Books & Looks Podcast — The Slave, the Spy, and the Chief: The Untold Voices of Lewis and Clark with Craig Fehrman

What if the Lewis and Clark story you learned in school got almost everything wrong? On this episode of Books and Looks, Blaine DeSantis sits down with Craig Fehrman, author of the bestselling book This Vast Enterprise, to reexamine one of the greatest journeys in American history. Fehrman reveals that the expedition began before the Louisiana Purchase was even finalized, that the famous $15 million price tag hides a true cost of more than $400 million, and that the journey itself ran over $100,000, the equivalent of NASA’s budget in its day.

Fehrman’s book tells the story as an ensemble, rotating between ten points of view. Listeners will meet York, the enslaved man whose skill and diplomacy proved essential yet who was denied his freedom after the journey. They will meet Sacagawea as she truly was, a teenage mother navigating enslavement with remarkable resolve. And they will meet Black Buffalo, the Lakota leader who prevented a war on the banks of the Missouri while pursuing his own political strategy against a rival chief.

The conversation is full of surprises: an arrest warrant issued from Santa Fe, more than a thousand Spanish soldiers dispatched to capture the expedition, an American general secretly spying for Spain, a heroic Newfoundland dog named Seaman, and the media frenzy that made Lewis and Clark the Artemis mission of 1804. Perfect listening as America celebrates its 250th birthday, this episode will change how you see a story you thought you already knew.