Odd Facts About Lewis and Clark

[Lionel]

Did you know that men of the native tribes that Lewis and Clark encountered frequently offered their wives and daughters to the explorers? Or that the Corps of Discovery frequently ate dogs? That Lewis and Clark got lost? These are only a few of the little known oddities about the famous expedition of 200 years ago. Book editor Anthony Brandt highlights some of the oddities about one of the greatest adventures in history. Did you know that men of the native tribes that Lewis and Clark encountered frequently offered their wives and daughters to the whites? There's nothing like a little sex to cement relationships among different cultures. In fact there was a lot of sex, and the offers had nothing to do with fellowship among men. The tribes of the High Plains had very different attitudes from white men about these matters. Plains Indians believed that spiritual power passed between people during the sex act. By sharing their wives, they could appropriate the power of the other person. Nobody seemed to have more power than a white man, with his guns, his ability to work metal, his technological prowess. One young member of the Corps of Discovery was offered four Mandan women in a single night. Clark's black slave, York, was even more magical to them. The Indians Lewis and Clark encountered had never seen a black man. York made out like a bandit.

But sex with Indian women had a down side, too: venereal disease. Previous encounters with French and British traders had infected many Indian women with syphilis, and Lewis and Clark had to treat some of their men for this disease, for which there was no cure then, only the dubious palliative of mercury pills.

Old Indian traditions claim that the expedition left children behind as well. In the 1870s a blue-eyed, blond-haired Nez Perce told the Western photographer William H. Jackson that he was William Clark's son.

View: Full Article | Source: National Geographic