William Clark

(1770 - 1838)

William Clark was the ninth of ten children born to the owners of a tobacco plantation in Virginia; after his family moved to Kentucky, he joined a local militia and then the regular army, where he was promoted to command a company of sharpshooters that eventually employed Meriwether Lewis, his later companion in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Clark served as a federal official out west over the course of six presidencies, signing thirty-seven Indian treaties and supervising the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Native Americans.