// Sex. In a Whole New Light
History bores you. Admit it! That's because every class you every class you ever slept through was missing all the sex! We put the sex back into history - where it belongs!

SHS011-Westward Ho

Intro

Allie: Welcome to the Sex History Show.

John: If it weren't for sex, you wouldn't be here.

Randal: This is a frank though polite discussion about sex in history, so if you are offended by this, write your complaints on a crisp $100 bill and send them to us by registered mail.

Allie: I’m Allie and these are my co-hosts.

Randal: I’m Randal.

John: And I'm John.

Body

Thomas Jefferson, second president of the United States of America and author of the world's biggest government-funded sex junket in history!

John: Allie, you've had me out of my mind with curiosity since our last show. What do you mean, President Jefferson sponsored the biggest sex junket in American History!

Randal: I've been doing a little reading since then, John, and I think I know what she's up to. In fact, I'll bet you a dollar that I know.

John: OK, I'll take that bet!

Allie: What color is that dollar, Randal?

Randal: Bright gold, of course.

Allie: Might as well pay up now, John.

John: I'm confused.

Randal: John, President Jefferson was in office when Lewis and Clark set out to discover the new world. They made plenty of maps along the way, and they also got a pretty good feel for the "lay" of the land.

Lewis Clark, leader of the Corps of Discovery

Voice: "An old woman and wife to a chief of the Chinook came to us and made a camp near ours. She brought with her six young squaws, I believe for the purpose of Gratifying the passions of the men of our party and receving for those indulgiences Such Small (presents) as She thought proper. ...the Chinooks appear to View Sensuality as a Necessary evil, and do not appear to abhor it as a Crime in the unmarried state."

John: So is that William Clark or Meriwether Lewis?

Allie: It was William Clark, from November of 1805, deep in what is now South Dakota.

Jefferson hoped to find still-living (and CARNIVOROUS) woolly mammoths west of the Mississippi

John: The Lewis and Clark expedition was a sex junket? I slept through the wrong part of US History! All I remember is Thomas Jefferson sending a bunch of people to the Pacific ocean looking for elephants or something.

Allie: Not elephants John. Mammoths. Jefferson sent people to discover if mammoths were still alive in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase².

John: Yeah. Tom was a total science nerd.

Randal: I resemble that remark, John!

The route the Corps took to explore the new Louisiana purchase.maps

Allie: Of course, Jefferson also wanted them to figure out what the Brits, the French, and the Spanish were up to in the area. Jefferson dubbed this group, The Corps of Discovery. He hoped Lewis and Clark would find a commercially viable waterway to the Pacific. He wanted a detailed report on the geology, plants, and wildlife along the way. And, of course, everything they could find out about the Native American tribes.

John: And that is where the sex part of this tour comes in, right?

Allie: That's where most of it comes from, but I'll save another little nugget for the end of the show.

John: Always keeping little secrets, Allie!

Allie: I have to keep you on your toes! Anyway, the natives of the northern Great Plains - especially in what is now the Dakotas - shared a popular mythology that powerful 'medicine' could be transferred by sex. When the Corps of Discovery arrived with their guns, trade goods, and simple but somewhat effective medicine, the locals were impressed. Some native-american men arranged for their wives to sleep with the white guys. Then the wives slept with their husband, somehow transferring part of the European's 'powerful medicine'.

Although modern medicine has made this a rare sight to see, humans have had to face the ugly specter of syphilis throughout our history.

Randal: That's really ironic, since I know that a lot of these 'medicine' transfers actually transmitted venereal diseases, especially gonorrhea and syphilis.

John: I've heard something about syphilis being a new-world disease. Is that right?

Randal: There is a lot of controversy about that. Some scientists and historians claim a New World origin, while others claim just the opposite: an Old World origin³ . In any case, European-America contact was pretty exciting!

Allie: And Lewis and Clark were fully expecting this. Fully one part in 6 of the medicine they brought with them was for treating sexual diseases⁴.

John: Uh, they didn't have antibiotics, yet. I'm going to bet that the cure wasn't pretty!

Randal: Speaking of betting, John, what about my dollar?

John: I still have no clue why you think you have already won this. There's no way-

Allie: Guys!

Elemental mercury is an extremely hazardous material. Or a treatment for venereal diseases, if you are REALLY desperate.

Randal: OK, OK! Anyway, pretty much the only syphilis treatment at the time was mercury.

John: But that's poisonous!

Randal: Still, it apparently slightly reduced the symptoms of the disease, too. You win some, you lose some.

Meriwether Lewis, co-'Captain' of the Corps of Discovery. Meriwether Lewis, portrait by Charles Willson Peale, housed in Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia.

Allie: Interesting thing about that. After the expedition was over, Lewis only lived a few years. Many people thought he was alchoholic and deranged, possibly even delusional{Lewis was delusional and in some of his last days.}.

Randal: Oh, I see where you're going with this. Symptoms like that could have been caused by neurosyphilis, the last, fatal stage of the disease⁵.

Allie: A lot of people think this. I have a different idea, but I'll save it for the end of the show.

John: More secrets, Allie! Am I going to lose another dollar over this?

Randal: You haven't given me the first one, yet! Lucky I know where you live. So, Allie, I guess this means that the illustrious Captains⁶ of the expedition weren't above getting into a little action, either.

Joseph Lewis DeSmit, alleged son of Captain Lewis.

Allie: There is some documentation, including baptismal and marriage records, that Lewis fathered a child with a Lakota woman named Winona. Joseph Lewis DeSmit was born a year later. Family legend says that Lewis 'accidentally' got himself married to Winona.

John: That's quite an accident. I see he was willing to step up to the plate and do his husbandly duties! I'm willing to bet that Clark left a few events behind, too.

Randal: I'm not taking that one up, John. You haven't delivered on your last bet. Besides, I happen to know that a guy from the Nez Perce⁸ tribe by the name of Daytime Smoker is said to be fathered by old William Clark. Daytime Smoker was born at just the right time, and had reddish hair and blue eyes - just like Clark. The Nez Perce wanted to negotiate peace with the expedition, so the chief sent his daughter to Clark. Want to know something really ironic. Smoker was born from an attempt at alliance between the white folks and the Nez Perce, but Smoker died in jail after a war between the United States and the Nez Perce⁹.

Clark's slave, York, had a pretty good sex life on the trail.

Allie: Maybe William Clark was just living up to an odd role model. He spent this trip accompanied by his slave, known only as York. York was an enormous man, and greatly lusted after everywhere the expedition went. Among the Mandans, where the Corps overwintered in 1804-1805, there was a legend that the Mandans originated from an underground utopia filled with gardens. Before they came to the surface, the Mandans were supposedly darker skinned as well. Whatever the truth, York got babes everywhere he went

John: I think I've heard of him, though not about all the girls. I think he asked Clark for his freedom when they finished the trip, but Clark said no, not even to join the wife he married after they got back. Pretty sad to go from a god among men on the trip to just another slave back in St. Louis.

Allie: Well, at least he had some good times in the Dakotas. Once a man came to York begging him to sleep with his wife. To make sure there were no interruptions, the guy sat outside the tent all night on watch.

Randal: I'll bet there was some watching! York, the first live sex performer of the Americas!

John: The sex sure seems to have come easily for these guys. Compared to the possessivness of the colonists, the native Americans were pretty laid back.

Allie: Mostly, but it didn't always work that way. Sargaent John Ordoway spent a little time having sex with some chick without her husband's knowledge. Unfortunately, the guy showed up with a knife - and stabbed the girl three times. Since women as wives were practically owned there, a wife sleeping around was a pretty serious offense. Luckily, Clark stepped in. He made Ordoway give the guy some trade goods, then counseled the couple to go back home and make up¹².

Randal: Nice try. How did that work out?

Toussaint Charbonneau was a lying cheat and a woman-beater, but he brought something very important to the Corps.

Allie: We don't know. The journals were pretty involved with some other events at the time. The company was overwintering with the Mandans Tribe, looking for someone who spoke Hidatsa, one of the languages they would be encountering. A French trader by the name of Toussaint Charbonneau showed up to take the job. History paints a rather dim picture of him, including being a brutal rapist around Hudson bay. Lewis also describes him as a man with no redeeming qualities. Toussaint didn't speak English, which would complicate things a lot. It turns out he didn't even speak Hidatsa very well!

Randal: But he did have something that Lewis and Clark wanted. Something that should appear on the face of that dollar I just won from you.

The Sacagawea dollar minted by the U.S. Treasury. The one John owes to Randal. Pay up, man!

Allie: Sacagawea!

John: She's on the dollar coin. Now I get it.

Allie: Toussaint had just purchased Sacagawea and a girl called "Otter Woman" from the Hidatsa. The Hidatsa had captured them from the Shoshone. We don't know much about Otter Woman, but Sacagawea ¹⁴saved the party in tough negotiations. She also managed to recover the expeditions precious journals when her no-good husband accidentally tipped over their boats¹⁵.

Randal: And she did all this while carrying a child. She gave birth to a little boy on the journey. Jean Baptiste, or "Pomp" as the expedition called him, may well have saved the expidition, too. It was hard to imagine that the Corps was a military expedition when they were walking around with a family, complete with a little kid¹⁶.

Allie: For all these things and more, the US mint honored Sacagawea by putting her face on a dollar coin in 2000¹⁷. And, perhaps more valuable, Clark took care of sending the kid to school back in St. Louis after Sacagawea died in 1812 of a fever of some sort¹⁸.

John: Good for her, but... back to the sex!

A rare group photo of some Mandan.

Allie: Well, how is this one for you. Clark describes a Mandan ceremony they observed where young men tried to obtain the skills of older, more experienced men through the sex-transference I mentioned earlier. It was called the Buffalo dance.

Voice:"The old men arrange themselves in a circle and after smoke a pipe which handed them by a young man dressed up for the purpose. The young men who had their wives back of the circle had their wives go to one of the old men with a winy tone and request the old man to take his wife who presents naked, except a rope. The girl then takes the old man and leads him to a convenient place for the business. We sent a man to this medicine dance last night. They gave him four girls.¹⁹"

John: Now there's a lucky guy!

Randal: Of course, they left the Mandan in 1805 just as a serious outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases was peaking²⁰!

John: You're such a spoilsport.

Allie: How about this one. When the Corps met the Shoshone, they got really irate if anyone turned down a bout of sex with their girl. It was insulting!

Randal: And I read that the Chinook in the Pacific Northwest used sex for trade a lot. Lewis actually had to yell at the men, because he was worried they would run out of trade goods and provisions²¹!

John: Hmmm... Those provisions were paid for by the US government, right? So this might be the first recorded instance of getting the government to pay for prostitutes!

Allie: But not the last.

Randal: Speaking of which, what about Lewis' last. You said you had an alternative explanation for his peculiar behavior once the expedition was over.

Allie: I did. Remember that Jefferson asked Clark to lead the expedition. Clark sent out a letter to his close friend Lewis, who wrote back.

Voice: "Believe me there is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself....I should be extremely happy in your company and will furnish you with every aid for your return from any point you might wish it. With sincere and affectionate regard, your friend and humble sevt. Meriwether Lewis²².

Allie: I didn't know Lewis was Australian?

John: He wasn't but we were short on cash this week and I pulled a favor.

Allie: Don't you think what Lewis said was pretty affectionate?

Randal: Not particularly.

John: Okay, well let me play it again.

Voice: Lewis audio repeats but this time it is read as an over-the-top gay man might read the text.

Allie: Another letter carefully describes the cozy little house that Lewis and Clark would share at the journey's provisioning stage.

Randal: And, aside from the accidental marriage, Lewis' writings in the journals often seemed to find all that half-naked native woman flesh very distasteful.

John: And I also heard that he spent a lot of time describing what the natives were wearing.

Randal: You're making that up!

Allie: And when the Corps of Discovery returned, Clark got married right away. Just after that Lewis started going downhill fast. He died of two gunshot wounds in 1809, one to the head and one to the chest²³. No one could say if it was murder or suicide, but just maybe Lewis was pining after Clark too much.

Next Show

John: That was a great story, guys, even if it did cost me a dollar. You know, we've been talking about sex for trade and the Great American West. And Randal is fixated on this golden dollar coin I owe him. I've just given you enough hints to guess the topic of the next show. How about we go double or nothing,

John: Name the topic or stop nagging me about that damned dollar!

Randal: You're on, John!

John: Damn it Randal. Why can't I quit you?

Allie: Well, if you'd like to give Randal some suggestions or read about any of our other shows, check out SexHistoryShow.com. You can read our show notes or participate in discussion of any of our episodes.

Notes

1	The entire text of all journals recorded by Clark and Lewis are available here.
2	See here and here for details about Jefferson's interest in natural history. Interestingly, he thought the mammoth was a massive carnivore!
3	Alfred Crosby pioneered the notion that Syphilis existed on both sides of the Atlantic, but recently mutated in Europe before Columbian contact. See The Columbian Exchange (1972) or this wikipedia entry.
4	See "Venereal Diseases and the Lewis and Clark Expidition" by Thomas P Lowry. Available here
5	See the wikipedia entry for syphilis.
6	Well, sort of Captains. Clark was not promoted in time for the expedition.
7	This page shows the 1800's church register listing DeSmit for his baptism and marriage as being the son of Lewis. The encounter leading to this birth, according to legends and fragments of the expedition journals, occurred while meeting with the Teton Sioux (or Lakota) near Bad River in 1804. Lewis may have 'accidentaly' put himself into marriage with a woman named "Winona".
8	pronounced Ness Purse if you are reading this without the podcast.
9	This page shows a photograph of Daytime Smoker, a Nez Perce allegedly fathered by Clark. He did have reddish hair and blue eyes - just like Clark! Apparently the mother was the daughter of Red Grizzly Bear, who hoped to make an alliance with the expedition. Amazingly, Daytime Smoker died incarcerated by the US government after a war with the Nez Perce
10	or Madans, depending on your sources. In any case, see the Wikipedia entry for more details.
11	For more about the Mandan Origins myth, check out the references in the L&C journals here or here or look at this.
12	See this journal entry.
13	A John MacDowell of the North West Company (fur trappers) described the rape on May 30, 1795, this way, "Tousst. Charbonneau was stabbed at the Manitou-a-banc end of the P. l. P. [Portage La Paririe] in the act of committing a Rape upon her Daughter by an old Saultier woman with a Canoe Awl—a fate he highly deserved for his brutality— It was with difficulty he could walk back over the portage." See here for more about this man.
14	see her Wikipedia entry for a lot more, including a lot more spellings!
15	See here.
16	{see here for more about Pomp's life.
17	See here for more about the Sacagawea dollar.
18	a 'putrid' fever. See here
19	See this entry in Clark's journal.
20	Just the first of many. By 1837, the tribe, originally around 1600 people in two villages, had died back to less than 200 people. See here for more on this tragic story.
21	see here
22	See here.
23	See here for details about his death.