the stomach, it will kill the child.”
SOURCE: Mary Cable, American Manners and Morals (New York: American Heritage Publishing Company, 1969), p. 148.
A DIFFERENT DAY ON THE ROAD
Toll roads have been a part of the American landscape since the early part of the nineteenth century. Toll traffic, however, has changed. The turnpike authority for the sixty-eight-mile road from Schenectady to Utica, New York, posted the following charges in 1809:
Sheeps per score 8¢
Hogs per score 8¢
Cattle per score 18¢
Horses per score 18¢
Mules per score 18¢
Horse and rider 5¢
Tied horses, each 5¢
Sulkies 121/2¢
Chairs 121/2¢
Chariots 25¢
Coaches 25¢
Phaetons 25¢
Two-horse stages 121/2¢
Four-horse stages 181/2¢
One-horse wagons 9¢
Two-horse wagons 121/2¢
Three-horse wagons 151/2¢
Four-horse wagons 75¢
Five-horse wagons (wheels under six inches) 871/2¢
Six-horse wagons (wheels under six inches) $1.00
One-horse cart 6¢
Two-ox cart 6¢
Three-ox cart 8¢
Four-ox cart 10¢
Six-ox cart 14¢
One-horse sleigh 6¢
Two-horse or two-ox sleigh 6¢
Three-horse or three-ox sleigh 8¢
Four-horse or four-ox sleigh 10¢
Five-horse or five-ox sleigh 12¢
Six-horse or six-ox sleigh 14¢
SOURCE: Alice Morse Earl, Stage-Coach and Tavern Days (New York: Macmillan, 1900), pp. 237–38.
THE RED BARN
Why are barns painted red? In the early nineteenth century farmers learned that the color red absorbed sunlight extremely well and was useful in keeping barns warm during winter. The farmers made their red paint from skim milk mixed with the rust shavings of metal fences and nails.
SOURCE: Wilson Clark, Energy for Survival (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1975), p. 576.
VERMONT SLIDES PAST THE LAW
As the Napoleonic Wars in Europe escalated, British and French harassment of neutral American shipping greatly disturbed American leaders. Finally, after an English frigate fired on the USS Chesapeake in December 1807, President Thomas Jefferson invoked the Embargo Act, which outlawed trade with warring countr
ies.
In Vermont news of the embargo was received apathetically. Since there were no ocean ports in the new state, the law hardly seemed worth getting upset about. But when the Green Mountain State learned that their brisk trade with Canada was also forbidden by the embargo, they set about creating ways to overcome the unpopular law.
Some smugglers built docks on Lake Champlain along the U.S.–Canadian border. American ships would then dock and unload on the south side while British vessels reloaded the cargo from the north side, just across the border and out of reach of U.S. customs. Other smugglers were more brazen. In late June 1808, a group of them stole the U.S. revenue cutter that regularly patrolled the lake.
A few Vermonters carried goods to buildings erected on hilltops directly across the Canadian border. After the house was “loaded up,” a specific stone or piece of wood was removed and the building would “accidentally” slide down the hill into Canada.
Extremely unpopular, the Embargo Act was repealed in 1809.
SOURCE: H. N. Muller, “Smuggling into Canada,” Vermont History, XXXVIII (Winter 1970), passim.
BRITISH DEMOCRACY IN 1812
Washington, D.C., has long been known as the capital of democracy. Even the British acknowledged this fact when they occupied the city during the War of 1812. Admiral Cockburn, the leader of the British expeditionary force in the city, took the Speaker’s chair in the House of Representatives and polled the assembled officers and men. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the question is, Shall this harbor of Yankee Democracy be burned? All in favor of burning it will say aye!”
The vote was unanimous. “Light up,” ordered Cockburn, and the capital was burned.
SOURCE: Glenn Tucker, Poltroons and Patriots (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954), p. 556.
Present-day picture of a column outside the old Supreme Court chamber showing bullet holes supposedly made by the British during their attack on the capital in 1814. (U.S. Senate Historical Office.)
JOHN RANDOLPH’S ADVICE TO A NEIGHBOR
John Randolph, Virginia congressman and senator, was one of the most outrageous men of his time. He used to bring his dogs onto the floor of Congress, and on several occasions engaged in brawls with other representatives right in the Capitol. Stories about his vituperation and wit are countless:
“During one of the last years of his life, Mr. R. was an attendant on the sessions of the Virginia Legislature, when a bashful, back-country planter met the eccentric orator in the lobby and endeavored to introduce himself. ‘Mr. Randolph,’ said he, fumbling and scraping with especial awkwardness, ‘I live only fifteen or twenty miles from you—I pass your plantation quite often.’—‘Sir,’ said John, regarding him from head to foot with infinite scorn, ‘you are welcome to pass it as often as you please.’”
SOURCE: Horace Greeley, ed., The Tribune Almanac for the Years 1838 to 1868 (New York: New York Tribune, 1868), I, 42.
RANDOLPH CHASTISES A COLLEAGUE
During the debate over the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Randolph stood up repeatedly to oppose the measure. Almost every time he began speaking, however, he was interrupted by Philomen Beecher of Ohio, who would move the “previous question.” The Speaker of the House would call Beecher to order, and Randolph would proceed with his speech. But finally, after yet another interruption from Beecher, the Virginian was moved to remark: “Mr. Speaker, in the Netherlands, a man of small capacity, with bits of wood and leather, will, in a few moments, construct a toy that, with the pressure of the finger and thumb, will cry ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo!’ With less ingenuity, and with inferior materials, the people of Ohio have made a toy that will, without much pressure, cry ‘Previous question, Mr. Speaker!’” Beecher turned red and John Randolph was never again bothered by the cry “Previous question, Mr. Speaker!”
SOURCE: Leon A. Harris, The Fine Art of Political Wit (New York: Dutton, 1964), pp. 57–58.
POTENT WORDS
John Randolph of Virginia and Tristam Burges of Rhode Island were not ones to confine their remarks on the Senate floor to politics. Burges once alluded to Randolph’s sexual impotency, saying, “But I rejoice that the Father of Lies can never become the Father of Liars.” “You boast of a quality,” rejoined Randolph, “in which all slaves are your equal and every jackass your superior.”
SOURCE: Edward Boykin, ed., The Wit and Wisdom of Congress (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1961), p. 161.
NEVER TURN OUT FOR SCOUNDRELS
“One day [Henry] Clay met his disagreeable enemy, [John] Randolph, on the sidewalk. The cranky old Virginian came proudly up, and occupying most of the sidewalk hissed: ‘I never turn out for scoundrels!’ ‘I always do,’ said Clay, stepping aside with mock politeness.”
SOURCE: Melville D. Landon, Eli Perkins: Thirty Years of Wit (New York: Cassell, 1891), p. 142.
PRINCE AMONG SLAVES
Born in 1762 in the forbidden city of Timbuktu, Ibrahima was the son of a powerful African monarch. A devout Moslem, he was educated in Timbuktu and elsewhere. His father was king of the Futa Jalon area in the present-day Republic of Guinea. Ibrahima had a wife and family.
In 1781 members of the Futa tribe found an English surgeon, John Coates Cox, hopelessly wandering in the African bush. Cox had left his ship to hunt, but had become hopelessly lost. He was sick and starving. For over six months Cox stayed in Futa Jalon, until he fully regained his health. He owed his life to the hospitality of Ibrahima’s father.
Seven years later Ibrahima, a colonel in his father’s army, was defeated in war and sold into slavery. Eventually, he became the slave of Thomas Foster, a small farmer in Natchez, Mississippi.
In Mississippi, Ibrahima was called “Prince,” because of his rumored royal heritage. Once, a few years after he arrived in America, another slave, who presumably had been a member of the Futa tribe of Africa, recognized him on the streets of Natchez and instinctively dropped his head to the ground, crying, “Abduhl Rahahman!”
One day in 1807, while selling potatoes in Washington, Mississippi, a small village near Natchez, Prince saw John Cox riding down the street on a horse. Cox had immigrated from England to New York in 1786, then moved to North Carolina, and later to Mississippi. Over twenty-five years had passed since the Futa had saved Cox’s life. When Cox recognized Ibrahima, he leaped off his horse and embraced the African.
Ibrahima was an extremely valuable worker, however, and Thomas Foster repeatedly refused Cox’s offer to buy the slave. For the next nine years, until Cox’s death, the surgeon and Ibrahima saw each other often, but Ibrahima remained in slavery. Spurred on by Cox’s numerous stories about Africa, however, Prince’s reputation grew and he became something of a legend in the Natchez area.
In 1826, after years of persistent urgings by Natchez’s local printer, Colonel Marshalk, Prince wrote a verse of the Koran in Arabic and Marshalk mailed it to Morocco. For some reason, Marshalk believed Prince was originally from the North African kingdom, and thought it would be exciting to find out if the old slave could make contact with his homeland. Half a year later, Abdal-Rahman II, king of Morocco, read Prince’s quote and offered to pay for the Moslem’s freedom and traveling expenses to Morocco. When Secretary of State Henry Clay sent the Moroccan king’s request to Mississippi, Thomas Foster emancipated the old slave and his wife for free.
Once the manumitted pair reached Washington, Prince tactfully announced that he was not from Morocco, and arrangements were made to send him instead to the American Colonization Society’s colony of Liberia, on the central African coast. Before he left America, Prince traveled to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston and held large rallies, hoping to raise enough money to purchase the freedom of his nine children and grandchildren, who remained in slavery in Mississippi. With the proceeds from these engagements, Prince’s son, his wife, and their five children were able to emigrate to Liberia in 1830. Another son, Lee, was later able to move to the colony. Prince’s other offspring remained in slavery.
On May 15, 1828, Prince, the son of an
African king and a slave for forty years, met personally with President John Quincy Adams in Washington. Later that year Prince returned to Africa.
Leadership of Futa Jalon, after forty years, still belonged to Ibrahima’s family. When they received word that their lost relative was in Liberia, a caravan was dispatched immediately to carry him home. Unfortunately, on July 6, 1829, after a long illness, Ibrahima died. The Futa caravan, which carried six to seven thousand dollars in gold dust for the manumission of Ibrahima’s family in Mississippi, was only one hundred and fifty miles away. When news of Ibrahima’s death reached the caravan, it turned around and traveled back to Futa Jalon.
SOURCE: Terry Alford, Prince among Slaves (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), passim.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS’S TENEMENT
When John Quincy Adams was an old man, he responded to questions about his health with humor. To an old friend he remarked, “I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in upon by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.”
Old Hickory to Old Rough-and-Ready
“This country is filling up with thousands and millions of voters, and you must educate them to keep them from our throats.”
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
SCRAPBOOK OF THE TIMES
• James Fenimore Cooper once remarked, “‘They say’ [is] the monarch of this country.”
• Henry Clay delivered an hour-long speech in the Senate on his dead bull, Orozimbo.
• When John Quincy Adams lost to Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828, the town of Adams, New Hampshire, changed its name to Jackson. The town had been named in 1800 to honor the election of John Adams.
One-Night Stands with American History Page 5
