"Blacks in the West Before the 20th Century": unpublished manuscript by Roosevelt Fitzgerald

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
ETHNIC STUDIES
BLACKS IN THE WEST BEFORE THE 20th CENTURY
The Hernan Cortes expedition through the southwest brought the first non-Indians into that region. Among them was a black man, Estevan, who served as
scout and interpreter. Over 270 years later, in 1803, the Lewis and Clark
Expedition into the Louisiana Territory also brought a black man, York, who
functioned in much the same capacity as had Estevan.
By the time of the westward expansion of the United States, many runaway
slaves who had lived among different Indian groups of the west and could speak
some of the many Indian dialects, were engaged by the several expeditions to the
west as scouts. Beginning with the John C. Fremont expedition of the mid-1820s,
blacks could be found throughout the Rocky Mountain west.
The most famous of the black mountainmen of the period was Jim Beckwourth who
first came to the areas of Nevada and California with Fremont. He later became
an honorary chieftain of the Shoshone, discovered a safe passageway through the
Sierra Nevada mountains between California and Washoe (Nevada) and named it the
Beckwourth Pass and served as a scout with the U.S. Cavalry. There were many others.
During California's short territorial period between the discovery of gold
in 1843 and annexation in 1850, a black man, Pio Pico, served as governor. Many
blacks were in California, Nevada and Arizona during the gold rush and Comstock
days of the mid 19th century. While they experienced some difficulty actively
participating in mining activity due to discriminatory boomtown laws which often
excluded blacks, Mexicans, Indians and Asians from participating, they were able
to eke out a living in other ways.
UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS/4505 MARYLAND PARKWAY/LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89154/(702) 739-3590
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William Robinson rode, for the Pony Express. Mary Fields drove a stagecoach. Following the Civil War, many ex-slaves migrated to the west and became farmers or did other things. Some wer? barbers, restauranteurs, ran boarding houses as did Mammy Pleasant in San Francisco. Black soldiers were reassigned to the west and could be found throughout Arizona and their presence was recorded by the painter Fredric Remington. Others were cowboys and had been since the 1820s in Texas when first brought there by the Austin family of Virginia. Some, like Ben Hodges and Isom Dart, became outlaws. Deadwood Dick was an acquaintance of Butch and Sundance. There were sheriffs and businessmen and schoolteachers. They ran the gamut; the good, the bad and the ugly and they joined in with all of the other ethnic and racial groups in making the southwest what it is today.