Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness [Paperback]

Thomas P. Slaughter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2004

This provocative work challenges traditional accounts of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition across the continent and back again. Uncovering deeper meanings in the explorers’ journals and lives, Exploring Lewis and Clark exposes their self-perceptions and deceptions, and how they interacted with those who traveled with them, the people they discovered along the way, the animals they hunted, and the land they walked across. The book discovers new heroes and brings old ones into historical focus.

Thomas P. Slaughter interrogates the explorers’ dreams, how they wrote and what they aimed to possess, their interactions with animals, Indians, and each other, their sense of themselves as leaders and men, and why they feared that they had failed their nation and President. Slaughter’s Lewis and Clark are more confused, frightened, courageous, and flawed than in previous accounts. They are more human, their expedition more dramatic, and thus their story is more revealing about our own relationships to history and myth.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The story of the Lewis and Clark expedition is one of America's most enduring myths. Of the hundreds of books that have been written on the subject, many perpetuate the heroism of the Corps of Discovery above all else, often at the expense of accuracy. Thomas Slaughter takes a different approach in this fascinating book, choosing to "look beneath the explorers' narrative for different meanings than those they intended us to find," reminding readers in the process that the journals have generally, and mistakenly, been "read as fonts of fact rather than as honed reflections designed for effect." Undoubtedly, some will label this revisionism, but Slaughter sees it as an opportunity to discover what the explorers' true thoughts and experiences were. He explains: "My observations are intended as correctives to our readings, usages, and understanding of the journals, not as a knock on the journalists or what they wrote. All texts are vulnerable to close readings, but explorers' journals are interestingly, revealingly, and essentially so."

Not surprisingly, the myths scarcely hold up to such scrutiny. For instance, Lewis and Clark were not the first white men to travel overland to the Pacific coast, but they often tried to ignore this unpleasant fact by renaming places or landmarks along the way. The importance of "opening the West" is also called into question: "westward movement would have continued without a moment's hesitation had all the expedition members died on the trail," Slaughter writes. He also looks at the lives and roles of Sacajawea and York, Clark's slave, explaining how their status within the group has been exaggerated as a way to make the expedition seem more democratic than it truly was. Slaughter even surmises that the notorious gaps in Lewis's journal and his reluctance to publish it upon their return may have been because Lewis saw the journey as a failure, and therefore felt there was nothing significant to document for posterity.

This book is no exercise in political correctness; rather, Slaughter digs deeply into the available evidence to offer a different perspective on the journey that helped define America, proving that yet another book on Lewis and Clark is not only welcome, but necessary. --Shawn Carkonen --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In this interesting but overwrought reconsideration of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Slaughter (The Natures of John and William Bartram) performs a "deep reading" of the travelers' journals and examines contemporaneous sources to probe the lines between history and myth. His investigation, which is thematic rather than chronological, suggests that the fable of Sacajawea's leading role in the expedition disguises the fact that she was a slave ("we have mythologized our history by denying her enslavement, her life, and her voice"), and that the explorers were the first wave of environmental despoliation, bolstering their masculinity by slaughtering buffalo, bears and especially snakes. The expedition was a clash of civilizations, pitting the Indian's holistic worldview, in which " the past and the present, nature and human are one," and "the white men's distinction between waking and dreaming makes no sense," against Lewis and Clark's rational, secular mindset, which was stuck in "linear, sequential time" and oblivious to the "spiritual implications of hunting." Slaughter's revisionism-especially his account of the contentious relations between Clark and his slave York, and his skepticism about the explorers' complaints of Indian thievery-often provide a needed corrective. But some may find his theorizing about the ways in which the expedition serves as "a better guide to our souls than...to our skins" overly academic-not hard to follow, but somewhat difficult to swallow.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (February 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375700714
• ISBN-13: 978-0375700712
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Read after Journals and Ambrose, August 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness (Lewis & Clark Expedition) (Hardcover)

This may be a good book to read after you've read the Journals and Ambrose's book Undaunted Courage.

The title Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness is apt. This books reads more like eight long essay with footnotes.

Slaughter compares Lewis and Clark values and views with that of the Indians they encountered. He considers the difference between dream states (natives) and rational scientific explanations (L&C) for the phenomena they experienced.

One chapter looks at the role of Sacajawea and deeply explores the two versions of her death. Another chapter looks at York and his role in the expedition and what happened between York and Clark afterwards.

This book is essentially an interpretation of the journals, as 90 % of his citations are from the journals themselves.

The tone is often sarcastic and critical and even tries to be cute. I found myself challenging and disagreeing with many of Slaughter's assertions.

The chapter on hunting was fascinating. It describes the Native view of hunting versus Lewis and Clark's view of killing.

Here and there I found things to think about in this book and different ways of looking at episodes of the expedition already much documented. If you are a fan of the expedition, you should find some provocative ideas here, and it is worth wading through the mire to reach them.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Fictitious Lewis & Clark, February 15, 2004

By 

Warthog_1 (Palatine, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness (Lewis & Clark Expedition) (Hardcover)

Anyone expecting to learn about Lewis and Clark from Professor Slaughter's book will be sorely disappointed. This tome on the supposed "sins" committed by the leaders of the Corps of Discovery has more in common with a fictional account of the 28-month expedition than that which actually occurred. The following episode will serve to illustrate the level of distortion and disingenuous and unsupported interpretation of the original journals to which the author sinks.

In Chapter 1 titled, Dreams, Professor Slaughter describes a hiking side trip to a location called Spirit Hill, a site that the local Indians believe is the "residence of Deavels". The entries in the Clark's journal on August 24th and 25th, 1804 also describe this hike. According to Professor Slaughter "...there is also a certain whistling-in-the dark quality to the entries, suggesting that the journal writers boyishly tried to hide how spooked they could sometime be in a place feared only by "savages"...as Clark explained, the force of the prairie wind was enough to make the hill; there was no cause to jump to superstitious conclusions based on this thoroughly explicable outcropping. We might suspect Lewis's voice in the explanation. We should also suspect that the confidence came only in retrospect, after they left this eerie place." Then following a direct quotation of a portion of the actual Journal on August 25th, we find the following from Professor Slaughter, "As they climbed, Lewis's dog "gave out" and returned to camp. A small detail, but worth reporting for some reason. Perhaps it was an omen; animals often sense trouble before humans can see it. In the context of Clarks's feelings during the ascent this detail took on meaning that it otherwise would have lacked."

What is described in the journals is a far cry from the description and interpretation of the author. The August 24th Journal entry is a totally factual, no non-sense description of the Indians feelings about the "mound" on the prairie. There is no sense of foreboding, no sense of the superstition on the explorers part, just a straightforward enumeration of the fact that the local tribes, "Maha, Soues, Ottoes and other neighboring nations believe this fable, that no consideration is Sufficient to induce them to approach the hill." (The last quote from the Journal.) More than likely the entry in the journal was made after the return to the river since the journey was over night but on the other hand there is no evidence that it wasn't made in "real time". There is absolutely no reading of the journal, not a solitary word that can support the use of the word "eerie" or that they were "whistling-in-the dark", a concern that the superstitions held by the Indians would turn out to be real demons and devils.

The description of why Lewis's dog "gave out" on the hike to Spirit Hill is totally absent and his ruminations on the reasons would appear to be completely fabricated. Clarks's August 25th entry in its entirety regarding Lewis's dog reads, "...at 4 miles we Crossed the Creek 23 yard wide in an extensive Valley and Continued on at two miles further our dog was so Heeted and fatigued we was obliged (to) Send him back to the Creek, at 12 o'Clock we arrived at the Hill Capt. Lewis much fatigued from heat the day it being verry hot & he being in a debilitated State...Several of the men complaining of Great thirst, determined us to make for the first water...". No special omen, no special animal intuition that trouble was just over the next hill or around the next bend. Clearly it was a very hot day and all, humans and animals, were suffering. The dog, a large Newfoundland named Seman, had the good fortune to be sent back while the humans struggled forward to accomplish their mission.

Near the end of the book, the author disparages their map making and navigation despite the fact that modern geographers denote that after a journey of 4140 miles, Clark's estimates using dead reckoning and the navigation tools of the day had errors that totaled to less than 40 miles. They had in fact filled in the great gap in the pre 1806 maps of North America. And finally in his summary, Slaughter argues that Lewis failed Jefferson, his country, and himself. One only has to read Jefferson's instructions to Lewis and then to render this argument utterly false and nothing the author presents in 231 pages supports his conclusion.

One could go on for 231 pages pointing out the silly errors and 21st Century judgments on 18th Century explorers but it would ruin a good day. Some books on the Lewis & Clark journey have amounted to some level of heroic cheerleading but this book goes off the cliff in the opposite direction. It adds nothing to the history of the era, the men, and several women, involved in the enterprise. If you feel compelled to purchase and read this book, do yourself a favor, first read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. Then obtain a copy of the Journals of the Corps of Discovery so you can "deconstruct" the ramblings of Professor Slaughter. If you are a Lewis & Clark scholar, go to the library and pursue this book before you buy. Most likely you will reach the conclusion that investing in some other volume will be a better and more fulfilling course of action.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading, January 20, 2003

By 

Robert Mikrut (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness (Lewis & Clark Expedition) (Hardcover)

To me, this book ranks near the top of the list with Abert Furtwangler's "Acts of Discovery" (ISBN 0252063066) and Lavender's "The Way To The Western Sea" (ISBN 0803280033), though more iconoclastic than either of those. (And to be clear, my list is of books on Lewis and Clark that are worth reading.)

Slaughter's book, particularly, can give one a much needed perspective on the expedition. All too often, historical events like this are treated with a overabundance of hero-worship and, even worse, sentimentality. It's not that we don't need heros, but that we should remember that they are also human.

"Exploring.." deals with several touchy issues: slavery; indian relationships; hunting in the form of indiscrimimant killing, etc. Many, if not most, treatments of Lewis and Clark (Lewisandclark, Lewis N. Clark, etc) either gloss over or dismiss these. Such events as the vote on where to place Fort Clatsop are given a more realistic lighting in Slaughter book.

Writing on these kind of topics can often, these days, take on a rather annoying smell of the PC, but "Exploring.." never has that odor. It may harm a few of your more cherished and warmly held myths about the Corps of Discovery, but this is history about real people. The event deserves more than a comic book or movie version simplistic approach, an antidote well supplied by "Exploring..".

I suspect that some who read this book may find it too harsh on the exedition members. I hope not. We can still be impressed with their ability to survive and complete their mission, one that few of us today would be tough enough to handle. But we can also acquire a feeling that in a lot of respects, they were no better than most of us.

I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's at least real.