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 shown…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 many others who came to the rescue of the settlers. We cheered on the cavalry with their trumpets blaring as they rode out to save the day. They saved the forts, the women and children, the townspeople, and they rescued the herds every Saturday and Sunday in the movies and on TV.
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 television viewers, cheer for the good boys 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 wept emphatically for the Cheyenne as 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 a huge 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 communicating with Native Americans. In this relationship, 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 Brother before the movie ended. 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 tame the bulldogs. Current and past rodeo shows rarely have black cowboys on their rides… 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.
They told us that Bill Pickett and Willis Meade (remember Lonesome Dove?) were white when they were 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 warbands 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, as others who are not black did not want to be black. People were saying things like, “they’re not Indian, they just don’t want to be black because their heads are in diapers and they want to be like white people.” We have heard many say that they are Cherokee, Seminole, or Black Feet children. 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 inheritance 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, resident scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University, consultant to the Smithsonian Institution in New York City, has done extensive research on the history of “black Indians.” Mr. Katz’s work includes studies and writing on The Black West, Black Women of the Old West, and Afro American Slave Resistance. He has insightful information and facts that corroborate our Red, Black, Asian, Latino, Native American, and White bloodlines.
The Old West, as told in the 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 construction efforts. the nation.
The names of black people in many old (and new) movies and TV shows were in use… but were given to white characters. William “Bill” Pickett (“The Dark Fiend”), 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 woods or on the wide plains of the US 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 of “Bulldogging” and was a star of the 101 Ranch Show. Bill Miller, owner of the ranch, considered Pickett the best cowboy he had ever known. Pickett died in 1935. The “Good Night Trail” was the route along which huge herds of steers were driven. Charles Goodnight, a white man, owned the herds. The trail led from Texas through New Mexico to the railroad hubs of Colorado. Boise Ikard was the cowboy Goodnight depended on most to get his son to market. The Black Cowboy not only saved the lives of the herd owners, but also the lives of an entire crew of cowboys. He saved the crew of cowboys when a herd of cattle stirred and suddenly stampeded. Goodnight erected a monument to Ikard, his friend, after his death in 1929.
The Pony Express began in 1860. It allowed mail to go west to San Francisco, California. Letters from the East went as far as the railroad could take them, St. Joseph Missouri. From that point, a series of skilled horsemen relayed the mail to Sacramento, California. Both rider and horse traveled about seventy-five miles. They needed to have great stamina to serve. George Monroe, one of the Black Pony Express Riders, took 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 didn’t matter if the rider was Black or White. The 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 “Two-Toes” predator. “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 designated to join the capture of “Billy the Kid”. Washington persuaded Billy to meet with lawman Lew Wallace.
These true-to-life heroes and American taxpayers 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 bold break with 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 about freedom and independence. Their liberation plot involved slaves in Kingston, Hurley, Marble Town, and more than five hundred Native Americans. Unlike the Minutemen, his shot went unheard around the world, his daring conspiracy never making it into the American or European history books.”
On March 5, 1770, Crispus Attucks, a black Natick Indian, entered American history dramatically in Boston, Katz says. “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 at 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 woods challenged the footholds the Europeans built in the Western Hemisphere, Katz says. “Using guerrilla tactics that would become famous in China and Viet Nam at home, the Red and Black Peoples defeated outnumbered and better equipped foreign armies. They did this while getting their families out of harm’s way. These dark liberators a They often demonstrated that European rule in the Americas amounted to a thin layer 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 rejoiced. with the version of the border that was offered every Saturday afternoon.
Concurring with Katz, I too believe in the actual desert where two dark complexioned people met and often bonded. They were not 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, fought bravely for an America they knew was theirs too…ours. . Perhaps the history of African Americans and Native Americans was trampled on by their European enemies. Sidney Poitier, Mario Van Peebles, and other great Black and Native American actors, producers, TV and movie people got it right. American and European history books can also do well.
Until next time…