Dubious hero

Robert Lee, a historian at the University of Cambridge, has revealed that a rare map stored in the National Archives was likely produced by William Clark, the oncerevered US explorer, Indian agent and territorial governor, and casts him in a poor light. Lee argues that the map shows how Clark grafted 4.2 million hectares of Sauk, Meskwaki and Iowa territory onto the USA after the War of 1812. ‘This astonishing map shows how William Clark leveraged the US–Indian treaty system to promote settler supremacy in the USA at a time when he’s been praised for trying to protect Indigenous land from squatters,’ says Lee. ‘Now we can see just how scheming and disingenuous he really was.’