BONNE TERRE -- No one ever asked York if he wanted to be part of the Corps of Discovery.
No one ever asked him if he wanted to give up three years of his life and risk his life for the President's mission.
But he did. He followed his master, Captain William Clark wherever Clark dared to venture.
He was Clark's slave for as long as he could remember and he would continue to serve Clark for 11 years following the expedition of the West.
"If I was a free man, I couldn't have volunteered ..." said York, who was portrayed by Hasan Davis during Chautauqua Saturday night in Bonne Terre. "But since I was a slave, no one ever cared to ask."
York simply said, "My name is York, just York. It's the name my daddy carried before me. I was born a slave. No, I was born to be a slave and the property of another man..."
But yet, York was the only Black man to climb snow-capped mountains and watch the whales "dance," alongside 30 other members of the Corps of Discovery.
He said he constantly pushed himself past his limits and he worked hard to prove that he deserved a say in what the Corps did.
In the West, though, York found a sense of freedom and respect he never found at home. Not just from fellow members of the Corps, but from the curious tribes of Indians they encountered over a three-year period.
The Indians looked at his color and saw power -- a gift from God. York believed when his master looked at him, Clark saw just a piece of property too precious to give up.
York said he listened as Captains Clark and Meriwether Lewis told tribes over and over that they had a new tribe called the United States and they had a new leader named Thomas Jefferson.
York got tired of hearing the same speech. He believed that Indians wouldn't be given the same freedoms as whites. He appreciated the Indians and the skills they shared with them to keep them alive.
In the journals written about the voyage, York was always portrayed in a positive light. York never wrote his own journals because he did not know how to write.
The group only lost one member of the journey, Sgt. Charles Floyd. The journals say York stayed with him when he died and tried to make him comfortable.
York also looked after Sacagawea and her son, Pomp. They had a common bond, they were both slaves.
York was one of three people on the journey who knew how to swim. He was also a hunter.
York said he couldn't wait to get home to his wife and family.
York was disappointed that when they got back, the President recognized every member of the group except him. Each man was given land, money and the appreciation of their nation.
York was again disappointed when Clark refused again and again to give him his freedom. He was further disappointed when Clark made him move from his home to St. Louis.
York said Clark threatened to send him to be a slave in New Orleans -- a cruel fate for a slave.
At about that same time he moved, his wife and family moved further South, forcing them to say good-bye forever.
The main reason York had come back to civilization was to see his family again. When that dream died, he found some comfort in telling other slaves that there is a place in this country where people ask them to sit and eat with them, where people respect them and not spit on them.
York said if he didn't tell the children they might never know that there is more out there than slavery.
"Maybe ya'll could do me a favor..." York said to the crowd gathered for Chautauqua. "Tell them you know a man with skin as dark as night -- a black man who suffered pain with the greatest heroes the nation might ever know and my name is York, just York. It's the name my daddy carried before me... I have never been the property of another man."
He told the audience that he does not want his name, his voice and his story to die with him.
"These words are the only thing of value that I have left to give," he said.
Davis, an attorney, educator and performer from Kentucky, said no one knows what happened to York after he was freed. He became a businessman for awhile until that turned into a failure. He traveled further into the South looking for his family but had no luck.
In 1832, Clark told Washington Irving that York died of cholera on his way back to apologize to Clark.
But later in that same year, voyagers said they came across a chief of an Indian tribe who was Black. The man claimed he had gone on an expedition to the West with Lewis and Clark. Indian oral history repeats the same story.
Davis said in addition, no one knows what happened to Yorks' wife and family. They don't know who owned them.
At the end of the performance and again after Davis finished answering questions, the audience stood up and gave him a round of applause.
"He may have been the best speaker we have had," said Paul Williams, a member of the Big River Chautauqua Committee.
"Tonight might have been the most powerful night we had under the tent," said Joe Layden, chairperson of the committee.
Layden said the audience was so quiet during the performance that they could have heard a pin drop on the grass. Davis delivered the performance with great enthusiasm and a few sound effects.
"He was a very dynamic speaker," Layden said.
Williams said 262 people attended Chautauqua Saturday night. About 250 attended the night before. The performances were free and held on the ball-fields at Bonne Terre Elementary School.
Read Monday's edition of the Daily Journal for coverage of the final night of Chautauqua -- Sacagawea.
