Two hundred years ago today, the Corps of Discovery, commanded by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, was in its winter quarters at Fort Mandan (near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota). One of the objectives of the expedition, as formulated by President Thomas Jefferson, was pacification of the tribes. On this particular day, a member of the Mandan tribe informed Lewis and Clark that a small party of Mandans had been attacked in the prairie by a large party of Sioux and Arikaras. One man was killed and two others wounded. Four were missing. Several horses were stolen.
Lewis and Clark decided to take the offensive against the Sioux—not so much to punish them for their depredations as to prove their loyalty to the Mandans, some of whom did not trust the whites and had been spreading rumors of an attack. After consulting with the Mandans, it was decided to postpone the punitive expedition until spring. The snow was deep and the air frigid. During the course of his conversation with the Mandan chief, Clark learned that there was particular animosity toward the Arikaras who had been involved in the attack. It was important to Lewis and Clark to make peace between the Arikaras and Mandans, since they were neighbors, so here is what Clark said:
you Say that the Panies or Ricares were with the Sciaux, Some bad men may have been with the Sciaux you know there is bad men in all nations, do not get mad with the racarees until we know if those bad men are Counternoncd. by their nation, and we are Convsd. those people do not intend to follow our Councils— (William Clark, journal entry of 30 November 1804, in The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, ed. Gary E. Moulton [Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1987], 3:246 [italics in original])Let's compare Clark's sage advice to the contemporary scene. Certain members of the Islamic faith committed mass murder on 11 September 2001. They were "bad men," to use Clark's expression. What we, their victims, want to know is whether these bad men are "countenanced by their nation," i.e., their fellow Muslims. If not, then we should not hold the depredations of a few against Muslims generally. The burden is not on us to show that Muslims are collectively responsible for the atrocities. It's on Muslims to show that they are not collectively responsible. I believe this is why nonMuslims expect Muslim leaders to speak out clearly and vociferously against those who commit atrocities in the name of Islam. They are presumptively responsible. They must rebut the presumption.