The other pioneers African-Americans on the Frontier: although they rarely make it into the history books, black men and women helped shape the Old West.

Thanks to Hollywood, tales of America's Western frontier are among the most popular in the world. Close your eyes and think Old West: What do you see? Cowboys and Indians, sheriffs and outlaws, wagon trains and dusty saloons?

The Old West was certainly all of that--and more. But the palefaces and redskins of Hollywood movies and old history books were not the only people who shaped life on the Western frontier.

African-Americans (along with Mexicans and Asians) were the "other pioneers" of the American West. They made their mark as explorers, fur trappers, cowboys, ranchers, farmers, gold miners, stagecoach drivers, scouts, cavalrymen, outlaws, lawmen, schoolteachers, saloonkeepers, and just about everything else a person could be in the "Wild West" of the mid to late 1800s.

Champion Roper

Among cowboys, Nat Love was one of the best. He could rope the toughest bull and tame the wildest bronco.

Love was born a slave in 1854. His family was set free after the Civil War. When Nat was 15, he left home and followed his dreams westward--to where he had heard a man could ride free. He got a job herding cattle and worked hard to perfect his cowboy skills.

It didn't take him long. When Love was 22, he took part in a Fourth of July rodeo in the town of Deadwood, in Dakota Territory. He outroped and outshot other cowboys to become the "hero of Deadwood."

"The assembled crowd," Love wrote, "named me 'Deadwood Dick' and proclaimed me champion roper of the Western cattle country." Love was proud of the nickname, and used it until the end of his life. (The original "Deadwood Dick" was the fictional hero of a popular series of novels about the Old West.)

Love later wrote a book called The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as Deadwood Dick. The book is full of both tall tales and true adventures. Sometimes, it is hard to tell which is which. But there is no doubt that Love cut a dashing figure during the heyday of the Western frontier. He herded cattle, survived stampedes, had his share of card games and gunfights, encountered Indians as both friend and foe, and weathered the rain, snow, sleet, dust storms, and merciless sun of the open prairie.

In 1889, Love hung up his spurs. In 1890, he went to work on the Iron Horse instead--as a porter on the railroads that were spreading across the West and pushing the frontier to the Pacific Ocean. By the time Love died in 1921, the Wild West was no more.

An Extra Burden

at Love was not the only African-American to make a living as a cowboy. About one fourth of all cowboys on the Western frontier were black. Like Love, most had gone west at the end of the Civil War, seeking the kind of freedom they had never known, whether slave or free, back East.

Blacks also set out to stake claims to farm and ranchland. They even founded all-black towns on the frontier, such as Nicodemus, Kansas; Dearfield, Colorado; Boley, Oklahoma; and Allensworth, California. Black farmers, like their white counterparts, settled on the Great Plains.

African-Americans also caught "gold fever." They headed west with pickaxes to dig ore out of remote hillsides and panned for gold in wild, rushing rivers.

Blacks on the frontier often faced the extra burden of racism. Even if a black miner hit pay dirt, in some places he was not allowed to keep it. An 1857 Supreme Court ruling-the Dred Scott decision--said that blacks descended from slaves had no rights as U.S. citizens. Some whites used that ruling to confiscate (seize) claims to mines that African-Americans had worked.

Still, black cowboys knew greater acceptance than other frontier blacks. Nat Love said that in town he and other black cowboys were treated pretty much the same as whites "as long as our money lasted." Out on the range, the same usually held true for a black man who had proven his skills in roping, riding, and shooting. But seldom was he made foreman or trail boss over white men.

"Stagecoach Mary"

Black women had to work just as hard as black men to succeed in the West. Mary Fields, born a slave in a log cabin in Tennessee, set out in 1884, when she was 52 years old. She ended up in Cascade, Montana, working for a group of nuns. Fields was, according to one description, "six feet tall, weighed more than 200 pounds, wore men's clothes, and puffed thick black cigars." A powerful woman made strong by years of heavy slave work, Fields refused to put up with ill treatment from anyone. She lost her job with the nuns when she got into a gunfight with another hired hand. But Fields was tough enough to make her own way on the frontier. She carried the U.S. mail, ran a restaurant, and drove a stagecoach which earned her the nickname "Stagecoach Mary."

In her old age, Fields ran a laundry. Even at age 70, she could hold her own. Once, a man tried to skip out without paying his laundry bill. Fields followed him and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around, she socked him in the jaw. After he went down, Fields said, "His bill's been paid in full."

Long Arm of the Law

Bass Reeves also knew a thing or two about laying down the law. Reeves, a deputy U.S. marshal (law officer) in Oklahoma's Indian Territory, was one of many black law officers who helped keep law and order alive in the Wild West. A crack shot, he won 14 shootouts--against men who all drew on him first--without suffering a single wound.

Reeves, who could not read or write, got by on his smarts. He was a skilled detective, a master of disguise, and an expert tracker. Of all the outlaws Reeves went after in his long career, only one ever escaped his grasp.

Buffalo Soldiers

In the late 1800s, one inescapable fact of life on the Great Plains was the dash between the U.S. Army and the Native Americans.

Among the army units sent to serve in "Indian Country" were four all black units: two infantry (foot soldiers) and two cavalry.

African-Americans were allowed to serve in the U.S. Army for the first time during the Civil War. After the war, many newly freed blacks joined the Army. They fought the same battles as other frontier soldiers--usually against Indians or Mexicans.

The courage and skill of the all-black Plains unit soon won them recognition. In fact, the Native Americans so respected their African-American foes that they nicknamed the units "the Buffalo Soldiers." That was a great compliment, because the Indians held the buffalo in high esteem.

Hit the Trail

Close your eyes and think Old West again. Has the picture changed at all?

There are many, many stories to be told about life on the frontier of the American West--many with African-Americans as key players. How many tales of blacks on the frontier can you track down?

Words to Know

* cavalryman: a soldier mounted on horseback.

* foreman: a person in charge of other workers.

* frontier: wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country.

* Iron Horse: the railroad; a nickname for the first locomotives.

Your Turn

WORD MATCH

1. cavalryman   A. seize
2. confiscate   B. law officer
3. frontier     C. railroad
4. Iron Horse   D. wilderness
5. marshal      E. soldier on
                   horseback

THINK ABOUT IT

1. What made life on the frontier so hard? What extra burdens did African-Americans face?

2. Why do you suppose black cowboys were not accepted as foremen or trail bosses?

Answers:

1. E

2. A

3. D

4. C

5. B

AMERICAN HISTORY The Other Pioneers, pp. 18-20

* OBJECTIVE Students should understand

* that African-Americans played a greater role in settling the Western frontier than is usually acknowledged.

* BACKGROUND

* Amendment XIII, Section 1: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

* In 1865, Amendment XIII ended slavery in the U.S. What became of the millions of African-Americans whose lives had suddenly become their own? Many went West. Though books and photos rarely provide evidence of their presence and contributions, those "other pioneers" were an integral part of life on the American frontier.

* CRITICAL THINKING

MAKING INFERENCES: Do you think that Mary Fields was unusual in her era among black women, women in general, or both? Explain. (Both; until fairly recently, few women were allowed such independence. The same was true for African-Americans, male or female.)

COMPREHENSION: Nat Love said that black cowboys were treated much the same as whites "as long as our money lasted. "What do you think he meant by that? Explain. (Answers will vary.)

* ACTIVITY

GO WEST!: Have students seek information about "other pioneers" of the American West, including Asians (particularly Chinese) and Mexicans. What, for them, were the benefits and drawbacks of life on the frontier? How did their experiences--good and bad--compare to those of whites?

STANDARDS

SOCIAL STUDIES, GRADES 5-8

* Time, continuity, and change/People, places, and environments: How African-Americans, newly freed from slavery, helped to develop the American West.

RESOURCES

PRINT

* Katz, William Loren, Black Women of the Old West (Simon & Schuster, 1995). Grades 6-12.

* Stovall, TaRessa, Buffalo Soldiers (Chelsea House, 1997). Grades 6-12.

WEB SITES

* African-American Deputy Marshals nps.gov/fosm/history/court/blackusdm.htm

* Nat Love's autobiography (links to full text, original illustrations, etc.) docsouth.unc.edu/neh/natlove/menu.html