Ultimate Fate
As to York's later life and death, there are contradictory accounts by Washington Irving and Zenas Leonard. When Irving interviewed Clark in 1832, Clark claimed to have freed York, but that York regretted being free because he was a failure at business, and died trying to get back to serve his master as a slave again in St. Louis. Betts, as well as other historians doubt the accuracy of Clark's story saying that it reflects pro-slavery arguments that Africans were happy to be slaves, and could not lead successful lives as free people.
Betts and Historian Áhati N. N. Touré suggests another possibility: that York simply refused to return to Clark, and escaped to freedom. Leonard reported meeting with an African man living among the Crows in north-central Wyoming in 1834, writing: "In this village we found a negro man, who informed us that he first came to this country with Lewis & Clark — with whom he also returned to the State of Missouri, and in a few years returned again with a Mr. Mackinney, a trader on the Missouri river, and has remained here ever since - which is about ten or twelve years. He has acquired a correct knowledge of their manner of living, and speaks their language fluently. He has rose to be quite a considerable character, or chief, in their village; at least he assumes all the dignities of a chief, for he has four wives, with whom he lives alternately."
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