Loading summary
Transcript568 lines
- [00:00]
Craig Furman
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Steven Rinella
Guaranteed Human.
- [00:04]
Ad Read Host
I'm not joking man. I use Montana Knife Co. Knives in my garage where I handle furs and wild game. I use them out in the field. I use them in my kitchen. They are manufactured locally in Montana. They are designed, tested and built by hunters. Montana Knife Company is a hunting knife company first and foremost and if you ever need your knives sharpened, just send them back and they will sharpen them for for free.
- [00:30]
Steven Rinella
Montana Knife Co.
- [00:31]
Ad Read Host
Working knives for Working People. MKC knives sell out within minutes of being released. So head over to montanaknifecompany.com to see what's available.
- [00:42]
WeatherTech Ad Host
Now everyone knows you need vehicle protection in the winter with that snow and ice, but summer is messy in its own unique way. Summer's about sand and sweat, snacks, water, grass, ice cream, and you don't want anything like that slowing you down. WeatherTech is built for all those summer things, giving you the freedom to go all in. Weathertech floor liners, cargo liner and seat protectors. Keep up with your summer adventures without the worry. American made, premium, built to last and easy to clean. If you're gonna go all out this summer, you need WeatherTech. Visit weathertech.com today.
- [01:20]
Ad Read Host
When you're in the backcountry, don't forget your own backcountry. Keep it pristine and confidently clean by bringing along Wet Extra Large Dude Wipes.
- [01:29]
Steven Rinella
Just like your truck gets muddy out in the wild, soaking your butt.
- [01:32]
Ad Read Host
You never clean your vehicle with dry
- [01:34]
Steven Rinella
paper towels, so why would you clean
- [01:35]
Ad Read Host
your butt with dry toilet paper? Wetter cleans better, so ditch the itch and switch from TP to Wet Extra large Dude Wipes.
- [01:43]
Steven Rinella
Dude Wipes.
- [01:44]
Ad Read Host
It is the best clean pants down.
- [01:46]
Steven Rinella
They're available at Amazon.
- [01:48]
Ad Read Host
That's where I usually order mine from,
- [01:49]
Steven Rinella
but you can get them at Walmart Nationwide. Fantastic product.
- [01:53]
Ad Read Host
Proud to be doing ads for these
- [01:55]
Steven Rinella
boys at Dude Wipes. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwearless.
- [02:12]
Randall
Me Hunt the Meat Eater Podcast.
- [02:15]
Steven Rinella
You can't predict anything. Brought to you by first light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit.
- [02:22]
Ad Read Host
Burst Light builds no compromise. Gear that keeps me in the field longer. No, no shortcuts, just gear that works.
- [02:30]
Steven Rinella
Check it out@first light.com. that's F I R S T L I T.com welcome everybody. Today we're going to dig. We're going to dig. Weigh in on the Lewis and Clark expedition which comes up all the time on this show. I don't Know if you know of all the interviews you're going to do, how many interviews have you done so far?
- [02:51]
Craig Furman
Too many to count. Okay, but, but we'll, we'll get into it here for sure.
- [02:55]
Steven Rinella
Okay. This is going to be the one. Remember how I was just saying turn those off.
- [03:00]
Craig Furman
It's all good.
- [03:00]
Steven Rinella
This is going to be the one. This is actually important. But I'm not, not as important as Lewis and Clark, not as pressing.
- [03:07]
Craig Furman
The.
- [03:07]
Steven Rinella
Of all the interviews you did, this is going to be the one where the audience knows most about what you're talking about.
- [03:11]
Craig Furman
I love it.
- [03:12]
Steven Rinella
That's a guarantee. Well, unless you go to like the Lewis and Clark remembrance association or something.
- [03:18]
Craig Furman
Well, see, I have talked to them. So, so it'll, but it'll be a
- [03:22]
Steven Rinella
good time next to those suckers is going to be the most informed audience you're going to talk about. But you got a brand new book out this vast enterprise. And we're joined by Craig Furman, who wrote a book prior that I would be way less inclined to read, but still interesting author. His a previous book, author in chief. The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the books they wrote. But how many books have they written again?
- [03:51]
Craig Furman
Too many to count. Yeah, I mean Roosevelt pick which ones
- [03:54]
Steven Rinella
you wanted to talk about.
- [03:55]
Craig Furman
I picked the ones that were interesting. So with Teddy Roosevelt, you know, would focus on his outdoor writing, his great nature writing, and then focus on when he wrote about the War of 1812 from like a naval perspective. Because that book is still important to historians today, even though Teddy Roosevelt wrote it when he was at Harvard as a student. So I would just pick the, pick the presidents that were most interesting, pick the books that were most interesting. And then that book sort of also told the history of communication. Like when I was writing about Reagan, I was also writing about the rise of like Walden Books and how bookstores and malls changed the kinds of books people wrote. And so Jimmy Carter wrote a bunch of books, but a lot of books, but unfortunately he's only like a couple paragraphs in my book because he was operating in the same world as Reagan. So like with Carter, he was one of the first people to use a word processor. You know, he would have like these floppy disks that could hold 12 pages on it and he had to pay thousands of dollars to bring this giant microwave sized word processor into his house. So unfortunately for Mr. Carter, I only focused on the word processor, not the books. But I wanted it to be a good story.
- [04:51]
Steven Rinella
Who's your favorite president?
- [04:53]
Craig Furman
Lincoln.
- [04:54]
WeatherTech Ad Host
Lincoln.
- [04:54]
Craig Furman
Yeah. I'm From Indiana. What else am I going to say?
- [04:56]
Steven Rinella
Oh, man, I thought he's like Land of Lincoln's Illinois.
- [05:00]
Craig Furman
Well, there's a. The Midwest fights over him quite tenaciously.
- [05:03]
Steven Rinella
Oh, was he born in Indiana?
- [05:04]
Craig Furman
He was born in Kentucky. So I'm telling you, it's tough stuff, man.
- [05:07]
Steven Rinella
I'm getting. But. So why. Why do you say Indiana?
- [05:11]
Craig Furman
Well, because he. He has formative years. Were there. And so, like, a lot of the stories we think about with Lincoln, like trading in some ears of corn to get a copy of a book, and then the book gets waterlogged and he has to work even more to pay off the book. That all happened in Indiana.
- [05:24]
Steven Rinella
So the big stuff happened.
- [05:26]
Craig Furman
I mean, it's. It's big to me. I. Yeah.
- [05:28]
Steven Rinella
No, that's great. That's great. I like those people that get. I like those people to get claimed by a lot of places.
- [05:34]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [05:35]
Steven Rinella
There's a lot of them all through time, you know, like. Like Aldo Leopold.
- [05:38]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [05:40]
Steven Rinella
He's. He's claimed, like, a lot of ways. Claimed by New Mexico. He's claimed by Wisconsin. Jim Harrison's claim by Montana. Key west, you know, Michigan.
- [05:50]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [05:51]
Steven Rinella
Hemingway is claimed by Cuba. Michigan, Illinois, Idaho. Idaho. Yeah. Like these people that really. A lot of people want to draw them in.
- [06:01]
Craig Furman
Yeah. Yeah.
- [06:01]
Steven Rinella
Daniel Boone claimed by Missouri and Kentucky. Yeah, probably somewhat by North. Yeah, some. Definitely by North Carolina.
- [06:08]
Craig Furman
Right?
- [06:08]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [06:09]
Craig Furman
Yeah. No, it's. Sacagawea is the same way. There's different Native nations that claim her. And to me, that just speaks to any of these historical figures. Like, their story is so inspiring and so exciting that it makes sense that a lot of people would see themselves in it.
- [06:21]
Steven Rinella
How long did you work on your Lewis Clark book?
- [06:23]
Craig Furman
Five years.
- [06:24]
Steven Rinella
Okay, tell me why it's different than other Lewis and Clark books.
- [06:29]
Craig Furman
Well, that's a fair question. And when I started out, I wanted to write an adventure story like I had done the first book about presidents and the books they wrote. And I think that's a good book. But I just. I think any good writer, when they tackle a new book, they want a new challenge. So I was like, let's get outside. Let's do an adventure story. And so the best adventure story in American history is Lewis and Clark. Of course, the counterpoint here is that there've been a lot of good books written about Lewis and Clark. So I didn't have a deep familiarity with the topic. Like, I remember my dad went on a big motorcycle trip to the West. I bought him a copy of the Lewis and Clark journals Because I knew, you know, and I was. And so he was like sleeping outside and reading it and I was reading it. We'd talk about. So I had like some familiarity, but not a deep familiarity, but I just thought, let me look at their journals and we'll talk about the journals a lot today because they're more than a million words. There is no record like this for any.
- [07:14]
Steven Rinella
Right.
- [07:14]
Craig Furman
It's. It's true. It's insane.
- [07:16]
Steven Rinella
Just for people's point of reference, how many pages is your book?
- [07:18]
Craig Furman
It's about 400 pages for the main story.
- [07:21]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, but how many words are.
- [07:23]
Craig Furman
Yeah. No, main part of the story is about 140,000 words.
- [07:26]
Steven Rinella
So that's. That's just for people's perspective. That's a. That's a heavy book.
- [07:30]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [07:30]
Steven Rinella
Like, you've probably like. Like listeners, you've probably read a lot of books that are 80, 90,000 words. So here we're talking about. The journals are a million words.
- [07:37]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [07:38]
Steven Rinella
I never thought about them in a word count sense.
- [07:40]
Craig Furman
Yeah, no, but it's. I mean, that I think conveys just how detailed they were. And you also have them from different perspectives. So something will happen. You'll see what Lewis and Clark are seeing. But. But then one of the enlisted soldiers might notice something different. And so that's why it's such an incredible resource. So I read all million words, and what I noticed was that, like, I only knew half the story. Even as somebody who's a historian who's, like, pretty well informed on these topics, I kept noticing these human details again and again that I didn't realize. So at that point I was like, well, this is worth spending a couple years on. But then I found more new stuff in the archives. I really thought there's nothing new to find. Although it's.
- [08:13]
Steven Rinella
Oh, I would imagine that there's no thing. Because so many historians and writers and just old dudes with a lot of spare time.
- [08:21]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [08:22]
Steven Rinella
Have just dug and dug.
- [08:24]
Craig Furman
I'm telling you, man, I found so much. I found new stuff about Lewis and Clark. To say nothing of all the other people I wrote about, I found a lot of new stuff.
- [08:30]
Steven Rinella
New stuff that you haven't seen in other books.
- [08:32]
Craig Furman
That's right. You want an example?
- [08:34]
Randall
Wolf Calf.
- [08:35]
Craig Furman
Wolf Calf. That's probably the biggest one. This is an interview with a Blackfoot man named Wolf Calf. And one of the two big interactions between Lewis and Clark and native people. One was with the Lakota and the other was with the Blackfoot. On the way back, it was just Lewis and So we've always had Lewis's journal. And then there's been a letter of a guy named George Bird Grinnell, who your listeners probably know because you all are so well informed. Where George Bird Grinnell was like, I interviewed this guy who met Lewis and Clark. But in that letter, George Bird Grinnell is like, I might have more from my interview with this guy in my notebooks. Let me check. And he never checked. But his notebooks are just sitting there at a library. So I went to his notebooks. Not only did I find the three pages of transcripts from the interview, but Grinnell remembered wrong. So Grinnell's version of this guy's interview in the letter is completely different than the actual interview. So in my book in the back, I just print the whole interview because that's a big document for historians. But I also hope readers read it, too, and they can kind of see, like, to get Wolfcalf's perspective versus Lewis's perspective. And I print Lewis's journal entry, too. So, like, side by side, you have Lewis's journal entry, you have Wolfcalf's interview. You can see the two different accounts of this episode.
- [09:38]
Steven Rinella
Did one. Do they contradict on factual matters?
- [09:42]
Craig Furman
They do in some ways. But I really found while working on this book that it was rarely about opposition. It was about conversation. So, like Wolfcalf says, we tried to steal the American horses, but everybody else who's written about this said that the Blackfoot people tried to steal the American guns. So there's like, a long tradition of horse raids on the plains. That. That was kind of a. That's a different thing. But going for guns, obviously, that's an escalation. And so Louis, in his journal entry says, they went for our guns. But once I read Wolfcalf saying, well, actually, all we wanted were the horses. And once I read a bunch of scholarship by people like John Ewers who, like, dedicated their whole lives while he worked at the Smithsonian to study in these horse raids. The horse raids were almost never violent. They were focused on horses. So then I went back to Lewis's journal entry, and I noticed something that nobody had seen before. And this is, like, this is not a discovery because that journal's been there for anybody to find. But you can read things differently. And what was interesting is that Lewis was asleep when things went sideways. So, like, when they either went for the horses or guns, Lewis, by his own admission, was in a deep sleep. So what you have here is not Lewis's word versus Wolfcat's word. You have this one enlisted soldier who was probably asleep while on watch, which was a capital crime. You have his word against Wolfcalf's word. And the American soldier had every reason to play up the violence of the native people because he screwed up. He's the one who fell asleep. He let this happen. He's the one who. His brother ended up killing one of the native people in the battle that followed. So for the American guy, like these two brothers are the ones who tell the story to Lewis after the fact that. And they have every incentive to make it seem as scary as possible because they're the ones who let it happen. And they, you know, and so in my book, I try to hedge here carefully and I try to say, you know, I think Wolfcalf was right. I think his version makes more sense. But I'm not going to say that his version is completely right because we'll never know. But I think what's cool in my book is you can get both versions and kind of lay them side by side.
- [11:27]
Steven Rinella
Do me a favor real quick. Yeah. Or however long you want to do it for. For people that I was just talking up, people know this story. Well, let's just say they don't. Sure. Do you mind laying out in a way that entertains me and Randall, what. What do we mean when we say the Lewis and Clark expedition?
- [11:47]
Craig Furman
Sure. So let's. You could start it in Washington D.C. with like, Thomas Jefferson's political stuff. That's all new in my book too, but I'll try to keep it more entertaining. So let's start near St. Louis. So spring of 1804, they leave near St. Louis. They go up the Missouri River. Jefferson thinks that the Missouri river and the Columbia river basically touch. That was sort of the, like, default idea in this time period. So the idea is they're going to go up the Missouri river, hop over this, a mountain or two, because the Rockies aren't that much to deal with, then go down the Columbia river to the Pacific Ocean. And so they want to find this water route because it's good for traders, but it's also good. Jefferson is already thinking about the future because Jefferson always thought about the future. So he's thinking about, like, traders today, farmers tomorrow. And so Lewis and Clark go up to Missouri in 1804, they. They make their first winter quarters in. In what's now North Dakota at Fort Mandan. And then in 1805, they keep going along the Missouri. They find out the Rocky Mountains are the Rocky Mountains. And so they get through that, go down the tributaries and the Columbia river and get to the Pacific Ocean, spend another winter there on the Pacific Coast. And then in the last year, 1806, come back to St. Louis and then to Washington, okay, 8,000 miles.
- [12:53]
Steven Rinella
And just to go back one step previous to that or like sort of an initiating instance is kind of lay out the national picture with the Louisiana Purchase and Manifest Destiny. Sure, all that kind of good stuff.
- [13:07]
Craig Furman
People love to bring up the Louisiana Purchase and it does become important. But Jefferson had been working on the expedition way before the Louisiana Purchase.
- [13:13]
Steven Rinella
Is that right? He would have gone and done it anyway.
- [13:15]
Craig Furman
He was trying to do it. In 1783, he asked William Clark's older brother, George Rogers Clark, to lead this expedition.
- [13:20]
Steven Rinella
That guy was badass.
- [13:21]
Craig Furman
He was, he was. But he would not do it because he thought he's like, America screwed me over. They haven't paid me enough for all the fighting I did. So no, I'm not leading your expedition. So 30 years later, Jefferson works it out with Lewis. Lewis brings on George Rogers baby brother William. But yeah, Jefferson was always thinking about land. And that's one thing that's new in my book is I found all these small details where you can see Lewis and Clark are talking in political terms. Like there's this idea of the right of soil. Like native people. What, like do they. Who claims the land and who do we negotiate with to buy it? And when Lewis deals with a grizzly bear, he says that the grizzly bear was, quote, tenacious of the right of soil. Which a. That's just a great joke. Lewis is a funny guy. But that's also like a term that could have been used in the White House. So you can see that Lewis and Clark are always thinking about land, who owns it, where America is going to go next. And this is. This all started before the Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana Purchase was like a happy accident that supercharged it.
- [14:14]
Steven Rinella
So what, like what was his. What was his deal if they hadn't done the. If they hadn't bought the land? He was just going to send guys out and have them duke it out with this. Have them duke it out with the Spanish or what?
- [14:24]
Craig Furman
Well, first of all, the Louisiana Purchase didn't cover the whole route. So the Pacific Northwest, like, I mean,
- [14:29]
Steven Rinella
the kind of, the big chunk of it.
- [14:31]
Craig Furman
Well, but I mean, they were really interested in the Pacific Northwest. Like out there you had like Russian ships, British ships, Spanish ships, French ships, American ships all circling on that coast. So part of it was getting out there. Like different ships had gone there. But Having. But going the route by land offered you a different claim. All these empires had this. There's this idea called the law of nations. And so there are all these rules and sort of theoretical debates. The native people were just like, we don't really care about theoretical debates. There are more of us than there are of you in this time period.
- [14:57]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [14:57]
Craig Furman
But Jefferson was thinking about, how do we, like, advance America's legal claims? And so sending Lewis and Clark would help in the Pacific Northwest. And they were already eyeing the Louisiana, the area that would become the Louisiana Purchase. Like Jefferson's Secretary of Treasury, Gallatin, whose name we see all over the place here. Gallatin said when they were planning out the expedition, he's like, the Missouri country is of particular interest to us because that's the first place Americans are gonna go. So there's no question that Gallatin, Jefferson, Lewis, Clark were thinking in the. In these terms.
- [15:28]
Steven Rinella
Huh. That. That's something I hadn't. That's something I hadn't realized that he would have gone ahead and done that anyway.
- [15:32]
Craig Furman
Oh, yeah, they would have. Just, like, the Spanish were not intimidating. So, like, British traders had been sneaking past them for decades. And so Jefferson thought the American, like, he tried to get passports and, like, dot his I's and cross his T's, but he knew at the end of the day, Lewis and Clark could just sneak by them and keep going.
- [15:46]
Steven Rinella
Yeah. Like, so hard to find somebody.
- [15:48]
Craig Furman
Exactly. Although the Spanish did almost find them. That's another thing that's in the book, is the. The Spanish sent four different missions, more than a thousand soldiers, to try to track down Lewis and Clark because they were pissed off. Even after the Louisiana Purchase, Spain was still trying to stop American expansion. And so at one point. This is a new thing in the book. I use native maps and compared them to, like, Jefferson's documents. The Spanish were within 100 miles of them. So, like, if. When we're talking the scope of the Great Plains, like, to get within 100 miles, that's as close as you can come to. And still miss. You know, there could have been an international war breaking out on the banks of the Missouri.
- [16:20]
Steven Rinella
Well, what. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but sure. What. What part. After the Purchase, what part were they.
- [16:30]
Ad Read Host
What were they.
- [16:31]
Steven Rinella
What were the Spanish imagining as the line? Like, what were they imagining that they don't want the Americans to do?
- [16:41]
Craig Furman
What? Right. Well, the thing is, the lines were up for debate.
- [16:44]
Steven Rinella
Okay.
- [16:45]
Craig Furman
Like, the Louisiana Purchase happened, but nobody knew what the Louisiana Purchase meant. That's one reason Lewis and Clark were important because they were going to get latitude and longitude readings and bring back enlightenment science to, to adjudicate this. But like, one of the reasons that Lewis ends up meeting with the Blackfoot people is that Jefferson was like, no side missions. Just focus on the rivers, just get there and back. But once Lewis realized the Rocky Mountains are here, I'm not gonna be able to find this river route that the President wants. Cause Lewis and Jefferson were very close. And so this was not just about doing a good job. There was something personal to this relationship. And so on the way back, Lewis is like, I'm gonna do a side mission. I'm gonna disobey the President because if I can go, if I can find that this river goes far enough north, then the Louisiana Purchase is actually gonna be hundreds of thousands of miles bigger. And so he goes up there trying to get that reading. The clouds don't cooperate, so he can't get the reading. Then he runs into the Blackfoot people and has this huge blow up that. That impacts relations between the Blackfoot and the Americans for decades to come. Which. That's how history works, right? Like, you think you're going to do something and then something else happens. Sometimes it's amazing. Sometimes it's a battle where a person dies.
- [17:44]
Steven Rinella
You know, you, you in the book, you, you kind of take a perspective of you set out a mission to really get into these personalities, right. You know, like sort of set, you know, the national motivation or Jefferson's motivation. But you sort of get into what are like the people motivated by, right? Which, which is like if, if anybody sits and imagines a. If you imagine World War, how like Generally World War II movies work, right? About a squad or whatever, you know,
- [18:25]
Craig Furman
yeah, platoon, whatever it is, right.
- [18:27]
Steven Rinella
It's like, you know, all the, like, geopolitical things going on, but in time, they, you know, the, the object of the movie is what made, right. Captain Thompson join and what are his fears and anxieties. You know, like, people are very familiar with this format, but no one's taken that approach here.
- [18:46]
Craig Furman
Right, Exactly. So, like in my book, you've got, you know, Jefferson is like the Churchill, right? Like that's the national motivation if we're going to do the World War II analogy. But my book is almost all at the platoon level. I like what I always tell people is I tried as a writer to put you in the canoe, but I think it's really important to put you in different canoes because like, even Lewis and Clark, best friends, both Grew up in the same state, both in the army. They had really different views about some issues. And so I felt like my job was to really show what each person saw. So the book, if anybody's read Game of Thrones, you know how, like the chapters rotate in points of view. Like one chapter you're going to get a king's point of view, in the next chapter you're going to get like a knight's point of view, that kind of thing.
- [19:23]
Steven Rinella
Not familiar, but believe you.
- [19:25]
Craig Furman
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Well, I've got your back. Correct. All right. All right. I could have. I could have cited As I Lay Dying. Maybe that would have been the better move. A lot of books do this rotating point of view, but not many history books do. And so that's what you're talking about, that kind of platoon perspective. So chapter one is from Lewis's point of view. Chapter two moves to the perspective of York, who was the enslaved guy who Clark brought along. He was on this entire expedition, too. And so I still try to hit like the greatest hits. Like, we've still got the rapids, we've still got the Rockies, we've still got the 8,000 miles. But I really wanted to show what this felt like to individual people because I think human beings are always the most interesting subject. And so I just really tried to capture for Lewis, for Clark. One of my favorite people in this book is a guy named John Ordway who's like a working class sergeant. And you want to talk about platoon level dynamics, you've got Lewis and Clark, like, trying to keep Jefferson happy. You've got these enlisted soldiers who can kind of be a pain in the ass. And you've got Ordway stuck in the middle trying to navigate all this stuff. So when I'm writing his chapters, I'm really trying to dig into those kind of soldierly dynamics. And I do that in all the chapters that kind of rotate points of view. And I just hope it makes the book feel more human. And when I said, why write this? This is the reason I wrote this, because I felt like I could tell the other half of the story.
- [20:40]
Randall
I think the. One of the chapters that I read is the chapter on the winter on the Oregon coast.
- [20:48]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [20:48]
Randall
And it's told from the perspective of Cowboy, and he's a Clatsip leader. And I feel like I've read a lot of Lewis and Clark stuff. That moment in the story is sort of like downtime in a lot of these narratives. And it's kind of like they Waited out the winner. It was pretty miserable, whatever. But I gained a totally new perspective on that moment because it's. The story's told from the perspective of someone who sort of. These guys have showed up. It's like a. He's an older guy. This is kind of a blip on his radar of his whole life. And he's thinking about how to make it advantageous for his people. But these guys just keep shooting elk.
- [21:38]
Craig Furman
They overhunt.
- [21:39]
Randall
Yeah, they keep shooting elk. And he's, like, noticing little details. Like they're. They're. They've been picking away at some of the boards, the roof boards from the clots of lodges. And it's like all of a sudden, that winter isn't just this gray, dull waiting period. It's, like, really active and. And there's all these maneuverings and even the trade, like, they're. They're disinterest in trade. So I don't. If you want to tell that story better than I can, like, that example for me where it was just like, oh, this is. This could have. I would skip over that part in my, like, elevator pitch retelling of Lewis and Clark, but all of a sudden it became very interesting to me.
- [22:22]
Craig Furman
Well, I really appreciate you saying that, because I definitely, as a writer, I'm always thinking about, like, keeping the pages turning right? So, like, if I had just done Lewis and Clark's perspective or even York's perspective or Ordway's perspective, that's like the third winter quarters they built at that point. So I'm like, how many ways can I talk about them chopping down logs and building huts, you know? So that's why that was the perfect spot to move to the Native point of view. And so I did a lot of research on these Native people's points of view and what mattered to them. And Koboy and the Clats up, they were incredible traders. Like, when I think of Kobo, I think he should have been on Shark Tank. And I don't mean as, like, one of the people pitching the show. I mean as one of the sharks, because he was a brilliant trader. Because we mentioned all those ships coming in. They wanted otter skins. But Cowboy also had. He was right on the mouth of the Columbia River. So he also had all these native people to the east who would have, you know, starchy grains or different vegetables to offer. And he was kind of the middleman. So he would buy, you know, whale stuff, whale meat from one person, sell the whale meat to somebody else, make a little more money. Buy some mopado from them, sell it to somebody else, get some otter skins. And he was always kind of facilitating all these trades, which meant he was very powerful, but he was also very knowledgeable. And so when you think about his point of view, it helps you reframe so many episodes, too. Like, one of the most famous examples from Lewis and Clark is when they vote, right? Like, they're on the Pacific coast and they're going to have this vote about, well, you know, where are we going to put our winter quarters? And they famously let York vote in this, which is amazing. People say they let Sacagawea vote, but that's not quite true. What happened is Sacagawea spoke up because, like, if you look at Clark's journals, you can see that he didn't leave a space for Sacagawea. And then she just, like, blurted out, here's what I think we should do. So he had to kind of add her at the bottom, which is. It's a cool detail, but like this,
- [23:59]
Steven Rinella
for people that aren't as familiar, York is a. York is a slave, right? Yeah. The only slave on the trip.
- [24:05]
Craig Furman
That's right. That's right. And. And there had been lots of votes previous to this, and he. They did not let him have his say. But by the time they got out there, he had done so much work, you know, dealing with rapids, hunting, helping build forts, that they were like, we're going to give you a say as well.
- [24:20]
Steven Rinella
Which he also, the. I want you to keep going on this. But also, the only person not on payroll.
- [24:24]
Craig Furman
Well, here's what.
- [24:25]
Steven Rinella
Or did they put him on payroll?
- [24:26]
Craig Furman
Here's what's screwed up. He's on payroll, but not in the way you think, because the army would compensate officers if they brought their slaves. So the person who got paid for all York's work was Clark. Clark would get seven bucks a month for the, like. The, like wear and tear on his property. But his property was York.
- [24:41]
Steven Rinella
Did he kick it back to York or did. There's no one know.
- [24:43]
Craig Furman
You know. You know the answer to that.
- [24:45]
Steven Rinella
No, I don't know the answer to that.
- [24:46]
Craig Furman
He did not kick it back to York because when they got back, York said to Clark, I've. Look at all the stuff I've done. I've earned my freedom. And Clark said, no, you haven't. And so he kept York enslaved for another 10 years after they were.
- [24:58]
Steven Rinella
Son of a bitch, man.
- [24:59]
Craig Furman
You know, there's a lot of things I like about William Clark, but that is not one of them. So, yeah, this famous vote on the coast where again, things to like about William Clark, he and Lewis let York have a vote there. There was foreign interference in that election because the Clatsop and Kobaway wanted the Americans to set up camp on their side of the Columbia River. Cause they were like, we can trade with these people. So if you read the journals closely and the journals, those million words, they're always a great source, not just for what the Americans are doing, but for what Native people are doing too. You just have to pay attention to the Native stuff. Like, three times before the vote, clots of people go over to the Americans camp and are like, hey, you know, where there's a lot of elk, there's a lot of elk on our side of the river. And they were right. But also that persuaded the Americans to go to their side of the river. Where things went sideways, as you said, is that the Americans killed more than 150elk that winter. And so the elk would normally. I tracked all this stuff really carefully. The elk would normally, like, spend the winter down by the river and then go back up into the mountains. They would normally stay by the river until May. But by March 1, the elk were gone because the Americans had hunted them so aggressively. And from the American point of view, they needed elk skins to make moccasins. They needed elk brains to mash into paste to soften the elk skins. And they needed to eat. But they hunted so aggressively that they overhunted. And that just like only made the dynamics more tense between them and the Clatsam.
- [26:17]
WeatherTech Ad Host
Everyone knows you need vehicle protection in the winter with that snow and ice. But summer is messy in its own unique way. Summer is about sand and sweat, snacks, water, grass, ice cream. And you don't want anything like that slowing you down. WeatherTech is built for all those summer things, giving you the freedom to go all in. Weathertech floor liners, cargo liner and seat protectors. Keep up with your summer adventures without the worry. American made, premium, built to last and easy to clean. If you're gonna go all out this summer, you need a WeatherTech. Visit weathertech.com today.
- [26:54]
Ad Read Host
Montana Knife Company was founded by one of the most experienced master blade smiths in the world, Josh Smith. He's been making knives for 30 years. He made his first hunting knife when he was 11 years old and gained his master bladesmith accreditation at age 19. I got a whole slew of Montana Knife Company knives. In fact, in a couple minutes, literally in a couple minutes, I will be in the other room using my Montana Knife Company Slicer to clean up a handful of ducks.
- [27:23]
Steven Rinella
You'll be able to watch the video
- [27:24]
Ad Read Host
and I can prove it. When you see it, they are the sharpest knives out of the box in the easiest knives to sharpen. I use them all the time in my kitchen because these are some of the sharpest knives you will ever touch. The best part is all of MKC's knives are backed by a multi generational guarantee promise. Meaning you leave these knives to your kids. Your kids are backed by the guarantee. If you ever need your knife sharpened, just send them back and they will sharpen them for free. Talk about customer Service. Montana Knife Co. These are working knives for working people. MKC knives sell out within minutes of being released. So head over to Bontana knife company.com to see what is available now. Service opens doors and at American Military University it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at AMU Apus Edu Military Open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of American Military University.
- [28:50]
Steven Rinella
Have you found in looking at this, this thing I feel like is. Is. Well, I don't know if I think it's true or not. Just an observation I've had. If you went and talked to. How do I put this? Have you found that as you go along the Lewis and Clark Trail today that people tend to. That the people that live along those places currently tend to pay most attention to what happened near them. Meaning in Oregon, are they way into the part of the Lewis and Clark story that occurred there? Because it seems to me that the stuff that happened along east of the Rockies out on the Great Plains has always seemed to get much more attention, public attention, but maybe just feels that way because I live here. But I remember another person that doesn't live here that was writing about this, was saying, no, I think it's true. I think that most national attention focuses on the Great Plains. And his theory on it was because it's the place you can go and you can look and you can be like, I can picture it. Sure, you can go and be like, I can picture what it looked like, right? Significant changes have happened, but I can picture it. And so that's why he feels that's the way it is. But did you find that to be true or do you find that like residents today, you know, out in Astoria or wherever or whatever, you know, are very fixated on those parts of the narrative.
- [30:29]
Craig Furman
Yeah. I mean, we were just talking about Lincoln and. And how different places have claim to them. And I think Lewis and Clark are absolutely at that level where different people have claim to it. So people who don't live anywhere near the trail, I do think they picture the Great Plains and the bison and that. That kind of stuff. There's no question about that. Because on a lot of the lim High Pass still looks pretty much what it looked like. Lewis and Clark saw it. But I think if you talk to people who live in any of these. I mean, if you talk to people in St. Louis, like, they just want to talk about Lewis and Clark in St. Louis. I just did a book event there, and it was amazing. And there were so many people who could really get into the nitty gritty about their, like, what they did there.
- [31:04]
Steven Rinella
Just, like, buying shit and getting all ready to go.
- [31:06]
Craig Furman
Exactly. Or like, the near mutinies where the men would get pissed off in the ord way that sergeant I was mentioning, like, had to, like, calm everybody down. So, like, the St. Louis people, they love the whole story, but they really love their connection to it. And that makes sense to me. I mean, who doesn't like it? This is our national epic. This is such a great adventure story. So who doesn't love to have some kind of personal connection to it? I think that's great. That's one of the reasons I was excited and a little terrified to write this book. I can kind of speak to that, too. Cause I grew up in Vancouver, Washington, and Lewis and Clark was a massive part of our middle school and high school curriculum. And it was all west of the Rockies. It was heavy on Fort Clatsop. We took multiple field trips to Fort Clatsop, Seaside, Oregon. And I can tell you almost nothing about the planes. Oh, in your. In your. In your school version, did COBOL come up? Nope. Well, there you go. That's what's new about the book.
- [31:53]
Steven Rinella
Before. Before we started recording.
- [31:55]
Randall
Phil, I'm sorry that I said that was a boring chapter of the story.
- [31:58]
Steven Rinella
That's what. That's fine. I'm sorry. I'm not fuming over. Until today, I always thought it was a boring part of the story.
- [32:03]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [32:03]
Steven Rinella
But I'm like, how did I not know about this whole elk hunting deal? Yeah, that's interesting.
- [32:07]
Craig Furman
It's all in the journals. You just got to know, because I.
- [32:09]
Steven Rinella
I just, you know, people have their myopia and. And whenever I don't Know, and the work we've done, we're always talking about them hanging out on the planes.
- [32:20]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [32:21]
Steven Rinella
Buffalo running every which way, wolves all running around, grizzly bears cracking everybody.
- [32:26]
Craig Furman
That's right.
- [32:27]
Steven Rinella
Like that's in my mind. It was just a bunch of boring. And then they got out there and it kicked. And it kicked. It.
- [32:33]
Craig Furman
Yeah, yeah, they kicked ass the entire time is. Is what I would say.
- [32:37]
Steven Rinella
But you know, I, for a while I toyed with this idea that, that I didn't like them because it was big government. Do you, I mean, because you have all these swashbuckling dudes. Right. Kind of like doing all this crazy stuff and, and no one pays attention to him. Then like the government goes out there and then everybody's all into it.
- [32:55]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [32:55]
Steven Rinella
But I gave up on that. Well, but for a while I was kicking around not liking it because it was, because it was a, it wasn't these kind of freelance crazy dudes.
- [33:06]
Craig Furman
Right, right.
- [33:07]
Steven Rinella
Like who would turn up in these places ahead of them.
- [33:09]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [33:10]
Steven Rinella
And people don't talk about that that much.
- [33:11]
Craig Furman
Well, I think it's important to see it as like a two part. If you're interested in. As an American story, you have to start with them because all those free buckling, squash buckling kind of guys were mostly French or Spanish or British. But Jefferson is kind of contradictory, like many politicians in that he's a small government guy. But I do think Lewis and Clark was big government. One of the things I did was really crunch the numbers on how much it cost. And the official price tag was like $38,000, which is a crazy number today. Doesn't that seem like anything? But back then was a lot of money and. But that number's wrong. Like once I went back and like actually checked the numbers and did the work, it was closer to $100,000. So then to try to like understand what that meant, that same accountant was
- [33:50]
Steven Rinella
just running numbers on the Iran war.
- [33:52]
Craig Furman
I think you might be correct.
- [33:54]
Randall
Yeah.
- [33:56]
Craig Furman
We can talk about the Missouri river as the new strait or the old strait of Hormuz if you do that too. But, but yeah, so like the hundred thousand dollars, if you look at that as like a percentage of federal spending, Jefferson spent as much on Lewis and Clark as we spent on NASA today. So that's, that's absolutely true. So that's the scope we're talking about. Like when I called the book this vast enterprise, it's not just vast in terms of the territory they cover, it's vast in terms of like the conception how Many people are involved. I'm serious. Yeah.
- [34:24]
Randall
I also think it's gonna go back
- [34:26]
Steven Rinella
to not liking it because it's big government.
- [34:27]
Craig Furman
Well, give me the rest of the episode. Maybe I can persuade you.
- [34:30]
Randall
I also liked the. One of the. I guess one of the things that always spins around in my mind when we're talking about the Lewis and Clark expedition is there's obviously two guys and they have a lot of words, but it's a group of like 40 people.
- [34:47]
Craig Furman
It fluctuates 30 to 40.
- [34:48]
Randall
30 to 40. And they're encountering all these different nations. And it's such a sprawling. If you were to make. No one's done. No one's pulled off the HBO miniseries yet. But if you were to make a Lewis and Clark HBO miniseries, you'd need a huge cast of characters. Right. And so I think that, like, one of the ways in which your book helps kind of reshape how people think about the story is the emphasis on how many individual lives are intersecting along this trail.
- [35:29]
Craig Furman
Right. Yeah. And that's it. It was always an ensemble, like the signs on the Lewis and Clark trail. It's just two guys. Right. And there's brown and white signs on the side of the road. And they're wearing the wrong kind of hats. They're wearing, like, Revolutionary War era hats. If you want to get mad at big government, there's the National Park Service should maybe do a rework on those signs. But if they get the right hats on them, they should also, like, there should be more people in the sign too, because you're exactly right. This was always. And Lewis and Clark knew this. Like, this does not take away from Lewis and Clark. This fast Enterprise is a quote from Clark's letters. So, like, they always knew they needed lots of help. I'm just trying to remind people to, like, see the story the way the captain saw the story themselves.
- [36:06]
Steven Rinella
You know, it's. It's interesting that two things that have flummoxed filmmakers will be Cormac McCarthy's blood meridian in the Lewis and Clark story.
- [36:18]
Craig Furman
Yep.
- [36:20]
Steven Rinella
Everybody tries, but no one can do it.
- [36:22]
Craig Furman
I know.
- [36:23]
Steven Rinella
People start and then they quit.
- [36:25]
Craig Furman
Yep.
- [36:27]
Steven Rinella
But here's. Here's my question for you. I've kind of teeing this up earlier, but I didn't get there before we started recording. You were telling me how Sacajawea was funny.
- [36:36]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [36:37]
Steven Rinella
And I'm like, come on. But let me. Let me tee this up a little bit better.
- [36:42]
Craig Furman
Take your time.
- [36:43]
Steven Rinella
Do you have. Do you ever read when Larry. Larry McMurtry so the. The author of Lonesome Dove, Lonesome Dove, Larry Murtry, he wrote All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers, Lonesome Dove. I mean, millions of things. He wrote a biography of Crazy Horse. Okay. Many people have done that. Guess how thick. Larry McMurtry's biography of Crazy horses. It's about, like, as thick as this. This laptop.
- [37:13]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [37:14]
Steven Rinella
Screen.
- [37:14]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [37:15]
Steven Rinella
You know why? Because he admits. I mean, right. In the beginning of the book, he admits. He's like, really? Honestly, we don't know much. Like, we don't know much. I've read summations here and there. I've read summations of, like, what actually is known about Sacagawea. And the thing we, Randall and I call this in some of our American history works is we do this. We do this bit of how do we know what we know?
- [37:50]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [37:52]
Steven Rinella
Meaning everybody knows that blank. Right. But how do we know what we know? And then you kind of dissect, where does it come from? And in the process of how do we know what we know? You often find this thing where, like, we don't really know that.
- [38:07]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [38:08]
Steven Rinella
We don't know that.
- [38:08]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [38:09]
Steven Rinella
Itchik. Someone wrote a history that history informs other historians, and then you build up this mythology. Sure. Okay. So I've. I've read. I can't remember where or when, but I read a. Like, what is actually, like, when historians look at Sacagawea's narrative, What are the sources? What are the actual sentences?
- [38:31]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [38:31]
Steven Rinella
And it's not much.
- [38:32]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [38:33]
Steven Rinella
I haven't read it in a long time. But we were talking about the writer Jack Hit, who's a very funny writer. Jack Hit wrote a piece, and I wish I had reread it ahead of our interview, but he wrote a piece where he tracks our understanding of Sacagawe. And it's sort of like what we think about Sacagawea says a lot about where we're at in time.
- [38:54]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [38:56]
Steven Rinella
Right. So during those years of putting a heavy emphasis on cultural inclusion, she elevated. When. When there's geographical features all around the American West, Squaw River, Squaw Peak, when they were renaming one of the Squaw Peaks in Montana, the squab being a derogatory term for a Native American woman.
- [39:23]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [39:24]
Steven Rinella
One of those peaks became, you guessed it, Sacagawea Peak.
- [39:28]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [39:29]
Steven Rinella
So she. She has. She's utilized like a tool sort of the understanding. So when you said she's funny, I don't think we're in an era of great comics. And so you're trying to make her fit the times. But, like, how can you say that? Where are her jokes compiled?
- [39:50]
Craig Furman
Sure. No, I'm really glad you asked this, because this is a very good question. And just as an aside, the idea of using her as a tool, that's not new either. Like, there are more statues of Sacagawea than any other woman in North America. And the reason there are so. Yeah, the reason there are is because suffragettes used her as a tool. So way back in the early 20th century, they were like, oh, a native woman who was strong and empowered. We can help use her to help us get the right to vote. So, like, this is there. This has always been happening.
- [40:14]
Steven Rinella
More than Rosie. More than the fictional Rosie the Riveter.
- [40:17]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [40:18]
Steven Rinella
Semi fictional Rosie derivative.
- [40:19]
Craig Furman
Right, Right.
- [40:20]
Steven Rinella
More than Betsy Ross.
- [40:21]
Craig Furman
I mean, it was all of the above. It was a lot of work to get women the right to vote. But, yeah, Sacagawea was one of the tools that they used. But let me answer you in two ways.
- [40:30]
Steven Rinella
Oh, no, I was. I was. Wasn't referring to the suffragist tool. I was referring to, like, statue figures.
- [40:37]
Craig Furman
Right? But yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, she was right. She was. Yeah. There's more. That's. National Park Service has that stat. How do I know she was funny? Because there's a story in the journals from Lewis and from Clark that show that she was funny. Like, when they story. Okay, I'm sorry that we're going back to Fort Clats and we're gonna spend this whole podcast on the boring part.
- [40:53]
Steven Rinella
Exactly. On Phil's dumb boring part.
- [40:56]
Craig Furman
I know. I promise. The Lakota have a huge part of the book. Like. Like, there's so many bison. Like, the rest of the stories.
- [41:04]
Steven Rinella
The episode from back there behind his. His warped workbench.
- [41:08]
Craig Furman
Yeah. Hats off. Very strategic.
- [41:10]
Steven Rinella
Thank you.
- [41:11]
Craig Furman
But when they get out there, they, like, they. They can't go see the ocean first because the waves in that part of the Columbia river are so big, their canoes keep getting swamped. So they, like. It's hard for them even to find a place to stay dry. Their clothes are rotting. Their teepees are rotting. It's just. It's a disaster. So they finally figure out what side of the river they're going to go on. The Clatsop sort of guide them there, because the elk and all that. And so then the Clats up come back and say, hey, there's this huge beached whale that. That washed up on the shore. And so everybody's like, cool, let's go See that? And a lot of the men haven't even gone to see the ocean yet. Even though they're only a few miles from the ocean, the conditions are so tough that they've just been kind of pinned in this camp, and so they're getting ready to go. And everybody is, you know, like the guy who owns Sacagawea or is her husband, depending on how you want to frame it. Like, he's getting ready to go. A lot of the soldiers are getting ready to go. And Sacagawea, like, nobody says she can go, and so she speaks up. Like, she's like. The phrase from the journals is, it would be very hard if she does not get to go. She's come all this way. And so for her not to get to see the whale in the ocean, that would be very hard. And so I think that's funny. I mean, I think she's like, yeah. You don't think it's funny if she's like. If they're like, you got to stay back here at the camp. And she's like, that's fucked up. I've come all this way, too. I want to go see the ocean, too. You don't think that's funny?
- [42:24]
Steven Rinella
Are you married?
- [42:25]
Craig Furman
Yes.
- [42:27]
Steven Rinella
If you're. So when your wife gets mad at you, you think it's funny?
- [42:32]
Craig Furman
Maybe not in the moment, but later on, like the next day when we're good again?
- [42:37]
Steven Rinella
Huh?
- [42:38]
Randall
When you realize that you hadn't seen her perspective.
- [42:42]
Craig Furman
My wife or saga? Julia.
- [42:43]
Steven Rinella
Your wife? Your wife?
- [42:45]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [42:45]
Randall
I mean, in hindsight.
- [42:46]
Steven Rinella
Okay, okay. I see what you're saying. Well, okay, okay. That's.
- [42:54]
Craig Furman
I mean, that's somebody who has a sense of humor.
- [42:56]
Steven Rinella
It's a stretch.
- [42:57]
Craig Furman
You don't think that's a funny story? You don't think her, like, okay, they're
- [43:00]
Steven Rinella
like, hey, we're gonna go check out this whale. She's like, dude, like, I'm coming.
- [43:06]
Craig Furman
That's not funny to you?
- [43:08]
Steven Rinella
No.
- [43:09]
Craig Furman
Okay.
- [43:09]
Steven Rinella
That'd be.
- [43:10]
Ad Read Host
I'd put that under
- [43:12]
Steven Rinella
forceful. Admirable. Stick them up for your. I mean, unless you had a funny joke.
- [43:19]
Craig Furman
Okay, well, I. I feel like at least it's very human and lively.
- [43:22]
Steven Rinella
Yeah. Three people go to look at a whale.
- [43:23]
Craig Furman
One of them says, we're called the Aristocrats.
- [43:29]
Steven Rinella
Okay, okay. Yeah.
- [43:30]
Craig Furman
Well, at the very least, we can disagree on whether or not that's funny. I think when you remember that she's 16 years old, that's impressive. When you remember that her husband would beat her until Clark would step in and say, you can't do that here. When you remember how tough her life was. I just feel like there's a real crackling personality behind that. For her to be like, this is. This is not fair.
- [43:50]
Steven Rinella
Tell the story of her. Tell. Tell the story of her life. And I know that it's increasingly controversial. Sure, not increasingly controversial, but it is controversial. Tell the outline of her life. And then, if you don't mind, I wouldn't mind you touching on some of the. A little bit of the custody battle that is underway about who. Who again, people that get claimed by many places.
- [44:11]
Craig Furman
Okay, but.
- [44:12]
Steven Rinella
But first lay out just the. The known. The known understanding of her remarkable life.
- [44:17]
Craig Furman
Well, I can do that while also answering your bigger question, which is like, how do we even know any of this? So maybe she wasn't funny. Maybe she was just spunky. I don't like, pick your adjective. But we know things about her personality because they're in those million words of the journals, like her saying, I want to go see the whale. Lewis and Clark wrote that down. So we know that that happened. And then we can infer as interpreters, as writers, as lovers of history, like, what those details mean. But in terms of her life story, the reason we know that is because it's in the journals, too. And this is also something that's new in my book, that it's not like the outlines of her life story have always been well known, although now they are getting more content. She grew up, you know, on the sort of between what is now Idaho and what is now Montana in that rocky region. Her people had had to move there because other nations, like the Blackfoot, had more horses and especially more guns. So it wasn't safe for the Shoshone to be out on the plains where the bison were. So they kind of stayed in the mountains most of the year, but then once a year they would go. They needed the skins to, like, to stay warm. They needed the fat. They needed stuff that only they could get from the bison. So once a year, they would go out to Three Forks, and then they would go a little bit past that sometimes, and they would hunt buffalo quickly as they could get all the buffalo products they could. Bison. Sorry, I.
- [45:29]
Steven Rinella
No, no, no. I'm a buffalo guy. Randall kind of sits on the fence
- [45:33]
Randall
about it, if I may.
- [45:34]
Steven Rinella
He's old bison guy to.
- [45:36]
Randall
To get you guys back on the same page after the Sacagawea funny. Not funny controversy.
- [45:40]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [45:41]
Randall
You say in the book.
- [45:42]
Steven Rinella
Because there's like a real split between me and the guests.
- [45:44]
Randall
You make you make a point to say in the book, all the characters in this book are going to encounter buffalo, not bison.
- [45:52]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [45:53]
Randall
Because that's what they encountered. That's what they called it in their time. Yeah, I thought you'd appreciate that.
- [45:58]
Steven Rinella
That's good.
- [45:59]
Craig Furman
I mean, this is not a book about 20, 26. It's a book about 1804. So I really tried, you know.
- [46:04]
Randall
Yeah. Nobody saw bison on the Lewis and Clark.
- [46:07]
Craig Furman
Right. And the Americans called the Lakota the Sioux. So when I'm writing from the American point of view, I use the Sioux. When I'm writing for the Lakota point of view, I use the word Lakota. Like, it's important to me to give each person's perspective as they saw it and not to let our modern concerns kind of worm their way in there. But anyway, so, like, the Shoshone would have to go out and get buffalo, bison, try to keep both of you happy each time in the fall. And so in 1800, when Sacagawea was, like, 13 or 14, her people go out there, and so they set up camp at Three Forks, and the men are off hunting buffalo, and the women and the kids are sort of, you know, back at the camp. And so then one day, some armed raiders with rifles, which the Shoshone do not have at this point from the Hidatsa Nation, show up. And, you know, they're coming on horseback, so the Shoshone scatter. Most of them get on their horses, which they are famous for, their wonderful horses, and escape. But Sacagawea, for whatever reason, can't get to a horse. So she starts running up the Jefferson River. And so she is running, there is smoke, there is screaming. There are people being clubbed to death. It's a very intense and violent situation. She makes it a couple miles, maybe, she thinks I'm gonna actually be able to escape. But then she hears a horse coming up behind her. There's a Hidatsa man. She tries to cross through the river, gets caught in the middle. He scoops her up, brings her back to the camp. So at this point, we know that there are a couple, like, a number of Shoshone people have been killed. And then some of the young Shoshone women have been captured by the Hidatsa people. They take Sacagawea and some other young Shoshone women, including one of her friends, all the way back to their towns, which are in what's now North Dakota. This is like the Mandan and Hidatsa towns, where Fort Mandan will be built. A Few years later. So that's where she ends up living for a while. Then Lewis and Clark show up in the winter of 1804. Her husband slash her owner, Charbonneau, who's a real creep. He just tries to, like, figure out. He sees that Lewis and Clark are big government. He's like, how can I get some of that government money for myself?
- [48:01]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, this guy's kind of a sleaze in general.
- [48:04]
Randall
Just the worst.
- [48:04]
Craig Furman
Yeah. And so he tries to get hired, and Lewis and Clark maybe are on the fence. And so he's like, I have Shoshone wives. And Lewis and Clark know that they're gonna need to meet the Shoshone and maybe need some of those Shoshone horses. So they agree to hire him and bring one of his wives with him. Now, how do we know all this? We know this because in the journals, Lewis and Clark write down Sacagawea's story. Like, when they make it back to Three Forks, they ask her, like, what did you see here? What do you. Like, what happened to you here? And she tells them this story. And so it's recorded in multiple journals. But one thing that I did that was new because I was trying to think about, like, what did Sacagawea see? What was her perspective, not just Lewis and Clark's, is I tried to be really forensic when I was reading the journals. And so the first time her story shows up, it's not from Lewis and Clark. It's from this regular working class soldier named John Ordway. He writes about her a day before anybody else does. And it's when they first get back to Three Forks. So Clark isn't even in the camp. Charbonneau isn't even.
- [48:57]
Steven Rinella
Oh, so they have not mentioned her till now.
- [48:59]
Craig Furman
They have mentioned her, but they've not mentioned her life story. Okay, so she's often just shows up as, like, the Indian woman. Yep. And so Clark and Charbonneau and some other people are off on a scout party. Lewis is, like, doing his astronomy readings and, like, thinking about Empire. And so Ordway and the other men are doing the actual hard work of, like, unloading the canoes, airing out the gear, putting up the tents. And Sacagawea is doing that hard work, too. And so if you look at it, the only, like, the story comes up with her first. And I think it makes a lot of sense. Again, I use careful language at this part in the book, like, probably and almost certainly because we'll never know for sure, even though we have the journals. About this. But the fact that she told the story to Ordway the day before the captains ever mentioned the story, it makes a lot of sense because they were all working at Three Forks on this physical site, the river where she was captured. They're all setting up the camp together. And also, how did they communicate? Well, through sign language. Previous historians have not given enough credit to sign language in this time period. And we know from other journal entries that John Ordway was fluent in sign language. We know from Clark's entries that Sacagawea was fluent in sign language. So I believe she told.
- [50:01]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, it was kind of like the Esperanto of its time. You know, like people.
- [50:05]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [50:05]
Steven Rinella
Different tribes on the plains that couldn't communicate, that were from different language groups would be able to use this elaborate sign language. And you could convey some complex messages with this.
- [50:14]
Craig Furman
True man. Absolutely. Yeah. And especially when you think about. These are just like human beings who want to be understood by each other. They could really cover almost everything they needed to with sign language. So I can't say this for sure, but I can say this 98% for sure that Sacagawea used sign language to tell her life story to John Ordway the first day, and then the second day when Clark comes back, when Charbonneau's there, when Lewis is there, she tells the story again. And so her story shows up a couple times in the journals, and each time her story is a little different. Like, what year was she captured? So this is even the stuff we know for sure. We don't know for sure because, like, was Sacagawea captured in 1800 or 1799? I don't know. But all this to say that it's important to read the journals carefully because then what you're getting is Sacagawea is telling her story herself. Like, if she is using sign language to do this, this is not her husband, slash, owner, saying, here's. Here's Sacagawea's story. And I think this is so important for the current discussion, because right now, like this, like in the journals, Lewis and Clark say Sacagawea is Shoshone. Most historians have agreed with that. But.
- [51:18]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, and there's this famous narrative that they get to. I mean, you drive by the rock all the time around here, but they get to that. That rock on the big hole. Right. What's the name of that rock?
- [51:32]
Craig Furman
Beaverhead.
- [51:33]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, there's a. There's a prominent, unmistakable feature, for sure. And they get there, and she's like, I know that rock.
- [51:40]
Craig Furman
I'm almost home. Yeah, for sure. And that's. That's, again, how do we know these things about Sacagawea? Because Lewis and Clark wrote it down. We just have to read it from her point of view and understand that's not just an important landmark for Lewis and Clark. That's a way to understand Sacagawea's life and, like, what the landscape meant to her. So the debate right now is, is Sacagawea Shoshone or was she Hidatsa? The Hidatsa people have put together a book, and it's a really valuable book because, remember, there are a few years after she gets captured or enslaved where she's living with the Hidatsa. So I relied on in the book to understand those years because that's like, how did the Hidatsa people see her? What kind of oral traditions have they preserved about her? Now, in my book, I'm always very careful if something's coming from oral tradition to signpost that and say, you know, according to Hidatsa tradition. But still, the book has real value. And it also, the book talks about the debate about what happened to Sacagawea after the expedition. When did she die? I honestly do not know when she died. Like, I don't have an opinion on that question. But where was she born? Who did she identify with? I think the evidence is still overwhelming that it was Shoshone. And the reason that the new kind of angle that I have it in my book is, like, when we ignore this, when we try to say maybe she wasn't Shoshone, we're not just silencing Lewis and Clark, we're silencing her. Because I think the evidence, if you read it carefully, is very clear that she told her story herself through sign language to the other enlisted soldiers. And so that story of being born Shoshone and being captured, like, it's a really dramatic and traumatic story. But I also think it's her story and she was explaining it.
- [53:07]
Steven Rinella
What is the argument that she was Hidatsa? How do they explain her familiarity with Terf so far away?
- [53:13]
Craig Furman
Right. Well, what they say is that she maybe had some family ties and so she took trips back there. But the key part of their argument is that Charbonneau created this cover story. And I defer to no one in my disdain for Charbonneau, but the idea that he invented this cover story, he said she was Shoshone even when she wasn't because that would make him be able to get this job. But that's why the moment about her telling the story herself is so important, because Charbono literally wasn't in the camp the day she told the story the first time. So if he's not even there, how's it gonna be his cover story?
- [53:44]
Steven Rinella
Did the Hanatsa sell her to Charbonneau?
- [53:49]
Craig Furman
They either sold her or traded her. And there's. This is another thing that you're like, how do. How do we know these things? There have been. I read a lot of academic research, and so there's been a really good academic research in the last few years about Native enslavement, about slavery not just being something that Americans did or British did, but Native people did it too. And there are differences, of course, but still, like, the term slavery, I think, is the best way to understand it. And as an aside, Lewis and Clark use this word too. Like, Clark, in an interview after the expedition, called Sacagawea a slave. So again, this is not 2026, leeching into the past. This is just paying attention to the past.
- [54:21]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, I have this. I have this conversation with my kids all the time, man. Because the way, like, I'm not hacking on school because, yes. You know, you get, like, so many hours in a day, you're trying to gloss over a lot of stuff.
- [54:33]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [54:33]
Steven Rinella
But it's funny. American kids today seem to. Small sample set. My kids and their friends.
- [54:40]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [54:41]
Steven Rinella
Seem to carry this idea that slavery was somehow this kind of, like, American invention rather than a ubiquitous global occurrence.
- [54:53]
Craig Furman
Right? Yeah. And that's just not true. The Clats up, who we were talking
- [54:57]
Steven Rinella
about, I find myself all the time. Like home? No, no. Like, this is something that happens everywhere, all the time.
- [55:06]
Craig Furman
That's true.
- [55:06]
Steven Rinella
And then it starts to fade out, right?
- [55:08]
Craig Furman
Yeah, Right. And so that's absolutely true. And so when I, you know, the Clats up, who we've been talking about, they enslaved people. The Shoshone enslaved people when they were at their kind of most powerful. The Hidatsa enslaved people, too. So there are lots of good scholarship and then stories in the journals of talking about how Native people would enslave women. But slavery can also be different in different circumstances. And so where things get really ugly is when somebody like Charbonneau gets involved. Because these academics have written about how Native people would enslave young women from other nations and then sell them to fur traders. And so I went back and looked at documents where fur traders are, like, trying to provide collateral for new. New merchandise to then trade for fur. And like, a fur trader will write, you Know, my collateral is the little girl. I own, like, really fucked up stuff. And. And like, let's Remember Sacagawea is 13, 14, 15. She is owned by this guy. He beats her. We know that from the drama.
- [56:02]
Steven Rinella
She has his child. Right.
- [56:03]
Craig Furman
She's impregnated by him. Yeah, It's a really dark story. And so when I was writing about it, using that kind of scholarship to see her not just as sort of the plucky tour guide who's in all these statues, but also seeing her as somebody who had a really tough life. But then that also, I think, makes her more inspiring that she had to go through all this. She was taken away from her people. She had to deal with all this, but she still found a way to get back to her people. And the other thing that I think makes my account different is I try to look at the choices she made. Cause like, when she's telling Lewis and Clark, hey, there's this important feature. We're almost back to where we need to be. Like, she's doing that. Cause she's excited, I'm sure. But that's also smart. Like, she has seen Lewis and Clark protect native women the entire winter they've been together. And so when Clark steps in and tells Charbonneau, you can't beat her here, let's give Clark some credit for that. But let's give Sacagawea some credit too, because she's smart enough to know if I make myself valuable to them, they'll protect me. So with this book, I really tried to say, like, this is what Lewis and Clark wanted. But Sacagawea wanted things too. Koboe wanted things too. And so trying to kind of move the camera around so we can understand each person as a human being, you can do that because of those million word journals. Like, where does this come from? A lot of it comes from the journals and just paying attention to stuff that other people have glossed over.
- [57:17]
WeatherTech Ad Host
Everyone knows you need vehicle protection in the winter with that snow and ice. But summer is messy in its own unique way. Summer is about sand and sweat, snacks, water, grass, ice cream. And you don't want anything like that slowing you down. WeatherTech is built for all those summer things, giving you the freedom to go all in. Weathertech floor liners, cargo liner and seat protectors. Keep up with your summer adventures without the worry. American made, premium built to last and easy to clean. If you're gonna go all out this summer, you need WeatherTech. Visit weathertech.com today.
- [57:54]
Ad Read Host
Montana Knife Company was founded by one of the most experienced master blade smiths in the world, Josh Smith. He's been making knives for 30 years. He made his first hunting knife when he was 11 years old and gained his master bladesmith accreditation at age 19. I got a whole slew of Montana Knife Company knives. In fact, in a couple minutes, literally in a couple minutes, I will be in the other room using my Montana Knife Company slicer to clean up a handful of ducks.
- [58:23]
Steven Rinella
You'll be able to watch the video
- [58:24]
Ad Read Host
and I can prove it. When you see it, they are the sharpest knives out of the box in the easiest knives to sharpen. I use them all the time in my kitchen because these are some of the sharpest knives you will ever touch. The best part is all of MKC's knives are backed by a multi generational guarantee promise. Meaning you leave these knives to your kids. Your kids are backed by the guarantee. If you ever need your knife sharpened, just send them back and they will sharpen them for free. Talk about customer service. Montana Knife Company. These are working knives for working people. MKC knives sell out within minutes of being released. So head over to Bontana knifecompany.com to see what is available. Now. Service opens doors and at American Military University it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at amuapus.edu Military open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of American Military University.
- [59:50]
Randall
I like when you're describing the scene in Three Forks where she's signing to Ordway and then the next day tells the story to the captains. To me and I saw this in different parts of the book, but it makes the most sense if you just sort of have a gut instinct about social situations and group dynamics that she would be unloading it, unloading the boats with Ordway and kind of tell him something. And then maybe the next day Ordway says to the captains, you should listen to this girl. Like she's actually kind of got an interesting story right? You know, like that sort of stuff happens all the time in like workplaces or whatever sort of group dynamic where there's a bunch of people working together. One way you can elevate yourself the person you're most likely to share something with is someone working side by side you who also has that serves as sort of a middleman to the Group leader.
- [60:48]
Steven Rinella
So it'd be like later today I'd say, hey, did you hear that vultures killed Randall's chickens?
- [60:55]
Randall
Yeah. And then that would get.
- [60:56]
Steven Rinella
You should ask him.
- [60:57]
Randall
Play it up, right? Yeah.
- [60:59]
Craig Furman
Valuable information.
- [61:00]
Randall
But it's just, you know, like there's some like it, you know, when you hear these stories about Sacagawea being this like, very clear eyed, brave sort of tour guide that comes across as somewhat artificial or a projection. But when you understand her as sort of a social creature like all of us, and making these different connections with different members of the expedition and sort of leveraging her, her influence that way, like it all of a sudden you see these people as more three dimensional humans.
- [61:39]
Craig Furman
Yeah. I mean, what was the expedition if not a workplace? Right. Sometimes it's a workplace comedy. Or not a comedy if we disagree about what's funny, but more drama, right? Exactly. Very serious, very somber. But it was a workplace just made up of human beings. And I tried so hard to get that in the book. Like another place of where we know what stuff comes from. I really wanted to show Sacagawea as a mother. And this probably came because I have little kids and like I change diapers. But even more than that, I saw my wife changing diapers and breastfeeding the kids. So I found Shoshone people and just interviewed them and were like, in your culture and especially in this time period, what was the diaper? And so, like, we know this carrier that Sacagawea famously had, like a lot of the statues will have that, that she had the baby strapped on her back in a carrier. But the bottom of the carrier was lined with either fur or some kind of soft vegetable material or something like that. And so each morning she would wake up, she would unlace the carrier, she would change out the lining, put in fresh lining, she would give her son a bath. So she didn't just put cold water on him. She probably warmed the water up by putting it in her mouth and letting her body temperature bring it up to heat. Then she would wash him, she would breastfeed him. And so not just for her, for everybody. I really tried to get those, like, tactile, everyday details and then pay attention to just like how one human being and another human being kind of interactive. That's why this is such a great story. Like, the Rocky Mountains are great, the grizzly bears are great. But mostly because of these journals, we get to see these amazing human beings under the most intense pressure any human being could face. And they do it, they make it. They make it Back. It's just such a great story and it was like the thrill of my career to get to write about it.
- [63:10]
Steven Rinella
On the Making It Back deal, what's your take on. On. Is there any controversy anymore about whether Lewis killed himself?
- [63:21]
Craig Furman
I'm sure that some people believe that he may have been murdered. I don't see it.
- [63:28]
Steven Rinella
You know, it's so funny, I kind of forgot about this. You remember a long time ago, we used to have that little plastic hut. Anyways, one of our buddies that we work with, Spencer, he was telling. He was talking about Lewis killing himself and he described that he killed himself at a bed and breakfast. Oh, yeah?
- [63:45]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [63:53]
Ad Read Host
What's it called?
- [63:53]
Steven Rinella
Butcher station. Yeah.
- [63:55]
Craig Furman
Grinders.
- [63:56]
Steven Rinella
Grinder station. Yeah, a bed and breakfast.
- [63:59]
Randall
It was like a melancholy Victorian.
- [64:01]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [64:02]
Randall
They brought us for everybody.
- [64:03]
Craig Furman
Yeah. Loose, like no scones for me. I gotta kill myself. Yeah, no, yeah.
- [64:08]
Steven Rinella
So, yeah, so get into that because you talk about. He's like a sad dude, you know.
- [64:12]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [64:12]
Ad Read Host
And then has. And then has behaves weird when he
- [64:15]
Steven Rinella
gets home and he kind of can't really.
- [64:17]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [64:17]
Steven Rinella
Can't really settle in on what his next gig is going to be and.
- [64:21]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [64:21]
Steven Rinella
Probably in some way was haunted by. It's a hard thing to come home from.
- [64:25]
Craig Furman
Right. Well, and this is. This is where I found something new that I think is really important. When I wrote about Louis, I tried really hard not to be like, he has bipolar disorder or he has ptsd because, like, those were not ideas back then.
- [64:37]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [64:37]
Craig Furman
I'm not saying the neurochemical processes didn't exist, but I don't think it's helpful to understand somebody in the past with ideas that were not necessarily available in the. The past. So, like, Jefferson and Lewis lived together for years. And Jefferson was like, he suffers with addiction and he has Jefferson's quote with sensible depressions of mind. So to me I was like, that's enough.
- [64:55]
Steven Rinella
Like, what kind of addiction?
- [64:57]
Craig Furman
Mostly drinking, but also opiums because he had malaria.
- [65:01]
Steven Rinella
And so where do you pick up malaria?
- [65:04]
Craig Furman
Who knows? Where wouldn't you pick up malaria in 1804? Right. Like, it was. It was a real problem back then. So it could have been any number might have been on the expedition, but it's probably.
- [65:12]
Steven Rinella
Did it go that far north?
- [65:14]
Craig Furman
It was, it was. It was a huge problem, especially in the army because they would often like, build their forts in pretty swampy, damp areas. So, like, if you go back and read military documents for this time period, like malaria and the various.
- [65:25]
Steven Rinella
I know, like down, like in the. In. Well, it doesn't matter.
- [65:27]
Craig Furman
Yeah, but I mean, you could, you could definitely get malaria along the Ohio River. Like John Ordway's unit had a huge malaria problem on the Ohio river at this time period. But anyway, like, I just was like, you know, depression and struggles with addiction, like, that's enough. Like, we don't, we don't need any modern categories to understand it. So I, when I was reading the journals again, reading the journals closely, Lewis was very self aware. He would write about, you know, like, I'm so stressed out about the future or I can't stop thinking about something bad that happened to me in the past. But then it's important to say, like, he tried to stand up to those things. Then he would remind himself, I don't want to, like, you know, it's going to be okay or we're going to keep working or the only thing we can do is go forward. So he was very self aware about this kind of stuff. But there's no question that, that on the way back, it like the expedition just wore him down. He ends up getting shot in a hunting accident, which we could, we could talk about.
- [66:17]
Steven Rinella
I didn't know that. Tell me that story.
- [66:18]
Craig Furman
Okay. Well, yeah, okay. So they're on their way back and Lewis is still trying to make Jefferson happy. So he's still trying to do astronomy readings and get all the data that Jefferson, like wants them to do. And so they come to this stop and they stop like 20 minutes too late. Like, to do astronomy readings in this time period, you need the sun at a certain height and things like that. So they get there like 20 minutes too late, which sucks. So they're just gonna have to kill time until the sun is at the right position to do the readings. So they always need more food, they always need more animal skin. So Lewis and this other guy named Pierre Cruzat go out to hunt for elk. And it's important to know two things.
- [66:51]
Steven Rinella
And where are they at right now?
- [66:52]
Craig Furman
They're on the way back in the Dakotas. Right? In the Dakotas, Yeah, on the Missouri. And so, yeah, so the two things to know are that a Cruzat only has one eye, so he can't see the best. And. And second, they're all dressed in animal skins at this point because their uniforms and their fatigue clothes have all rotted through because they're in the third year of this expedition. So Louis is dressed in elk skin. They're hunting in some willow trees where it's very thick and hard to see.
- [67:17]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, I do know this.
- [67:18]
Craig Furman
And so from about 100ft away, Cruzat shoots him and shoots Louis right in the ass. And so the bullet goes through exits. It's just like. It doesn't hit any bone or nerve or anything like that, but it's still a really bad wound. And so on the way back, Lewis has to lay in the bottom of the boat even when it's raining. There's nothing they can do about him. But he just lays on his stomach in the bottom of the boat for the way back. And they try to. Like, Clark takes care of him while he's trying to attend to Lewis. Lewis passes out sometimes. And so they have little. Like, they try to keep the wounds open so they can drain. But one thing I pointed out in my book is that just a couple months before this, Lewis had castrated all their horses. And his favorite horse had died. It had gotten. The castration, wounds had gotten infected. So, like, Lewis had to clean the maggots out and try to keep it alive, but eventually had to put the horse down. And I think that really bothered Lewis because he just clearly loved animals. Like, he brought a dog with him, semen and everything. Lewis writes about animals. You can just see how much he connects with animals. But, you know, I feel like Lewis, he's not just shot and just stuck in the bottom of the boat. You know, they didn't have germ theory. He wasn't thinking, you know, in the way we would. But he still knew that, like, if you have a big wound, bad things can happen. You get a fever. And he writes in the journal, like, I have a small fever. So there's just a ton of pressure on him on the way back from this hunting accident. And then he does heal. He gets better. He makes it to Washington, D.C. and he's a celebrity, like, everywhere he goes. I found these journals at the Library of Congress where he goes to a play, and people come out and just ask him question after question. Like, nobody cares about the play intermission. Let's just fire a bunch. Like, what does a buffalo taste like? Are the native people cannibals? Like, they just keep firing question after question at him. Cause he's, like, a national hero.
- [68:56]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [68:57]
Craig Furman
And so one of the new things I found was a letter from John Quincy Adams that nobody had seen before. And this is in this Washington, D.C. period when Lewis is finally back. And so John Quincy Adams was a senator at this point. Like, he had had dinner at the White House with Lewis before. Like, they knew each other a little bit. And Adams says that he sat down to have dinner with Lewis again after the expedition. And Adams is writing to his wife, and Adam says, I didn't even recognize this guy. Like, I knew who I was supposed to meet for dinner, and I could not recognize him. And then Adams says, he looks like he's aged 15 years. And so, you know, previous accounts have sort of theorized, like, what did the expedition do to Lewis? But, like, thanks to John Quincy Adams, we know what the expedition did to Lewis. Like, that letter, I think, is the linchpin for my entire interpretation of him and why I believe the suicide is just the overwhelming likelihood. Because, you know, if somebody. If you can't even recognize somebody, if they look 15 years older. And again, in terms of human nature, it just makes sense to go through all this stuff to come back then and then to, like, in a sense, the expedition wore him down, but it also gave him something to live for, and he doesn't have that anymore. Yeah, as a human being, it makes a lot of sense. And when you compare with that new letter from John Quincy Adams about, like, the physical cost, I don't think there's any question that it just kind of broke Louis down.
- [70:05]
Steven Rinella
Okay, so where. So tell about where he was when this. When this happened.
- [70:09]
Craig Furman
So this is on the Natchez Trace. Kind of. He was on the way. He, He. Jefferson had made him the governor of the Louisiana Territory. And I'm not sure why Jefferson did that, because Lewis was supposed to write a book. And like, in this time period, exploration was the first step. The book was the second step. Like, the whole point was to share this information. And the whole world was waiting to read this book. Like. Like there are, you know, when it finally did come out, when somebody else finished it after Louis died. There are reviews in England, There are reviews in Germany. Like, this was. This was global news. It's like the way we all talked about Artemis, too. Like, that's how people talked about Lewis and Clark in this time period. And so Lewis has his hands full with this book that he has to write, but Jefferson sends him to be the governor of the Louisiana Territory. I think he kind of. Jefferson wanted to use Lewis's celebrity, celebrity and his reputation to sort of try to control this. This pretty crazy, chaotic territory at this point after Louisiana Purchase. And so Louis is just overwhelmed. He starts drinking more. We know from people who knew him, who talked about how much he was drinking in this time period.
- [71:07]
Steven Rinella
Wonder what he drank.
- [71:09]
Craig Furman
I mean, they drank all kinds of stuff back then. Most of what they drank on the expedition was like, cheap corn whiskey. Because that you just got your soldiers drunk as cheaply as possible. So that was mostly what they had. But Jefferson is no longer president at this point, Madison is. And Lewis sends some receipts back to get reimbursed for this big mission up the Missouri river, which is related to Lewis and Clark's expedition, actually. And the people in Washington, D.C. are like, we're not covering this. You have asked for more money than you are entitled to in your government position. And so Louis freaks out because he has such a strong sense of honor. He's such a patriotic guy. In his letters about the expedition, he's always like, this is honorable for me, but it's also honorable for my country. Like, he loved America so much. And so now to have Americans being like, you're trying to, like, defraud your government. He freaked out. I mean, he wasn't in a good place anyway, but he freaked out. So he starts heading from St. Louis back to Washington and on the Natchez Trace, and in what is now Tennessee, he killed himself. And they're like. The detail that always sticks out for me about this is like, he's riding, and he's got a person who's riding with him. He's got his dog, Semen, with him. And Lewis just starts talking to Clark, like, Clark's not even there. Like, Clark had just met with Lewis before he left. And Clark even writes in a letter, like, I'm really worried about Lewis, like, something's not right. But now they're hundreds of miles apart. And, like, Lewis is just saying things like, I always knew you'd come for me, Clark. I always knew you'd save me when I needed it.
- [72:35]
Steven Rinella
Oh, really?
- [72:35]
Craig Furman
Yeah. And this is. This is the way we know. This is because the person who was riding with Lewis later told this to Clark.
- [72:41]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [72:42]
Craig Furman
And I just. I find that so heartbreaking. Like, everything Lewis gave for his country, for his men, everything he tried to do, and now he's just crumbling. And he's, like, imagining he can hear the horse that Clark is riding on coming up, even though there's nobody else around. He was clearly somebody who was just falling apart. And, I mean, I think it makes sense, but that doesn't make it any less sad.
- [73:03]
Steven Rinella
Well, what clouds the suicide narrative? So he checks. He gets a booking at the bed and breakfast.
- [73:08]
Craig Furman
Right, right, right. They're like scones at 11.
- [73:10]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, he's up at his. He's up in his room, and witnesses hear two gunshots.
- [73:16]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [73:17]
Steven Rinella
So that has always brought up speculation that it was some kind of highway Gang or the, the, the. The Grinders, the, The bed and breakfast owners, the, the. The people that ran Grindr Station.
- [73:29]
Craig Furman
He left them a bad Yelp review and they're like this can't stand.
- [73:31]
Steven Rinella
They offed him or robbed him. You know, because it is too. I think that without the two gunshot, it probably wouldn't be a thing people debate about. Right.
- [73:40]
Craig Furman
Well, I mean, in that time period, you carried more than one gun with you, and the accounts were that.
- [73:45]
Steven Rinella
I'm not in any way arguing that you didn't, but I'm just trying to go like, why was it a thing for a long. You know, why was it a story for a long time that it was a sort of an asterisk.
- [73:55]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [73:55]
Steven Rinella
Next to that, he'd killed himself.
- [73:57]
Craig Furman
I think Lewis's family was very invested in this theory.
- [74:00]
Steven Rinella
Is that right?
- [74:01]
Craig Furman
Yeah. Because in this time period, suicide. We didn't understand suicide the way we understand suicide today. So today we would talk about suicide as like somebody with a. With a disease who is making a choice that feels rational to them, even if it's heartbreaking to everybody else. But obviously at that, in that time period, it was. It was a huge stain on your reputation.
- [74:18]
Steven Rinella
Yeah. You. Like you're condemned to hell.
- [74:20]
Craig Furman
Right, Exactly. So I think that that's the. Like, nobody wanted to believe that this national hero would do this to himself.
- [74:26]
Steven Rinella
So they were, they were. They were people that like to try to save his reputation.
- [74:31]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [74:32]
Steven Rinella
Or make their own guilt less or whatever.
- [74:37]
Craig Furman
Yeah. I don't know what their motives were.
- [74:39]
Steven Rinella
Sort of like putting out this idea. Well, you never know. Or this could be possible because he had. Because in his suicide attempt, he had to shoot himself two times.
- [74:47]
Craig Furman
Right. And he also carved his wrists up too, to bleed out. Like he definitely. There's a quote from one of the people who ran the Bed and Breakfast where she says that he said, why is it so hard for me to die? And I mean, that speaks to his toughness. There is nobody who could endure more than him even. I'm not just talking about. Compared to us today. I'm talking about on the expedition. Nobody was tougher than Louis. He was just an unbelievably. He just had perseverance, he had grit. So even at the end, you could see that. But I think there's no question that his family and the people around him were trying to protect his reputation. It's worth saying Clark and Jefferson never questioned it. They thought he killed himself. They know him better than anybody else. But then also, I think there's a Lot of people who like to look for conspiracy theories in history. That's never been my relationship to history, but I, you know, I understand that that can be a fun way to think about history, but I just don't think, you know, even if you compare this to some of the other great conspiracy theories or possible ones in history, the evidence just isn't there. The people who want to talk about the murder, they try to undermine the evidence that he killed himself, but they never have any affirmative evidence. They're never like, well, why would somebody kill him? Like, bad Yelp reviews, about the best they can come up with. They. They try to connect it to James Wilkinson and these political conspiracies, and it's just. Just doesn't make any sense. Like, sometimes the simplest explanation is the best one.
- [76:07]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, what's that? There's a name for that.
- [76:10]
Craig Furman
Occam's Razor.
- [76:12]
Steven Rinella
Occam's Razor. I need to get that tattooed on me so I don't forget that so often. Occam's Razor. Do you. How much time do you spend on Coulter? John Colter, he's kind of my favorite dude from the whole thing.
- [76:26]
Craig Furman
Unfortunately, there's not a ton of Coulter in there because I did the rotating points of view, so I had Ordway's point of view. So I really tried to talk about Ordway's life, but Colter's amazing, and there are whole books written about him. I don't begrudge your affection for Colter at all. He was kind of a little rascally, but once he kind of got himself worked out, he was one of their most important soldiers.
- [76:44]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, he liked to pull a cork. He got in a little trouble.
- [76:47]
Craig Furman
Yeah. And this is one of the new things I found about him. One of the times he shows up in the book is when they're in St. Louis, shout out to my St. Louis people who love Lewis and Clark's relationship to St. Louis, but when they. When they have their first winter quarters there, they're like, it's a boot camp, basically, because, like, they have half regular soldiers, people like John Ordway, and then they have half people who are just civilians from Kentucky who are really good shots or really good hunters or things like that. And so they got to make these two groups cohere, but they've also got to teach the non soldiers how to be soldiers. And so Colter is kind of one of the troublemakers in this period. And at one point, Lewis and Clark head to St. Louis to, like, have a nice dinner and do diplomatic stuff. And Ordway, they leave Ordway in charge and the men rebel. And like, Colter is like, we don't know exactly what happened, but the most likely thing is that Ordway was like, it's your turn to stand guard. Something like that. Like some kind of, like, go do your soldier task. And so Coulter and Shields and a couple other people from Kentucky were like, we're gonna kill you. We don't give a fuck what you say. And, you know, people from Kentucky in this time period were ordinary people. And so Ordway showed remarkable self control. Like, you know, I think if somebody had done this to Louis, Lewis probably would have been like, let's have a duel. Like, you just challenged my honor. I'll kill you. But Ordway was able to maintain calm. And so he waited till Lewis and Clark came back. And Lewis and Clark put in some. Some new disciplinary measures.
- [78:05]
Steven Rinella
And he had a toll down Coulter.
- [78:07]
Craig Furman
I mean, if you want to call it that, you can. But here's what's cool, because I don't think Coulter would have said it that way because Lewis and Clark ultimately asked the men, like, who do you want to be your sergeants? This is very unusual in the military at this time. But it wasn't just the vote on the Pacific coast that we already talked about. Lewis and Clark again and again let their men have input. And I think that's just like the
- [78:24]
Steven Rinella
leadership they basically take a vote about. In the end, they take a vote
- [78:28]
Craig Furman
about Colter State and if he can go on. Yeah, for sure. And so one of the real quick,
- [78:32]
Steven Rinella
just remind people who this guy is.
- [78:33]
Craig Furman
Yeah, go for it.
- [78:34]
Steven Rinella
Okay, so Colter's. When I said he's my favorite guy, he's an interesting figure. He was. He was hired onto the expedition. He was. He was a woodsman, hired onto the expedition and had a role as sort of a scout and hunter. What's cool about him is when the expedition is coming to a close and they're descending the Missouri, they run into some trader trappers who are going upriver, Right. And they're going up river to engage in the. The beaver trapping and trading enterprise up there. And rather than going home, Coulter wants to go with them and ask permission and does the thing that I think would be great for a parenting technique. Lewis and Clark say to the guys, the rest of the guys, they say, we will let him go. We will cut Colter loose and let him go up to trap if everyone here promises not to ask the same thing, Right?
- [79:37]
Craig Furman
Yep.
- [79:38]
Steven Rinella
And everybody's like, I won't ask. Right. And then they cut him loose. Yep. And he goes on to have some crazy adventures.
- [79:44]
Craig Furman
No doubt about it. Yeah. His life after the expedition is wild.
- [79:47]
Steven Rinella
But.
- [79:47]
Craig Furman
But at the beginning of the expedition before, he's kind of proven himself as this beloved soldier because he was enlisted too. He was a soldier. Not just like, oh, he was hired
- [79:55]
Steven Rinella
on as a. I thought he was. I thought he was hired on as
- [79:57]
Craig Furman
a. I mean, he was, but they didn't hire him on and were like, you can still be a frontiersman. Like, they, they ran military. Like, they had to practice their drills every night. Like, John Ordway was like, put on your uniform. We're going to go learn how to counter march and march and all this stuff.
- [80:08]
Steven Rinella
So all those guys had to, like, had to conform to military standards. I see.
- [80:14]
Craig Furman
Yeah. It was a military mission.
- [80:15]
Steven Rinella
Got it.
- [80:16]
Craig Furman
And so. But that, like, people like Colter hated that at first. So when Lewis and Clark are in St. Louis, Ordway's in charge. Like, Lewis and Clark are famous enough and good enough leaders that Coulter's not gonna do this to them. But when it's just Ordway and Ordway's like, it's time to go do watch. Colter's like, no. And so they end up yelling at each other. Coulter's literally loading his rifle, like, next to Ordway. Like, you can hear the ramrod scraping on the barrel. And so Ordway defuses the situation. Tattletales slash follows military protocol. But here's the cool thing. They have, like, Lewis and Clark a couple weeks after this. Only a couple weeks after they let them in. Vote. Who do you want to be your sergeant? And guess who Coulter picks? He picks John Ordway.
- [80:54]
Steven Rinella
He respected him.
- [80:55]
Craig Furman
Yes, exactly. And so to go from saying, I'm going to kill you to saying, I want my life to be in your hands, that is such an amazing detail. I think it tells you something about Coulter. I think it tells you something about Ordway. I think it tells you something about Lewis, Clark. Nobody's ever pieced that together about the voting stuff, but that's because I was so interested in the human dynamics that we were talking about. Like, I figured out that they voted on it. And I figured out, wow, Coulter wanted Ordway. And I think that's one of the most human details in the whole book.
- [81:22]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. That's the thing. I didn't know.
- [81:26]
Randall
One of the things you point out in the book, that was kind of an Interesting takeaway for me was when we talk about Lewis and Clark, when we talk about this expedition, we talk about it as this multifaceted, you know, they're establishing diplomatic relations, they're taking stock of resources, they're maybe staking claims to territory and it's this big hybrid of sort of diplomacy, economic speculation, scientific understanding or learning. And you make the point that Jefferson, when he thinks of Native people wandering the west, he thinks of them as just being curious and just going from place to place. But you make the point that what Lewis and Clark are doing is a very familiar concept to all of the native people that they encounter along the way. Because when they are moving across the landscape they're doing the same thing. They're interested in land, they're interested in what's there and they're interested in who they can meet and what those people can give them. And so it's, it, I don't know, it's not like a mind blowing concept but it drew an interesting connection for me that I don't think I'd appreciate yet.
- [82:49]
Craig Furman
It was like you were saying with slavery, like human beings have always practiced some form of slavery until today. Well, human beings have always explored too. Like these are kind of universal ideas that sort of of constitute what it means to be a human. And one of my favorite point of view chapters in the book is this guy named Bihito who was, he was a leader for the Arikara in what is now South Dakota and Jefferson. Like the most big government thing of Lewis and Clark is that Jefferson said if you meet important leaders, send them to meet me in Washington D.C. well taxpayers will fund it but like I want to negotiate and meet with them in the White House and I want
- [83:20]
Randall
to show them our power which is extraordinarily expensive.
- [83:23]
Craig Furman
Yeah, that's a lot of the price tag came from this. Cuz dozens of Native people like this does not show up in the normal stories about Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark are heading west. Dozens of native leaders authorized by Lewis and Clark are heading east. So instead of just like telling everybody's story, I zoomed in on this one guy, Biahito. So he goes from what's now South Dakota all the way down the Missouri river to St. Louis, then makes it all the way to Washington D.C. how do we know this? Because there are newspaper accounts recording this at all the time. Like he would show up in towns and the towns would be like this is a big deal, let's write about this. And then once he makes it to Washington D.C. people in Washington D.C. are writing about him in their journals. But the coolest thing, and this was only discovered a couple years ago, I didn't find this. Another scholar found this. But in France, they found a map that Biahito had made of the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains. And on that map he records not just how many nations there were there, but also where he met with Lewis and Clark. And so Biahito, we know from Jefferson's papers that he met with Jefferson at least twice in the White House. And so he probably brought this map with it and showed it to Jefferson. And so it was, I think that would have been such a cool meeting to sit in because Jefferson's this older guy who's like interested in everything. But Bihito was an older guy who was interested in everything too. And so in my book, you know, the front end papers are Clark's famous map of the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains. But the back end papers are Biahito's map too. Because I really think to get the full story, you don't just need Clark's point of view, you need Biahito's too.
- [84:46]
WeatherTech Ad Host
Everyone knows you need vehicle protection in the winter with that snow and ice. But summer is messy in its own unique way. Summer is about sand and sweat, snacks, water, grass, ice cream. And you don't want anything like that slowing you down. Weathertech is built for all those summer things, giving you the freedom to go all in. Weathertech floor liners, cargo liner and seat protectors. Keep up with your summer adventures without the worry. American made, premium built to last and easy to clean. If you're gonna go all out this summer, you need WeatherTech. Visit weathertech.com today.
- [85:24]
Ad Read Host
Montana Knife Company was founded by one of the most experienced master blade smiths in the world, Josh Smith. He's been making knives for 30 years. He made his first hunting knife when he was 11 years old and gained his Master Bladesmith accreditation at age 19. I got a whole slew of Montana Knife Company knives. In fact, in a couple minutes, literally in a couple minutes, I will be in the other room using my Montana Knife Company slicer to clean up a handful of ducks.
- [85:52]
Steven Rinella
You'll be able to watch the video
- [85:54]
Ad Read Host
and I can prove it. When you see it, they are the sharpest knives out of the box in the easiest knives to sharpen. I use them all the time in my kitchen because these are some of the sharpest knives you will ever touch. The best part is all of MKC's knives are backed by a multi generational guarantee Promise, meaning you leave these knives to your kids. Your kids are backed by the guarantee if you ever need your knife sharpened, just send them back and they will sharpen them for free. Talk about customer service. Montana Knife Company. These are working knives for working people. MKC knives sell out within minutes of being released. So head over to bontanaknifecompany.com to see what is available. Now service opens doors and at American Military University, it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at amu.apus.edu Military open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of American Military University.
- [87:20]
Steven Rinella
I was trying to tell my kids about this observation that I was reading about there a few months ago. Now. This astrophysicist was, you know, they're looking at some. I think it's kind of going on currently. They're looking at some thing out in outer space, whatever. And it's coloration defies their understanding a little bit. And so there's this. This astrophysicist was ranking the likelihood that it was a. Basically a. I don't want to say man made, because that would mean human, but a not natural object. Okay. And he was giving some, you know, whatever, 5% chance it's a not natural object. And he was talking about why we need to take more seriously the idea. I don't take it seriously at all, just personally. But why he feels, why would you take more seriously the idea that some extraterrestrial life form would show up here and we should be talking about this more.
- [88:32]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [88:33]
Steven Rinella
An observation this guy has is really interesting. He says if it happens, they are not going to be interested in how we have divided up the Earth. Which among many other things is like, of course they won't. They show up. Aliens come down and you're like, oh, no, no, no, you need to talk to the. You'll need to talk to the governor of Idaho about that. So like it's just like such a funny concept. Yeah. But it would be like the degree to which when you think of Jefferson, whoever, any peoples, okay. If you think of the second Americans, the second Amer, the second band of Americans to come down from the Bering Strait, Right. Like, how interested were they in how the first Americans had conceptualized and divided up the territory?
- [89:34]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [89:35]
Steven Rinella
What's interesting about Jefferson is like, ultimately the Americans don't care Ultimately, they kind. They don't care, but they're, They're. They're interested in it. Maybe they're interested in it because they need to know that to manipulate other things. But they're like, they're at least initially, in some cases interested about how it was divided up.
- [89:57]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [89:58]
Steven Rinella
Though ultimately that would all be disregarded.
- [90:01]
Craig Furman
Right. Well, I mean, Jefferson thought he was doing the right thing. Jefferson was trying to act in a moral and honorable way. And they're like.
- [90:09]
Steven Rinella
But it would dissolve.
- [90:10]
Craig Furman
Well, of course it would dissolve.
- [90:12]
Steven Rinella
Those, like. I mean, of course those boundaries.
- [90:15]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [90:16]
Steven Rinella
Did not endure.
- [90:17]
Craig Furman
No, absolutely not. No, there's no question about that. But I'm just saying, like, if we're looking at it from how Jefferson saw the world in 1803, and there was like a big international context too. Cause America's still pretty new on the scene. And so they want to maintain their reputation with the French and with the British. And so there's this, like, international rule book, you know, from these philosophers about, like, you have to respect who owns it. Like, let's use the Louisiana Purchase as an example. What do you always hear in school? We're really bagging on school teachers today. I'm sorry about that. Hey, man.
- [90:45]
Steven Rinella
No, no, no, no, I'm not bagging on. No.
- [90:47]
Craig Furman
Okay, well, I guess I am. There's a lot to cover, right?
- [90:49]
Steven Rinella
There's a lot of COVID down.
- [90:51]
Craig Furman
One thing that they might want to tweak slightly in coming years is the Louisiana Purchase. Because, like, what do you hear in school? You hear that? It's like the best real estate deal ever. Right. It doubled the size of America.
- [91:01]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [91:01]
Craig Furman
None of that's true.
- [91:02]
Steven Rinella
Nickel and acre.
- [91:03]
Craig Furman
None of that's true. Because the Louisiana Purchase was not about land. It was about this. This, like, extra layer of rights called preemption rights. So what France owned was not the land. France owned the right to buy the land from native people. And so that's what they sold to the Americans. But like, Jefferson would never say, we now own all this. He would say, we will one day own this. And so a historian has gone back and calculated all the treaties that turned like that before and after map we see in school into actually American land. And most of those treaties were negotiated by William Clark, by the way, later in his life. But America spent another $400 million. So the Louisiana purchase cost $15 million. But that's just this, like, this theoretical. Right. There was another, like decades of negotiation, also wars also, you know, very poor treatment of native people. It's a. It's a messy and complicated story. But, like, nobody in 1804 would be, like, we doubled the size of the country because they didn't. And so that's why, like, you really got to try to understand what Jefferson thought or what Lewis thought instead of what Andrew Jackson thought or something like that.
- [92:05]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, no, I understand. And there's probably. You mentioned earlier there were far more. At that time, there were far more Native people on the landscape.
- [92:14]
Craig Furman
Yes.
- [92:15]
Steven Rinella
And it would have, it would appear in that time to be that. That would be the case for a long time.
- [92:19]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [92:19]
Steven Rinella
So it could have been whether, however you felt about Native claim to land, even if you ultimately intellectually didn't accept it.
- [92:28]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [92:28]
Steven Rinella
You would have needed to accept the on the ground reality.
- [92:31]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [92:32]
Steven Rinella
That like it. You know, maybe you don't like it. Maybe that hasn't been how your government was operating.
- [92:38]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [92:38]
Steven Rinella
On the other half of the country.
- [92:39]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [92:40]
Steven Rinella
But at the time, you're acknowledging that these things are going to be negotiated and purchased. But it's coming from, you know, the same, like, if you imagine government as a continuity.
- [92:49]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [92:49]
Steven Rinella
It's coming from the same organization. Yeah. Uncle Sam.
- [92:54]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [92:55]
Steven Rinella
Who was also in the practice of buying land from tribes that didn't own it and also really struggling to understand, like, who. Who exactly do I talk to? Who's the guy that makes the deals? Two people that don't have a guy that makes those deals.
- [93:15]
Craig Furman
And one of Lewis and Clark's jobs was finding the guy. Like, again and again, if this isn't in the journals, these are in, like, some boring reports that they put together later on. But I went back and read those reports and you can see that again and again, Clark is asking the Lakota, like, okay, like, how much land do you claim? Where do your boundaries stop? And so, like, that shows you that Lewis and Clark and Jefferson were imagining that continuity that you're talking about. It was on their minds.
- [93:40]
Randall
Can you talk about what the process was like for the oral history that you did for this? Because I think that was something also that I. You talk about oral history with and you visited contemporary tribal groups and talked to them about their relationship to this story. And that's not something that I, when going through the Rolodex of Lewis and Clark, stuff I've encountered that you often get included.
- [94:11]
Craig Furman
Well, I always started with the journals because, like, I'm a historian, so, like, what I know to do is go to the written text. So, like, that's what I would start with. But then I would also do these interviews. I Would read lots of academic scholarship, like, and these different points of view. I almost felt like I wrote, like, 10 biographies because I'm trying to understand the world the way each person did. So that's why it took five years. But once I had, like, the academic scholarship and the journals themselves, I would often interview Native people and, sorry, we're headed back to the Pacific Northwest. But the Clats up were a really good example. I zoomed with some people from what's now called the Chinook Indian Nation because they have kind of subsumed the Clats up and some other people. And one of the people I talked to was a direct descendant of Kobaweis. And so when I talked to them, they were interviewing me as much as I was interviewing them, because this one guy named Tony, who was sort of the head of the Chinook Indian Nation, he said something to me that I thought about every day I worked on the book, where he was like, what we have left is our history and our stories, and we have shared that with people, and that's been exploited, too. And so it was not like they were like, Lewis and Clark, sweet, let's talk about it. They had to interview me first, and they wanted to understand that I was willing to do the work and listen to them and. And sort of have that kind of conversation. But they helped me so many ways. Like, there would be specific details, and again, in the book, I would say, you know, according to Clats of tradition. But they would also point me in different directions. Like, there's this famous anthropologist named Frank Boas, and he recorded these stories way back in the 19th century of kind of like, the tales, the literature of the Chinook and the Klatsa people. And they were like, if you want to understand Koboe and how he saw the world, read those stories. Don't read them for the plot, read them for the values. And, I mean, we do the same thing, like, you know, George Washington and the cherry tree. There's a lot of American values in that story, too. So they would help me understand things, and they would. They would direct me to sources, and from that interview, even, like, they would give me lines. But because I was writing from Koboe's point of view, I could put right. Right into the interview. Like, I asked them about the elk and then the overhunting we were talking about. And I was like, well, you know, the Clatsop asked Lewis and Clark to be there. Like, was that like, you know, was that an issue or something like that? That there's a famous Moment where Lewis and Clark, not them, but some of the men, kill some elk and go home. And they're like, we'll come back and get it tomorrow. And they go back tomorrow. And the Clatsop have taken some of the elk and some of the skins. And so that creates a lot of friction there. But, you know, I asked them about that, and I'm like, you know, were the Clatsop stealing from Lewis and Clark there? And the Clatsop people that I was zooming with were like. Like, it's not stealing if it's yours in the first place. And so I put that line in the book, not because I personally endorse that line or that interpretation, but because that chapter is written from Koboy's point of view. And so I'm trying, like, how did he see the world? How did Lewis see the world and Clark see the world? And so on. So what those interviews with the oral history did, they gave me some details that I tried to very clearly show where those details came from, but they also helped me just kind of take on perspectives and be able to understand the values. And the other thing is, academics have done a lot of research to vet oral sources. Like, in the Pacific Northwest, there have been oral traditions for a long time about these giant tsunamis that came hundreds of years ago before any white traders showed up. Those have been recorded for more than a century, but it's only, like, in the last 30, 40 years that geologists have been able to prove there were giant tsunamis in this region that came in this time period and did this much damage. So the geologists have sort of proven that the oral traditions, at least in broad strokes, are correct. So I tried to have an open mind to all these sources. And like we were talking about with wolf calf in the Blackfoot interview, I would take the oral sources, I would take the journals, I would take the scholarship. I would take my own understanding of human beings, kind of throw it in a blender, and then offer the best interpretation I could.
- [97:51]
Steven Rinella
Yeah, they get hard. Oral stories get hard. There's. There's a. There's an expiration here. We're already talking about. We're already talking about 220 years. You know, I can't tell you. I can't tell you anything about my great grandparents.
- [98:09]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [98:11]
Steven Rinella
Right. Like, it's. I. I accept and agree with the cultural. It's a. There's a cultural gesture that you have to acknowledge, is there. There's a. It's. It's. It's. In some ways, in some Cases in some ways is performative, but there's just like, there's a limit. Yeah, tell me about. Okay, give me the oral tradition of your family 225 years ago. You cannot do it.
- [98:46]
Craig Furman
But here's what I can do. I can tell you what my great grandparents values were. They were hard working people.
- [98:51]
Steven Rinella
Live 225 years ago, huh?
- [98:52]
Craig Furman
No, but you can tell family values and how those get passed on. So the first thing I would say is when we're talking about family stuff, I'm not saying that I said what did Kobo eat for breakfast on the day Lewis and Clark showed up? But you can still learn those values, which are not my values. And the other thing.
- [99:05]
Steven Rinella
But check me out though, okay, what was your great. I have to do the math. How many greats ago is 225 years? I mean, tell me about the values of your great great great great grandfather. What were his values?
- [99:24]
Craig Furman
This is an impossible question for me to answer because I've read history about this time period too. So anything I would tell you would be shaped by my understanding of what people living in Indiana. But there's one other thing I would
- [99:32]
Steven Rinella
say I'm not, I'm not down. I'm not like. I don't think historians shouldn't do it.
- [99:37]
Craig Furman
Yeah, I know.
- [99:38]
Steven Rinella
I just, when I hear it, I understand. When I hear it, I often feel. And you can contradict me because you're in the situation when I hear historians doing it about stuff and I don't know the date, I don't know, I don't know the time, the, the life, the lifespan. Okay. Oral tradition about something 500 years ago. About 500 years ago. Very, very skeptical.
- [100:04]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [100:05]
Steven Rinella
Oral tradition about something 150 years ago. About. I'm like, okay, somewhere between those, I start to get a little bit like I, I feel that you're. That the traditions can be more informed by contemporary conflict, contemporary understandings, contemporary issues, contemporary social concerns.
- [100:29]
Craig Furman
Yes.
- [100:29]
Steven Rinella
Can outweigh the parts of it that are, are coming from. My great great great great grandfather told my great great great great grandfather this, and he passed it to my great great great great grandfather who passed it to my great great grand. Do you know what I'm saying?
- [100:46]
Craig Furman
I do.
- [100:46]
Steven Rinella
It becomes that. It becomes more of a commentary about the present. Not saying you shouldn't do it. I hear it and I always, I hear it and I have a. There's a feeling that washes over me.
- [101:00]
Craig Furman
I understand, you know, that feeling of skepticism. And we should be skeptical like historians can't do Their job, unless they're skeptical. So I totally get where you're coming from, though. I don't even disagree with you. The only things I would say is that first of all, a lot of the traditions didn't come from 150 years ago. They came from 50 years after. So like there, there were native people who met Lewis and Clark, who then talked to a white person and the white person wrote it down.
- [101:20]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [101:20]
Craig Furman
So a lot of the stuff I'm drawing on is not the historical game of telephone you're talking about.
- [101:24]
Steven Rinella
Sure.
- [101:24]
Craig Furman
The other thing is that native cultures, because they were often primarily oral, they sort of select people with good memories who are good storytellers, you know, and so they're like, you know, my great, great, great grandfather probably wrote it in a journal and didn't remember it as well. Whereas native people, you know, one historian, when he got older would sort of tr. Native historian. So there is more of a tradition there that I think helps. Helps you better be able to access those things. But really for me, there are like,
- [101:52]
Steven Rinella
I don't want to. I don't want to beat sin to
- [101:53]
Craig Furman
the ground, but no, it's a. It's an important point. But.
- [101:55]
Steven Rinella
But there are cases where like, I don't want to act like I'm dismissive of the enterprise. I can't remember the guy's name. There was a guy that much later was talked to the. To people. Nez Perce, who were involved in the Nez Perce War and the children of people involved in Nez Perce War.
- [102:13]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [102:14]
Steven Rinella
You could say in some way, you could say some of that's firsthand account, like, like he took Nez Perce warriors to battlefields and they'd be like, no, I was standing there.
- [102:22]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [102:22]
Steven Rinella
He was standing there. That's not oral tradition. That's firsthand, sure. But huge value in talking to their kids, which at that point I guess is oral. I don't know. Is that oral tradition? What is that?
- [102:35]
Craig Furman
I think, I mean, it's. The different historians are going to classify a different way. But for the conversation we're having, you're absolutely right that every generation of what you get away, it becomes more tenuous and you need to have more skepticism. I will say, like, I think I maybe put us on the wrong foot by talking about like grandparents values though, because like, the better example is not what your grandparents or my grandparents values were. It'd be like if I was writing about somebody in France, there. I don't. France's values are not my values. So there. It's like you sort of need, like, that basic primer. So when I would talk to people today, it would be less like, what did your grandparents do? And it would be more like, how do your people see the world? What does land mean to your people? Did you have an understanding of sort of geographical rights and those kinds of things? So I think, for me, at least as a writer, because I am not Clatsop, because I am not Lakota, it was very valuable for me to talk to those people who were generous with their time and said, these are our values. And those values have, of course, shaped. There's no question. I can think of examples from my interviews where people. They would say something to me and I'd be like, that feels like that kind of modern life is impinging on the tradition as much as it is the tradition itself. I mean, that happens with us and how we tell American stories, too. But I do think that, for me, at least as an outsider, those interviews really helped me sort of feel like I could write from those people's points of view. And it was just important in the book. Like, we have great biographies of Lewis or Coulter or people like that, but I really. I didn't want the sections on Cobway or Black Buffalo or Sacagawea to just be like, this is what Lewis and Clark did. I wanted you to feel like you were in the canoe with them, because I wanted the storytelling to be equal. You know, Like, I wanted you to know what Lewis cared about, but I wanted you to know what Black Buffalo cared about, too. And the reason we can know that is often not these oral traditions, but the journals like Lewis and Clark wrote down what Black Buffalo wanted. It's just my job as a historian to be like. Like, that deserves, like, a scene that deserves some description. He. Black Buffalo is not a supporting character. Black Buffalo is a main character.
- [104:33]
Steven Rinella
Yeah.
- [104:34]
Craig Furman
And that's the choice I made in this book.
- [104:35]
Steven Rinella
Yeah. Understood. I got one last question, but you got. But you go ahead, Randall.
- [104:41]
Randall
No, you got it.
- [104:44]
Steven Rinella
I don't. I probably knew this and forgot maybe,
- [104:47]
Ad Read Host
but I don't know.
- [104:49]
Steven Rinella
York, the slave, he gets back. He petitions for his. He petitions for his freedom.
- [104:55]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [104:55]
Steven Rinella
Freedom based on his meritorious conduct.
- [104:59]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [104:59]
Steven Rinella
Is denied.
- [105:00]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [105:01]
Steven Rinella
What. What. What comes to him? How old is he when the expedition ends?
- [105:05]
Craig Furman
He's. We don't know exactly how old he is, but given how relation. Like, he was what was called Clark's body servant. Like, he was somebody who grew up alongside Clark and, like, took care of Clark, that's Why Clark wanted to take him on the expedition, among other reasons. Like, Clark really respected York as a. As a outdoorsman, too. But so he was roughly Clark's age. So he was probably, you know, late 20s, early 30s during the expedition. But he requests his freedom when he gets back. And we know that he directly linked it to his service on the expedition because Clark has this letter to his brother. And in this letter, Clark says, you know, I don't agree with York that his immense services have earned his freedom. And so for Clark, again, there's a lot of things about.
- [105:42]
Steven Rinella
He's like, I'd like to raise a counterpoint.
- [105:44]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [105:45]
Steven Rinella
You know, I feel like I still own you.
- [105:47]
Craig Furman
Yeah, exactly. Right. Counterpoint. This is how America works at this time period. But it, like, you know, you can hear Clark's voice in that. The kind of dark creating it. Right.
- [105:56]
Steven Rinella
Here's why I feel I should be able to, like, make my own decisions about myself. I don't know. Let's just throw this out there.
- [106:02]
Craig Furman
Yeah, exactly. But you can. You can hear York's side of the debate too, though, right? Like, that's Clark's letter, but Clark is preserving York's. York's rationale. And so they had lived in Louisville, Kentucky, outside of Louisville, Kentucky. And so Clark becomes, like, the top diplomat with native people, and he has to move to St. Louis, and he will make all these. Like, when he died in 1838, a third of what was American land Clark negotiated the treaties for. Clark had a very important life after the expedition. So he has to be in St. Louis to do that. So he tells York, you're coming with me. But York's wife is in Kentucky. And we know that York cared a lot about his wife. He sent buffalo skins back to his wife from the expedition for her to have. And so York doesn't want to go. And that's where this real friction and tension emerges that York's like, I want to be free, and also, I want to stay in Kentucky. You with my wife. And Clark says, I don't care. And so they have really, really tough interactions. There's one letter where Clark says, I, like, I'm ready to beat York, but Lewis talked me out of it.
- [106:58]
Steven Rinella
Wow.
- [106:58]
Craig Furman
So you can again see, like, I don't think it makes sense to just talk about slavery in the abstract. You need to talk about, like, how did Clark see it? How did Lewis see it? Because even though they're similar guys, they had very different views on slavery. And so Lewis was basically like, we don't know exactly why he thought this, but he definitely said, you know, don't. You don't need to be Clark or beat York right now. Let's, let's, let's take it easier on him. But either way, Clark waited more than a decade to free York. York's wife ended up having to move further down south, so he was not able to reunite with her in the way that he wanted. And York ended up dying, probably sometime in his 50s, probably of cholera. We don't know for sure, but that's. It seems pretty clear.
- [107:32]
Steven Rinella
His wife was enslaved. Yes. By a different owner, different families.
- [107:36]
Craig Furman
Right. Because the Clarks. Clarks had 10 or 12 slaves. So often in plantations of that size, you would have to, you know, you would marry somebody from a different plantation.
- [107:44]
Steven Rinella
You say he did not reunite with his wife.
- [107:46]
Craig Furman
He. I mean, he was. He. Once he was freed, he ended up having a wagon business. So maybe he rode the wagon down further south. But that. That would be pretty precarious in 1820 to, you know, as a. As a freed black person, take your wagon further South. That's not what most people would do. So we don't know for sure because York couldn't read or write. But I. He definitely saw less of his wife than he wanted to. We know that, man.
- [108:08]
Steven Rinella
You almost think about it like a, like, like thing. I don't. I'm not a big play fan. Like plays, you know, I like them. Okay. But I'm more into movies. But a good play would be, you know, in the autumn of Boone's. Daniel Boone's life, he would go on these hunting trips with his slave. Him and his slave.
- [108:30]
Craig Furman
Yep.
- [108:32]
Steven Rinella
Would get and paddle up river.
- [108:34]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [108:34]
Steven Rinella
And do these big hunting trips. And like. Like, what are those conversations like? Yeah, it would be the two of them.
- [108:41]
Craig Furman
Right. That'd be like Waiting for Godot, but plus slavery. That'd be wild.
- [108:46]
Steven Rinella
Yeah. Or York trying to explain, you know, here's why I think I shouldn't be a slave.
- [108:54]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [108:55]
Steven Rinella
But I mean, like, how does that conversation play out?
- [108:59]
Craig Furman
Yeah, but I mean, York was reacting to different circumstances. Like on the expedition, he carried a rifle. Rifle. He was the fifth named guy in the journals to bring down a buffalo. He was a great hunter. He was big and strong. He could swim. A lot of the people in the expedition could not swim, which that's a fact that I still can't wrap my head around. Like, you're doing this river.
- [109:16]
Randall
One of the first questions I would have asked in my recruiting.
- [109:19]
Craig Furman
You would think so.
- [109:20]
Randall
But, yeah, he could.
- [109:21]
Steven Rinella
But he could have. He could have taken that rifle and swung it around, been like, you son of a.
- [109:24]
Craig Furman
Right, right. No, it's, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a wild, It's a wild dynamic.
- [109:29]
Steven Rinella
So hard to understand. It. So hard to understand.
- [109:32]
Craig Furman
I think one reason the journals are helpful is they help you see Clark's point of view on this too. Because you can see how, for lack of a better word, possessive. Clark is like York. The native people, once they get far enough to the north, the native people are obsessed with York because they've never met somebody with black skin before. So they come up and they'll spit on their hands and try to rub York's skin to rub the paint off. And then when they realize it's not paint, they're like, whoa, this is something new. And when you read Clark's journal entries, you can see that Clark York is just kind of, like, jealous in a weird way because he's so used to being the person above York that once York starts to get more attention, that that makes their relationship get even stranger. So there. It's just.
- [110:09]
Steven Rinella
I think York could have beat his ass too.
- [110:11]
Craig Furman
I mean, Clark again and again talked about how big York was. So I, I, I think York was probably the largest guy on the, on the whole expedition.
- [110:18]
Steven Rinella
I can't remember we had a guest recently or someone turned us on to this quote. The past is a strange country, you know, because some of the stuff, you just, you just can't understand it.
- [110:31]
Craig Furman
I know you can't.
- [110:33]
Steven Rinella
The dynamics, you'll never, ever understand.
- [110:36]
Craig Furman
Yeah, I felt that tension again and again writing this book, because it's like, on one hand, Sacagawea's actions feel like it's at a workplace. Right. Like she's, you know, she's doing human interactions the same way we would, but on another hand, it's just a completely different world. And so I don't think there's a way to resolve that. As a historian, I think you just need to accept that both things are true and then try to tell the story as honestly as you can. But it's like that push, pull. I felt that again and again in this book.
- [111:04]
Randall
I feel like a lot of what you do in this book is you're sort of building the story out from this myopic understanding of a miraculous journey led by two incredible individuals. And you're building it out. And I'm curious if there's still a blank spot in your canvas that you weren't able to fill in. Not to end on a downer no, but what did you. Was there something you wanted to build out in this book that just wasn't there?
- [111:43]
Craig Furman
I spent five years on this. I love all 10 of the people in this book. And I still have way more questions than answers. Like, is that a crazy thing to say? But that's like, if you're trying to be an honest and accurate historian, I don't know what other response he would have. Like, I just wonder, what did Lewis think about York? Because Lewis specifically told Clark recruit unmarried men because they knew that like they wanted people without family ties, but they also knew that the men were going to have sex with lots of native women. Like they'd been in the army. They knew that they wanted young guys who were not attached. And so Louis shows up and Clark's like, York's coming and York's married. York's black, he's enslaved. So I like, did they argue about that? Was Lewis like, this is a terrible idea. Was Clark like, I'm not coming unless York comes? Did Lewis just sort of roll his eyes and have some kind of resentment about it? But they just worked through it. Probably that's what happened, but we'll never know. So, like, I feel like unlike William Clark's maps, my map is still mostly blank spaces. I just tried to fill in as much as I could with this book.
- [112:38]
Randall
Yeah.
- [112:39]
Steven Rinella
You know how I do the movie, man, is we're talking about the beginning of Apocalypse Now. This morning, Randall was, you know, like the, the hotel scene.
- [112:49]
Craig Furman
Sure.
- [112:51]
Steven Rinella
I would probably open the movie Grinder Station. There's blood everywhere, you know what I'm saying? And he's like, like he's dying.
- [113:04]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [113:06]
Steven Rinella
And then, and then you're like, what in the world is going on? Yeah, you know, I mean, the people downstairs like, what is going on up there?
- [113:11]
Craig Furman
Right.
- [113:12]
Steven Rinella
And then he. And then he trips back. Flashback.
- [113:16]
Randall
Yeah. It's classic introductory device because it grab
- [113:20]
Steven Rinella
you by the boo boo for sure, that scene.
- [113:22]
Randall
Maybe that's the magic key that will unlock the successful HBO mini.
- [113:26]
Steven Rinella
They just couldn't think of a good opening scene. That was the problem. That was the problem all along. It wasn't. How do you tell a three year long story?
- [113:32]
Randall
Christian Bale.
- [113:33]
Craig Furman
Yeah.
- [113:34]
Randall
Perfect.
- [113:34]
Craig Furman
Yeah. Well, fingers crossed on the HBO series. That's all I'll say. But yeah, yeah, fingers crossed. I think that's a blank space. I would really like somebody to make
- [113:43]
Randall
a TV show out of this undaunted courage which we haven't brought up until now. I think that was always the, you know, the. If it was gonna spin into a series. That was it. But, like, this is just such a more human tale that I. I see the.
- [113:59]
Craig Furman
The.
- [113:59]
Randall
We'll keep our fingers crossed.
- [114:01]
Steven Rinella
I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to brag, but I got one in the oven right now that's going to be prime pickings for movie.
- [114:06]
Craig Furman
Okay.
- [114:07]
Steven Rinella
Which I've never had happen, I'm sure.
- [114:10]
Randall
Again, he doesn't want to brag now.
- [114:12]
Craig Furman
He just wants to tell us how great it feels. It feels so good. But other than that, I can't say.
- [114:16]
Steven Rinella
Well, the only problem is I haven't written it yet either.
- [114:18]
Craig Furman
Well, yeah, I hear that could be a tricky spot.
- [114:21]
Randall
You did the work.
- [114:23]
Steven Rinella
It's just a step along the way, you know for sure. That's right. Well, good luck. I hope they do get it. We've been. We've been talking to Craig Furman, author of this Vast Enterprise, A New History of Lewis and Clark. So a new history of a. Of a old and fascinating, fascinating story with endless threads to pull at and. Sounds to me like you pulled out some fresh ones.
- [114:49]
Craig Furman
I did my best, man. It's. It's a big story. I gave it everything I had.
- [114:51]
Steven Rinella
Yeah. Once again, this fast. Enterprise, A New History of Lewis and Clark by Craig Furman.
- [115:24]
Ad Read Host
You ever get that feeling? The walls closing in the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature. Maybe in a spot all your own.
- [115:34]
Steven Rinella
Well, head over to land.com.
- [115:38]
Ad Read Host
they've got ranches, forest, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage, you can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of.
- [115:47]
Steven Rinella
Land.com it is where the adventure begins.
- [115:52]
Gronk
Hi, this is Gronk from Dudes on Dudes and talk about a perfect partnership. I'm here to tell you about protecting your end zone with dude wipes. If you're still wiping with toilet paper, you need to listen up. Dude wipes are a wet, extra large flushable wipe that leave nothing behind in your behind because they are wet and we all know wetter cleans better. Unlike dry wiping with toilet paper, dude wipes clear instead of smear. Goodbye dingleberries. Goodbye itch and irritation. Plus if you take Gronk sized grumpies, or as I like to call them, Gronkies baby wipes won't do. You need extra big dude wipes to handle the job. And they come in different scents and pack sizes, including a single use on the go pack that you can take wherever you go for that home field advantage. So don't fumble the ball with toilet paper. Stop being an A hole to your B hole and start using Dude Wipes. Available on Amazon and major retailers nationwide. Dude Wipes Best Clean Pants Down Service
- [116:58]
Ad Read Host
opens doors, and at American Military University, it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at amuapus.edu. military open doors to the Future for you and your family with the help of American Military University.
- [117:36]
Craig Furman
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [117:38]
Steven Rinella
Guaranteed Human.