Imagining the African American West

Introduction

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [-11], (3) Lines: 27 to ——— 0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Eject [-11], (3) Introduction Did you know that an African American1 cowboy invented the sport known as steer wrestling? Bill Pickett introduced the sport while performing in rodeos in the early twentieth century. After wrestling a steer to the ground, he would bite the animal’s lip, paralyzing the steer and forcing it to surrender to his control.2 Did you know that “The Yellow Rose of Texas” was written by a Texas plantation owner who was in love with one of his slaves? In the mid-nineteenth century, Colonel James Morgan composed the ballad in honor of Emily West, a “high yellow” woman with “golden-skinned” charms.3 Did you know that not all of the Okies who left Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl and who moved to California were white? There were also a number of African American immigrants. Some of them, who are now almost one hundred years old, still live in the small town of Teviston.4 Although whites represent the majority of the population, other races and ethnic groups live in the West. In Westerns, minorities often play subordinate and stereotypical roles. But in reality, non-whites have made major contributions to the West throughout history. Like other racial and ethnic groups, African Americans have been visible in the region for centuries. But scholars did not begin to study the West and its inhabitants until fairly recently. In “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” published in 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner complained that nineteenth-century American historians paid too much attention to the North and the South. While focusing on tensions between the two regions, scholars neglected the West. According to Turner, the Civil War was merely a sectional “incident” and a brief affair compared to westward migration, which was a national movement that continued throughout most of the century.5 xii • introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [-12], (4) Lines: ——— 5.83601pt ——— Normal PgEnds: [-12], (4) Martha Williams, one of the original black Okies, lives with her son Clay in a shack in Teviston, California. (Photograph by Matt Black © 2000) Turner overemphasized the importance of the frontier in order to compensate for the previous lack of attention the West had received. In some fields, such as African American history, the West has continued to play a peripheral role until recently. For example, historians of the nineteenth century have concentrated on African Americans who were slaves in the South and who moved to the North after escaping or receiving their freedom. But what about the African Americans who journeyed to the West during the same period? Since the early sixteenth century, people of African origin have inhabited the western part of the continent. African slaves accompanied early Spanish explorers and later Lewis and Clark. They intermingled with other races, settled throughout the region, and worked in many professions. However, until the twentieth century, people of African heritage, including African Americans, were less numerous in the West than other racial and ethnic minorities. In the nineteenth century, for example, whites were more attuned to the presence of Mexicans and Native Americans because large numbers of indigenous peoples posed a greater threat to American empire than a few thousand African American slaves or freedmen and -women.6 In the states, “the color line” referred to invisible barriers and social and legal distinctions introduction • xiii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [-13], (5) Lines: 59 to ——— 0.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Eject [-13], (5) between blacks and whites.7 The term was not used in the West. But Turner’s phrase “the frontier line” had a similar meaning. 8 It referred to the border between “civilization” and “savagery,” represented by whites and indigenous peoples, respectively. Mexicans...