William Clark Implicated in Land Grab by Map Re-Attributed to Him

William Clark, Map of Extent of Settlement in Mississippi Valley (1816)A new historical study reattributes a rough sketch of treaty lines in what is now Missouri to William Clark (of “Lewis and” fame), implicating the legendary explorer in the dispossession of some 10.5 million acres of land assigned by treaty to indigenous peoples. The article by Cambridge historian Robert Lee, who studies Indigenous dispossession in the 19th century and discovered the map misfiled in another fonds, appears in the latest issue of William and Mary Quarterly. The DOI doesn’t appear to work yet, nor is the article available online at this point, but here’s the abstract and the press release.