History texts for American school children and high schoolers used to spend a lot of
time on explorers. It was part of a narrative that began with Columbus
and saw the New World as something
to be conquered and tamed for European use and occupation
in which native peoples were seen
only as obstacles to be brushed aside or exterminated. Perhaps that
version is obsolete now and some
more thoughtful analysis is now
taught. Even so the participation of Africans,
slaves, and servants in explorations is
generally little more than a footnote. But today we will note three cases spanning more than 400 years—Esteban the Moor; York, the body slave of Captain William
Clark on the expedition of the Corps of Discovery; and Matthew Henson, at first the personal valet of Polar explorer Robert E. Peary.
Esteban a/k/a Estevanico (Little Stephen),
or as Esteban de Dorantes was
probably born in Morocco around
1500. He was born a Muslim named Mustafa
Azemmouri. He was captured as
a young man by Portuguese slavers
and eventually sold to the Spanish nobleman Andrés Dorantes de
Carranza about 1522. Like many
ambitious young Spaniards,
especially younger sons who could
not expect to inherit their fathers’ estates under the
rule of primogenitor, Dorantes paid
to join an expedition of Conquistadors hoping
to find his fortune. He traveled to Cuba with his slave. In
order to make the voyage Mustafa had
to at least nominally become a Catholic,
and was Baptized Esteban.
In
1528 master and slave joined the
expedition of adelantado (governor) of La Florida, Pánfilo de
Narváez. Narváez landed in present-day St.
Petersburg on the shores of Boca
Ciega Bay. Narváez ordered that his ships and 100 men and 10 women sail north in search of a large harbor that his pilots assured them was nearby. He led
300 men, with 42 horses, north along the coast, intending to rejoin his ships
at the large harbor but no such haven existed and Narváez never saw his ships
again.
After
marching 300 miles north, they built
boats to sail westward along the
Gulf Coast shoreline hoping to reach
Pánuco and the Rio de las Palmas. A storm
struck them when they were near Galveston
Island. Only about 80 men survived
the gale, and were washed ashore on the island. After 1529, three
survivors from one boat, including
Esteban, were enslaved by Coahuiltecan
natives and three years later they were reunited
with a survivor from a different boat, Álvar
Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.
The
four men escaped captivity in 1534
and traveled west into Texas and Northern Mexico. They were the first Europeans and the first
African to enter the American West.
Having walked nearly 2,000 epic miles
since their initial landing in Florida, they finally reached a Spanish settlement in Sinaloa and then travelled to Mexico
City, 1,000 miles to the south.
Cabeza
de Vaca
describe their odyssey in his 1542
book, the Relación, the first ever published
describing the peoples, wildlife, flora, and fauna of inland North America, and the first to describe the American bison. Describing
Esteban as a “Black Moor” de Vaca who was the one who went in advance of the other three survivors,
as he was the most able to communicate
with the natives that they encountered. In other words, the already polylingual slave was able to quickly
learn at least the rudiments of the languages
and signing of the tribes they encountered.
The
four lived for some time with some of the natives and were said to be honored
as medicine men, likely because the retained some firearms and powder as
well as bits and pieces of armor. As medicine men they were treated with great respect and offered food, shelter, and gifts, and villages held celebrations in their honor. When they decided they wanted to
leave, the host village would guide them to the next. The party traversed the continent as far as the Sonoran
Desert in New Spain.
It
was with those people that they heard stories
of fabulous cities far to the West
that came to be called the Seven Cities
of Gold or Cíbola. When the survivors told their tale to Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain,
he asked the Spaniards to form an expedition to locate that wealth. Understandably
exhausted, de Vaca and the others turned him down. Perhaps in exchange for the ownership of
Esteban, those three were given passage
back to Spain on one of the regular treasure
galleons making the trip.
Mendoza
paired Esteban with Friar Marcos de Niza
who set off on the search in the cities in 1539, a year before the much larger
party under Francisco Vázquez de
Coronado. Esteban once again traveled
ahead of the main party with a group
of Sonoran Indians. He was
instructed to communicate by sending
back crosses to the main party, with
the size of the cross equal to the wealth discovered. One day, a cross
arrived that was as tall as a person, causing de Niza to step up his pace to join the scouts.
Esteban
had apparently reached the Ashiwi,
now known as Zuni, village of Hawikuh in present-day New Mexico. Accounts
of Esteban’s fate differ but most
say that the Zuni killed him and a large number of his party.
De Niza quickly returned to New Spain.
Others,
however, claim that the Zuni faked his death as a cover to free
him and that he lived happily among them for years. After years of wandering, suffering,
and travail we can hope that was so.
York
was born in Virginia in 1770, the
slave of John Clark III, the father of Revolutionary War
hero George Rogers Clark and William Clark.
York, who was two or three years older than William, was given to the younger son as a boy as
his personal body servant, companion;
mentor in hunting, fishing, and woodcraft. This was a common arrangement among the planter
class. Such close relationships
often fostered bonds of familiarity, affection, and within well-defined
boundaries, something like friendship.
This seems to have been the case between
William and York, but the white lad was
sometimes apt to fits of rage and may have beaten his companion. As they grew into men, York was ever at his
master’s side.
York
had a fiancée whom he rarely saw and lost contact with her after 1811 when she was sold to a Mississippi planter. This was often reserved has harsh punishment but her owner may have
sold her as a favor to Clark who did
not want York entangled with a family.
When
President Thomas Jefferson picked
his personal secretary Meriwether Lewis
and Clark, a mere second lieutenant
at the time, as co-captains of the Corps of Discovery charged with
exploring the upper reaches of the newly-acquired Louisiana Purchase and
possibly discover a long-dreamed of Northwest Passage by water
to the Pacific coast there was no
question that York would accompany his master.
After
a year of preparation Clark and York departed Camp Dubois (Camp Wood), near present-day Wood River, Illinois on May 14, 1804. They traveled up the Mississippi River in their keelboat and two pirogues to St. Charles, Missouri where Lewis joined them six days later. The Corps of Discovery consisted of 45
men including hand-picked volunteer
Army officers, non-commissioned officers,
and privates as well as civilians and one slave. York seems to have been officially enrolled
in the Army as Clark’s servant.
His presence
was resented by some of the party.
At least one man challenged York by saying “we don’t want no Niggers
here!” and throwing sand in his face nearly blinding him in one eye. He had to stoically endure the assault
because he would have been hanged
if he struck a white man.
But
York quickly proved himself a valuable
asset to his companions by swimming ashore—almost none of the
other men could swim—to collect greens
for the dinner pot and shooting an elk as part of a hunting
party. In defiance of law and custom York was permitted
to carry arms. After confrontations with hostile Sioux on the Missouri River the Corps arrived in the
more friendly territory of the Arikara who were fascinated with him having never seen a Black man before. The natives called him Big Medicine and he played
with the children and told them that
tall tales that he had been a wild animal that was tamed by Captain
Clark and that he thought children were very
good to eat. He would show
them how strong he was and roar at them. The adult adored him too and one and one even led him to his dwelling to allow him to enjoy his wife for the night.
After
wintering with the Mandan, the party
departed west early the next spring. Now with them were two other outsiders who with York would do much
to make the expedition successful. French-Canadian voyager and trapper Toussaint
Charbonneau signed on as a guide
and translator. Although the two Captains eventually came to distrust the Frenchman but he was
essential as the Corps followed the Missouri and its tributaries west through modern Montana.
Charbonneau
brought with him his teenage wife who
we know as Sacajawea and her infant son. She had been captured from the distant Shoshone on the far side of the Shining
Mountains by the Blackfoot from
whom Charbonneau had purchased
her. Her status as wife, was thus not voluntary and her husband often abused her. The young woman would save the expedition in one of its darkest hours when they met with
they met the Shoshone including some of her kin. The tribe provided horses so that they could proceed to navigable waters draining into the Pacific Ocean.
The
third outsider, York, proved himself increasingly useful to Clark, particularly
when Lewis was laid up for extended periods of time suffering what we now
recognize as severe depression caused by bi-polar disorder. Clark
named two geographic discoveries
after him—York’s
Eight Islands and York’s
Dry Creek. When a poll was taken
to decide where the group should stay
over one winter, York’s vote was recorded
as if he was an equal member. That
bitter winter was spent at well named Camp
Disappointment. York
became the first Black man to reach the Pacific Ocean when he walked
nineteen miles from the camp with Captain
Clark.
After
their return in 1806 all the men of the expedition were paid according to rank $5 to $30 per month and granted 320 acres for each enlisted man,
except for York. In recognition of his service York asked
Clark to free him.
Clark angrily refused and as punishment hired him out for hard
labor in Louisville, Kentucky.
Clark
later told Washington Irving that he
finally relented and manumitted York and gave him six horses
and a large wagon to start a drayage business driving between Nashville and Richmond. As a Freeman plied
this trade but ultimately failed when
most customers refused to hire a Black man.
In despair he concluded that Blacks could not make a living as free men. He was reportedly trying to return to service
with Clark who was living in retirement in
St. Louis even though it
meant he would have to return to bondage. He reportedly died of cholera in 1832 on his way to rejoin his master.
But
like Esteban, stories circulated years later that a Black man living among the Crow in 1934 who claimed to have
served with the Corps of Discovery.
Our final explorer is Matthew Henson who at age 21 in 1887 was hired by U.S.
Navy Civil Engineer Second Lieutenant Robert E. Peary as a personal valet.
But from the beginning the young Black
man was much more than a servant who laid out his master’s clothes in the morning and polished his shoes. He quickly became an all-around aide and eventually a virtual partner in polar explorations that spanned 23 years. He was also the only one of our three adventurers who received significant public recognition in his lifetime.
Henson
was born on August 8, 1866 on his parent’s farm east of the Potomac River in Charles County,
Maryland, who had been free people
of color before the Civil War.
The family was victim of attacks by the
Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, who
terrorized freedmen and former free people of color after the war. To escape
from racial violence in southern Maryland, in 1867 the Henson family
sold the farm and moved to Georgetown, then still an independent town
adjacent to the national capitol.
After
his father’s early death he was sent to Washington, D.C. to live with an uncle
and had a few years of education a black public school. At the age of ten the boy, previously at best
an indifferent scholar attended a
speech by Frederick Douglass who
urged Black youth to vigorously pursue
educational opportunities and battle
against racial prejudice.
But
two years later a keen sense of adventure led him to quit school and sign on as
a cabin boy on the merchant ship Katie Hines out of Baltimore
and sailed traveling to ports in China, Japan, Africa, and the Russian Arctic seas. The
ship Captain Child was impressed by the quick witted lad and not only
helped him polish his reading and
writing skills but taught him a great deal about sailing and the basics of navigation.
After
returning to Washington, Henson got more schooling and worked a variety of
jobs. Clerking at the clothing
store and outfitters B.H. Stinemetz
& Sons was an unusual plum for
a young Black. When Lt. Peary stopped by
the store to get a suitable pith helmet for
his first trip to Nicaragua to supervise the survey of a canal route
he hired the salesman and took him on the trip.
On that tip Peary was much impressed by Henson’s seamanship and his heartiness in enduring the steaming
tropical heat of Central America
and the diseases that felled many
expedition members.
Peary
had already made one trip to the Arctic—an 1885 attempt to survey Greenland by dogsled to
determine if it was an island or a
part of a larger land mass. Harsh conditions had forced that
expedition to turn back but Peary learned much about northern survival skills. He was already
thinking about more polar exploration and shared his dreams with Henson who
eagerly agreed to accompany him. While
they prepared, Peary taught his servant much of what he learned.
In
1891 Henson accompanied Peary back to Greenland on board the seal hunting ship S.S. Kite on a trip
backed by the American Geographic
Society, Philadelphia Academy of Natural
Sciences, and the Brooklyn Institute
of Arts and Sciences. In
July sailing in icy waters the ship’s
iron tiller suddenly spun around and broke Peary’s leg. The expedition established a camp at Red Cliff, at the mouth of MacCormick
Fjord at the north west end of Inglefield
Gulf.
During
Peary’s six month recovery Henson got to know the local Inuit people and mastered their language. They called him Mahri-Pahluk and remembered him as the only non-Inuit who became skilled in driving the dog sleds
and in training dog teams in the
Inuit way. After Peary recovered and
pushed north he proved he was a skilled
craftsman, often coming up with solutions
for what the team needed in the harsh Arctic conditions and built build igloos out of snow instead of using
heavy tents for mobile housing as they traveled. His and Peary’s teams covered
thousands of miles in dog sleds and reached the Farthest North point of any Arctic yet and established that
Greenland was indeed an island.
Henson
accompanied Peary on six more trips north and was acknowledged at his First Man and de-facto second in command before the 1908-09 drive to be
the first to the North Pole. It was the largest expedition yet and
underwritten by the National Geographic
Society and Explorers Club. Peary used his system of setting up cached supplies along the way. When he
and Henson boarded his ship Roosevelt,
leaving Greenland on August 18, 1909, they were accompanied by
22 Inuit men, 17
Inuit women, 10 children, 246 dogs, 70 tons (64 metric tons) of whale meat from
Labrador, the meat and blubber of 50 walruses, hunting equipment, and tons of
coal. In February, Henson and Peary departed their anchored ship at Ellesmere Island’s Cape Sheridan, with
the Inuit men and 130 dogs working to lay a trail and supplies along the route
to the Pole.
Peary
selected Henson and four Inuit as part of the team of six men who would make
the final run to the Pole. Before
the goal was reached, Peary could no longer continue on foot and
rode in a dog sled. He sent Henson ahead as a scout.
In a
newspaper interview, Henson later said:
I was in the lead
that had overshot the mark a couple of miles. We went back then and I could see
that my footprints were the first at the spot.
Henson
and his Inuit companions were photographed at the supposed pole. Subsequent investigation citing
navigational errors have cast doubt on the claim of being first to the
Pole. In fact they were several miles
short of that goal. But when their claim
was publicized, Peary was proclaimed
a hero and he in turn publicly recognized Henson in his reports to his sponsors.
In
1912 Henson published a memoir of his arctic explorations, A
Negro Explorer at the North Pole. In this, he describes himself as a “general
assistant, skilled craftsperson, interpreter, and laborer.” He later collaborated with author Bradley Robinson on his 1947 biography, Dark Companion, which told more about his life.
At
first although Peary received many honors Henson’s contributions were largely
ignored. Except within 1909 the Black
community. Henson spent most of the next 30 years working on staff in the U.S. Customs House in New York, a political appointment by admirer Theodore Roosevelt.
He
later gained renewed attention. In
1937 Henson was admitted as a member of the prestigious Explorers
Club in New York City. In 1944 Congress awarded
him and five other Peary aides duplicates
of the Peary Polar Expedition Medal,
a silver medal given to Peary. Presidents
Truman and Eisenhower both
honored Henson before he died in 1955.
Henson
was officially married twice. He married Eva Flint in 1891, but their marriage did not survive their long
periods of separation and they divorced in
1897. He remarried Lucy Ross in New York City on September 7, 1907. That marriage endured the strains of
separation until Henson settled into his duties as a Customs official. They had no
children.
But
Henson also had an Inuit family in the far North. His native wife Akatingwah gave him his only
child, a son named Anauakaq, born in 1906. Anauakaq’s children are Henson's only descendants. After 1909, Henson never saw Akatingwah or his
son again but remained in contact through mutual acquaintances and visitors to
their village.
In
1986 Anauakaq and an Inuit son of Peary were discovered and brought to
Washington as octogenarians where
they met American relatives from
both families and visited their fathers’ graves.
Anauakaq died a year later. He and his
wife Aviaq had five sons and a
daughter, who have children of their own. While some still reside in Greenland,
others have moved to Sweden or the United States.
Henson
died on March 9, 1955 in the Bronx. When he was reinterred in 1986 with his wife Lucy at Arlington National Cemetery members of his Inuit family were in
attendance.
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