Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness

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.