Statue for the first African-American to cross North America and reach the Pacific coast
PLEASE RELEASE ME, LET ME GO!
NO!! I WILL NOT LET YOU GO!
Who was the first African-American to cross North
America and reach the Pacific coast? How important is it that the person was a
slave? - He was born a slave (in Ladysmith Virginia in 1770) and he died a
slave (in Tennessee in March 1831).
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On Saturday morning February 20, 2021, Park officials in Portland,
Oregon, USA received news that “a large bust of York” a black man
who was a slave, “had been raised in the park” on Mount Tabor. York was the son
of two slaves - Old York and Rose. They belonged to John Clark 111.
The bust, made of hardened plastic, stood in the place
where “a statue of a conservative Oregonian, a 19th century
newspaper editor, Harvey Scott, had stood since 1933.” The statue of
Scott had been made by Gutzon Borglum, the Mount Rushmore sculptor.
In the fall of 2020 during the demonstrations against
racism in the USA several monuments, including the statue of Scott were
toppled.
York was the slave of William
Clark. According to an article by Alan Yuhas in the New York Times
he (York) traveled with Clark and Meriwether Lewis to reach the Pacific in 1805.
That journey made him the first Africa-American to cross North America and
reach the Pacific coast.”
The Lewis and Clark expedition – a journey of some 8,000
miles took over two years. The expedition (1804-1806) was sent by President Thomas
Jefferson to explore the territory of Louisiana and the Oregon country.
Andrew Selsky
writes in the Associated Press, February 24, 2021, “In the epic
expedition York had gone on scouting missions, had hunted buffalo and deer to
feed the group and helped tend to the sick.”
Selsky also mentions that the
historian Stephen Ambrose (the author of several best-selling volumes of
American popular history) said York was “strong, agile, a natural athlete.
Native Americans were fascinated by the first Black person they had ever seen.
After the expedition, Selsky writes, everyone was
rewarded with money and land. Everyone, except York.
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What were some of the reactions to “Monument (Origin
Unknown) to Black Man?”
“This is what we are calling guerilla public art, but it
was a pleasant surprise,” the director of Portland’s parks bureau, Adena Long
commented. “We’re hopeful the artists will make themselves known so we can have
a conversation, but it will stay,” she said.
Carmen Rubio said: “The artwork “should
make all of us reflect on [CN1] [CN2] the
invisibility and contributions of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other Oregonians
of color.” Rubio is the city’s Commissioner of Bureau of Planning and
Sustainability.
But Kerry Tymchuck had a different opinion. “The removal
of statues needs to come with a process,” he said. He is the Executive Director
of the Oregon Historical Society.
“There should be at least some formal rules for re-evaluating
monuments in public spaces. It can’t just be free game for anybody to take a
statue down or put a statue up – it’s an invitation for chaos. What if they had
put somebody else up besides York?”
There is no record of what York looked like and
historians have little documentation of his life, Alan Yuhas writes. He was
probably born in 1770. William Clark, his owner was probably born that same
year.
Thomas Jefferson commissioned an expedition west in 1803
and York was taken along by Clark.
According to Peter Kastor, a historian at
Washington University in St. Louis, York became a “a trusted member of the expedition.”
There is a photograph of a statue of William Clark’s
slave York in Louisville, Kentucky included in an article by Darrell
Millner on the Oregon Encyclopedia website.
“York (the slave) repeatedly asked Clark (his
master) to free him,” but Clark said no.
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