The Black West (6th expanded edition) by William L Katz

Now, I knew there were black cowboys growing up in the New Lots section of East New York, Brooklyn because I used to see black men riding on horseback through the streets in my neighborhood. Yes, in Brooklyn, New York City. They belonged to the Black Cowboys Association of Brooklyn and had a corral on South Conduit off Linden Boulevard.  When you made that turn off Linden Boulevard on to the South Conduit, you’d see their corral with signs posted noting historical black cowboys as you drove past.  It was so cool – I’d read those signs every time I passed by!  Unfortunately, they lost their license to operate the corral in 2016 (that corral is now licensed by GallopNYC, a non-profit helping the disabled through therapeutic riding).

The movie I mentioned did use several actual living people as characters.  Their names are included in the story, but not much about their actual lives is, which is a shame, but that is the filmmaker’s choice – it’s fiction after all.  This film checked all the boxes for a Hollywood film – action, violence, the pretty girl – but content dealing with blacks in the west, not so much at all, in my opinion.  They basically, took these names for characters and threw them all together. In the real, they lived at different times, different places, never met. The film is a source of entertainment, not a tool for history, again, in my opinion.

This book, however, is filled from beginning to end with a rich history of blacks in the American continent going back for centuries, most of which I did not know about.  From since the first Spaniard explorers landing in the Americas, they were accompanied by Africans, who became guides and interpreters for them.  Black men were trappers, fur traders and mountain men, sought out to negotiate with Native Americans.  This is from the 1500’s – 1800’s. 

So much of American history where black people were major players, has not been mentioned.  To mention just a few while giving this book a read: The founder of Chicago, frontiersman and businessman, Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable (1718-1818), was born in Haiti and educated in France. In the Lewis and Clark expedition, that charted the Louisiana Territory in 2 ½ years (8/31/1803 – 9/25/1806), a black man named York, Clark’s childhood companion and slave, was also on this expedition at his side.  York was helpful in winning the friendship of several tribes.  York was over six feet tall and weighed over 200 lbs, hard to miss.  There are accounts of him in expedition journals, but he is not mentioned or noticed in history.  Clark would eventually free York and gave him a wagon and six horses so he could start his own business.  Jim Beckwourth (1798-1866), was a legendary mountain man, Indian fighter and Indian Chief, who travelled to territories Daniel Boone never saw, but it’s Boone who is portrayed as the great frontiersman and hero.  A 1951 Universal Pictures film, Tomahawk, did portray Jim Beckwourth, but he was played by a white actor!  Blacks were here and were important contributors in American history from the beginning of European contact with these shores. 

The Ohio Valley was settled by whites and blacks as early as the 1780’s.  These early settlers were veterans from the Revolutionary War.  Later in the early 1800’s some blacks came as freed slaves, several of their former owners helped them with getting land parcels.  However, black code laws weren’t just passed in the slave South to keep blacks in line, they were also passed in the Midwest to keep black numbers down and keep newcomers out.  Whether blacks came to territories in the Midwest and West as slave or free, laws were passed to make whites the dominant, competitive force, excluding blacks from voting, testifying in court, owning land and attending public schools, but still blacks found ways to survive and even thrive.  Throughout the Midwest and West, blacks as business owners, housekeepers, midwives, skilled tradesman, cowboys, ranch and plantation managers, worked to help build towns and cities and fought alongside their white allies for their rights as citizens. 

This book doesn’t read like the history taught in schools.  Many blacks were turned away from service at the beginning of the Civil War.  For two years Abraham Lincoln fought to win the war, bring states back into the Union without freeing a single slave.  Black and Native American recruits joined John Brown’s army and conducted raids in Missouri and Kansas.  John Brown is barely mentioned in school books; this army of men continued to fight in his name even after his death in 1852.  The military success of these fighters of color helped move Lincoln toward the Emancipation Proclamation, opening the floodgate of even more recruits, helping win the war. 

The author of The Black West makes note of several of the people that were characters in the movie mentioned above.  Some were gunslingers and famous cowboys.  Some were outlaws that were caught by the law and died young.  The author devotes chapters and sections to cowboys and other horsemen – buffalo soldiers and jockeys (the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby was black). These are just a few bits of information mentioned in this title; there is so much more within its 298 pages.

I say instead of, or before making, more black westerns, we as a population should read more history.  Reading this book was an eye-opening experience (and I read history).  African Americans have a full and rich history spanning many centuries in the Americas, but it has been ignored, even erased.  Hollywood has been an accomplice in the white-wash of this history, from its beginnings to even today. If you want to know about black people in the West, read books written by Willian L. Katz and other historians.  American history includes people of color and whites, both men and women.  Any narrative that does not include everyone, is incomplete and inaccurate.  I hope you give The Black West by William L. Katz a read.