One Saturday afternoon, while watching old black and white westerns on TV, I wondered about the real cowboys of the 17th and 1800s: their true physical makeup… their true character(s). (s) and lifestyle. I was wondering why the Black Cowboys weren’t featured…or talked about…on TV. I wondered why when we were young we rooted for character actors like John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Buster Crabb, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter and so many others who came to the rescue of the colonists. We cheered the cavalry with their trumpets blaring as they rode out to save the day. They saved the strong, the women and children, the townspeople, and they rescued the herds every Saturday and Sunday in the movies and on television.
They also killed and massacred the Indians… the Native Americans… the real Americans who… (the Original Homeland Security) have been fighting terrorism since 1492. They, the good guys, killed hundreds of thousands in the name of posterity and the betterment of white America… and we cheer.
We as young, black moviegoers, book readers, and viewers cheer for the good guys in white hats who caught the girl and rode off into the sunset… cheer for the all-white cast of heroes and heroines. . Were there no colored heroes? When Chuck Conners played The Great Chieftain Geronimo, we cheered. Charles Bronson introduced Chato… we cheered. We mourned emphatically for the Cheyenne when they were captured and herded. Why didn’t we stop supporting the all-white cast of characters back then…especially when we realized there was such a big difference in racial makeup?
Later, in the ’60s, we have Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte from “Buck and The Preacher.” They were two black characterizations of pioneers who communicated with Native Americans. In this kinship, honest treatment and mutual respect prevailed. Brother Jim Brown was another role model that we all look up to. He got the girl and some freedom too. Although, they would manage to find a way to kill the Brother before the movie was over. Where were the common Black Cowboys? heroes who taught white cowboys how to be cowboys? They were taught to ride and lasso… to lead, to fight and to dominate bulldogs. Current and past rodeo shows rarely have black cowboys on their rides… The Black Cowboys had to create their own rodeo show(s) yesterday and today. The white west wanted us to believe that there were no Black Cowboys, only slaves… and we believed them.
We were told that Bill Pickett and Willis Meade (remember Lonesome Dove?) were white when they were actually known to be black… and we believed them. Have you ever seen movies and TV shows where army troops and wagons use scouts that were always white? Did you stop and wonder how these white frontiersmen came to know the lay of the land? How could they communicate with the Native American war parties when all they have done is bring slaughter, ruin and death to these noble people?
The Black Man and the (so-called) Red Man were, in fact, relatives! Did he ever wonder about his friend who told him about his Indian relatives…his grandparents…his great-grandparents? Many of us have been led to believe that they wanted to be identified, like others who are not black, they did not want to be black. People said things like: “they are not Indians, they just don’t want to be black because their heads are in diapers and they want to be like the whites.” We have heard many say that they are children of Cherokee, Seminole or Black Feet. Many of us didn’t believe it… guess what? I have news for you… we were wrong, dead wrong! Not believing them was another of the deceitful paths and stripped heritage denied to us by the descendants of Europeans who claimed this land as their own. We as African Americans have more Indian blood than you think… or would like to believe.
William L. Katz, author of forty books, scholar-in-residence at Teachers College, Columbia University, consultant to the Smithsonian Institution in New York City, has done extensive research on “Black Indian” history. Mr. Katz’s work includes studies and writings on The Black West, Black Women of the Old West, and Afro American Slave Resistance. He has insightful data and information that substantiates our Red, Black, Asian, Latino, Native American, and White bloodlines.
The Old West, as told in white European American history books, refused to acknowledge the fact of black contributions (except slave labor) to the West in America, as well as other facets of the West’s efforts and efforts to build the nation.
Black names in many old (and new) movies and TV shows were in use… but they were given to white characters. William “Bill” Pickett (“The Dark Demon”), Bose (Boise) Ikard, George Monroe, William Robinson, Willis Meade aka Willis Peoples of Meade, Kansas, and Pvt. George Washington were just a few famous black pioneers graced with the use of the name by white film and television actors and filmmakers.
“Today, most Black Indians do not live in the forests or the wide plains of the U.S. Rooster reservations on Long Island, New York. But many more walk the busy streets of nearby New York City They are found in abundance in the concrete caverns of Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, Cleveland and Detroit,” according to Katz.
Tourists visiting Oklahoma City, Oklahoma can see the monument to black cowboy Bill Pickett at the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Known as the “Dark Demon,” Pickett is credited with inventing the sport “Bulldogging” and was a star of the 101 Ranch Show. Ranch owner Bill Miller considered Pickett the best cowboy he had ever met. Pickett died in 1935. The “Good Night Trail” was the route along which huge herds of steers were herded. Charles Goodnight, a white man, owned the herds. The trail led from Texas through New Mexico to the rail hubs of Colorado. Boise Ikard was the cowboy Goodnight depended on the most to take his child to market. The Black Cowboy not only saved the lives of the owners of the herd, but also the lives of an entire crew of cowboys. He saved the cowboy crew when a herd of cattle became agitated and suddenly stampeded. Goodnight erected a monument to Ikard, his friend, after his death in 1929.
The Pony Express started in 1860. It allowed mail to go as far west as San Francisco, California. Letters from the East went as far as the railroad could take them, St. Joseph Missouri. From there, a series of expert horsemen relayed the mail to Sacramento, California. Both rider and horse traveled some seventy-five miles. They needed to have a great stamina to render the service. George Monroe, one of the Black Pony Express Riders, carried the mail from Merced to Mary Sosa, California. Another Black Horseman was William Robinson. His journey was from Stockton to the gold mining regions. The sight of a Pony Express Rider was a welcome sight. It did not matter if the rider was White or Black. Home mail was a very welcome sight throughout the West. Brother Willis “Meade” Peoples was a black rancher from Meade, Kansas who gained local fame when he tracked down and killed the infamous predator “Two-Toes.” “Two-Toes” was a wolf that killed a lot of cattle in that area. Private George Washington was a member of the famous All-Black Tenth Cavalry. He was appointed to join in the capture of “Billy the Kid”. Washington persuaded Billy to meet with lawman Lew Wallace.
These true-to-life heroes and American contributors could and should be role models for everyone: Black, White, Asian, Latino, Mexican, Native American, etc., kids and adults alike rather than an all-white cast of characters.
“Citizens celebrate this country’s audacious break from colonial rule and rejoice at the brave soldiers who defied the British at Lexington and Concord. But a month before those historic skirmishes on the road to freedom, other Americans were chasing the same goal. Slaves in Ulster County, New York planned a massive armed uprising. Perhaps they had heard the exciting patriotic talk of freedom and independence. Their liberation plot involved slaves in Kingston, Hurley, Marble Town and more than five hundred Native Americans. Unlike the Minutemen, their shot was not heard around the world, their audacious plot never made it into the American or European history books.”
On March 5, 1770, Crispus Attucks, a black Natick Indian, dramatically entered American history in Boston, says Katz. “He was the first to fall in the Boston Massacre. Attucks was transformed into a Nantucket Indian. It seemed wrong to place an African American with Native American blood in the first moment of American independence,” according to Benson J. Lossing. Historians in America and Europe knew that African Americans had a history and refused to acknowledge or record it. With few weapons, alliances between blacks and (so-called) reds in the forests challenged the footholds that Europeans built in the Western Hemisphere, says Katz. “Using guerrilla tactics that would become famous in China and Viet Nam in our own country, the Red and Black Peoples defeated outnumbered and better equipped foreign armies. They did this while leading their families out of harm’s way. These dark liberators a Europeans often demonstrated that government in the Americas amounted to a thin coat of white paint on a seething Dark Empire.”
In the movies, generations of young minds have been trained to think of life on the American frontier as a saga of white gallantry: John Wayne’s cowboys whipped the Indians to give us the United States while children of all races gloated. with the version of the border that was offered to them every Saturday afternoon.
Agreeing with Katz, I too believe in the actual desert where two people of dark complexion met and often bonded. They weren’t driven together by any special affinity based on skin color: European enemies inadvertently arranged the meetings… exploited both. Mr. Katz and I also agree that the retelling of our Western (American) history, Africans and Native Americans, separately and together, bravely fought for an America they knew was also theirs…ours. . Perhaps the history of African Americans and Native Americans was trampled underfoot by their European enemies. Sidney Poitier, Mario Van Peebles and other great Black and Native American actors, producers, television and film people got it right. American and European history books can also do well.
Until next time…