Talk:York (explorer)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 8 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wesrhea. Peer reviewers: Mellnov24.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:19, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Later years and ultimate fate
I removed the reference to a Betts & Toure theory that York ran away from his master after the expedition. I found an essay by Toure (in which he cites Betts) which discusses several possible outcomes but concludes, "It may be much more likely that York was never freed, and that he labored, unrepentant, in Clark's and his nephew's freighting business until he died." (http://www.lewis-clark.org/article/3069) If someone knows the source for the previous suggestion, please restate and cite.11 Arlington (talk) 22:48, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Fictional depictions not encyclopedic
It's really not helpful to talk about the contents of a novel here. If the novel is noteworthy, give it its own page. Mentioning the existence of the novel is basically advertizing the book. rewinn 00:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Above comment was deleted by non-logged in editor. I have restored it, since it explains prior edits to the article. Please do not delete comments from Talk page. rewinn 00:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This depiction of York is a fictional attack on all African people. They identify York as some kind of American patriot, characterized as a American hero who served his country. How absurd! They name him as an American and call him an explorer and a military sergeant after he dies of cholera working for two generations of slave masters. white people are sick! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.241.101.134 (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment and am not ok with the way York is described. He couldn't "adapt" to slave life? He was never not a slave. He was a slave during the expedition. He did not go of his own volition as Lewis and Clark did. He was not paid as Lewis and Clark were. This article requires revision. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rravitch (talk • contribs) 17:33, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

What improvements are needed?
An editor expressed via template a need for an expert to update this article. What sort of changes are needed? It'll be easier to recruit if we know what we content we want. rewinn (talk) 04:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC) delete before first sentence—
 * I found a typo in the first paragraph, but I don't have access to fix it: "York the same age as Clark" needs was between York and the. Art to Tech (talk) 05:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks for pointing that out! Schazjmd   (talk)  14:26, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Death Date Dispute
There is a disagreement in the evidence about the date of York's death. Under these circumstances, it is best not to state a death date, but merely that it is not known. rewinn (talk) 05:57, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Clark says around 1832; however, Clark's account is self-interested as described in the article.
 * Leonard says someone matching York's description was alive in 1834; Leonard has no known motive for lying. Some historians support this account.
 * Accordingly, I have revised the part about York's later life and removed the material citing a PBS special. That material merely repeats the Irving story and ignores the Leonard account. It's better to go to the more immediate sources which, unfortunately, are contradictory. rewinn (talk) 05:57, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

According To Ambrose
Just finished Undaunted Courage. Ambrose concurs with the idea that York found it unbearable to continue to serve Clark after the expedition, however he makes clear that Clark did not and would not give him his freedom. Ambrose quotes a letter written after the expedition, in which Clark admits "trouncing" York in order to improve his behavior and his demeanor. 67.190.85.49 (talk) 16:48, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Manumission records?
If Clark's account of manumission were true, records may exist, and I'd like this article to mention if they were searched. I've edited this article a bit because it seemed to be promoting Betts' book, citing it without page numbers. Plus I know others had written about York's fate after the famous expedition, but saw few citations (and don't know if I'll remember or have time to look up that Undaunted Courage book when local libraries reopen tomorrow, for that deserves a ref cite in the article rather than this talk page).

I don't know if Missouri territory manumission records survived the Civil War, but do know that if York were freed in Caroline County, Virginia, where the family was from, those records would probably not have survived. Caroline sent its records to Richmond for safekeeping during the Civil War, but Confederate troops evacuating Richmond set fire to those archives.... I don't know the state of Kentucky nor Missouri records of this era. Dumping on Clark on implausibility grounds seems unfair unless a records search turned up empty or records exist that he would not free York (again this article's lack-of-citation problem mentioned above). Not all freed slaves were economically successful, particularly in St. Louis. Abolitionist and former Illinois Governor Edward Coles freed his slaves, but one man voluntarily reentered slavery in St. Louis in this era after Coles (who had moved to Philadelphia but kept in touch with his investments in Illinois and Missouri) stopped paying his medical expenses, per at least 2 of the 3 good recent biographies of that native Virginian that I cited when editing that article last year.Jweaver28 (talk) 10:24, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

image
Any further details about this statue? (e.g. copyright status)? https://www.flickr.com/photos/jennlynndesign/2589112206/. MB298 (talk) 05:19, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Editing page
Hello all, I have chosen this topic for an assignment for a history class. I will be adding more depth to portions of the article as well as other sources. I feel I can contribute to this article with more information on what York did during the expedition as well as his life after. ThanksWesrhea (talk) 20:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)wesrhea

Was York the first Black American to see the Pacific Northwest?
i was adding some info to the Garibaldi and Tillamook Bay entries, and learned that Captain Robert Gray sailed into the bay in 1788, skirmished iwth the Tillamook people, and that Marcus Lopez, Gray's Black cook and cabin boy, was killed. This in a very interesting report: The Unwanted Sailor: Exclusions of Black Sailors in the Pacific Northwest and the Atlantic Southeast - from the Oregon Historical Society. Lopez is also mentioned in the Oregon Encyclopedia. Lopez may not have been American - he may have been from the West Africa's Cape Verde Islands per this Oregonian story - but Lopez's presence means York was not the first Black person to to arrive in the Pacific Northwest. (Although he might be the first who traveled *overland*. Art to Tech (talk) 07:47, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This is interesting, I had not heard of Lopez before. Yes, we should make sure the language on all relevant articles is accurate. Thanks for the tip! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:47, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There were undoubtedly other cases of black sailors, or slaves, aboard the hundreds of ships of many nations that sailed the PNW coast and into the Columbia River before Lewis & Clark. An interesting and really early possibility is one or some of the survivors of the 1693 Beeswax wreck Spanish galleon. Chief Kilchis was thought to be a descendent of one or some of those survivors. I know this is a very late comment to this thread, just thought it might be of interest someday. York, like Lewis & Clark, tends to get that American manifest destiny mythology treatment. New England trading ships (or UK, Spanish, French, Russian, etc) with very diverse crews from around the world sailing to the PNW just didn't fit the manifest destiny "westward ho!" national story as well, and are largely forgotten. Pfly (talk) 07:37, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Disputed
This article needs serious revision, but I don't find myself qualified to edit it since I don't have access to the book the article largely sources from. Large swathes of this article source from Robert Betts' In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark. The entire preamble is sorely lacking; York's introduction does not introduce him as a slave, his physical description reads like a novel, and there are spelling errors. The preamble then skips directly to after the Lewis and Clark expedition and asking for his freedom without even addressing in brief the expedition itself. Large swathes of the final two paragraphs in the preamble lack sourcing, including the entirety of the last paragraph which makes several unsourced claimed.

I dispute how accurate Robert B. Betts' works actually are. Google Books lists him as an advertising executive from New York City with no other qualifications to make him a trusted historian. The section on the article titled "On the expedition" informs the reader that "The records of the well-documented trip do not reveal any racial bias against him.", cited from Betts' book. I find this incredibly hard to believe since York was, in fact, a slave. If that is not racial bias I am not sure what is. I am unable to verify or review the cited page because I cannot access the book. The article goes on to claim that York's role in the expedition was equal to that of the white men, citing a Smithsonian article that, again, cites Betts' book. From a cursory Google search this claim is at best disputed, if outright untrue, and it being presented as fact in the article is a mistake. The article goes on to make claims such as his being allowed to carry a gun showed the trust the expedition members had in him. I do not believe this is a legitimate claim to make without actual written records from the members themselves saying this. The article also states that "he played a major role in the heavy work of paddling upstream, portaging, and building shelters" without acknowledging the fact he was a slave and that would have been his role to do. The current phrasing of the article makes it seem as if he had volunteered to do this work and was helping out the expedition.

The rest of the article follows in a similar vein to what I have written above. I am not a qualified historian and I do not have access to many of the referenced texts and am thus unable to personally verify the contents of this article, but I deeply believe this article is in severe need of a thorough checking by a qualified editor, particular on the veracity of of Robert Betts and his book. 2601:246:8000:7FC0:E8E7:F053:CBFC:8FAA (talk) 00:36, 5 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I removed the last paragraph of the top section: it was very poor and weaselly. It is not uncommon for top section material to be lack citations because the material is fleshed-out later in the article.  Feel free to fix any spelling errors you see. DoctorMatt (talk) 02:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)