Backwoods Saints: Lewis, Clark, and the American Frontier Hero, 1800–30

A few short years after their glorious return from the Corps of Discovery Expedition, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s careers and public persona took drastically different trajectories.  Although an accomplished naturalist and statesman, as well as an explorer, Lewis failed to meet the growing public desire for a democratic frontier hero, like Daniel Boone; he fell into debt, suicidal depression, and ultimately public anonymity. William Clark, by contrast, became a celebrated governor and Indian fighter, and ultimately the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The political success of Clark and failure of Lewis can be attributed to a shifting culture of public heroism in early-nineteenth-century America. Lewis resembled the model of the enlightenment hero, exhibiting classical values, an aristocratic background, and intellectual sophistication.  Clark, a self-made adventurer and backwoodsman, embodied the democratic ethos that would lead to the coming Jacksonian era.
         Backwoodsman heroes like Clark and Daniel Boone underwent what Daniel J. Herman describes as a secular canonization, with shrines built at their gravesites, artworks celebrating their “miraculous” heroic exploits and talismans displaying their images sold throughout the nation. This poster will demonstrate these political and cultural trends using both statistical and visual evidence. It will offer visual examples of the quasi-religious relics associated with frontier heroes, and works of art in which Indian fighting, trailblazing and hunting are associated with Christian imagery.  It will also include statistical tables demonstrating the shift in number and types of newspaper portrayals of frontier heroism between 1800 and 1830, with particular attention to Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Daniel Boone and Andrew Jackson.