Living with the Indians

by James P. Beckwourth

BEFORE READING

Background

Living in the wilderness, the mountain men adopted Indian dress and habits and frequently married Indian women. One account of living with the Indians comes from the autobiography of James P. Beckwourth, the son of a white man and an African-American slave woman, Beckwourth's father had freed him from slavery when he came of age and Beckwourth soon went west with a fur-trading expedition. Beckwourth spent the next quarter century in the Rocky Mountains, where he became a famous mountain man, trapper, guide, translator, scout, and explorer.

Like other African-Americans of the early 19th century, Beckwourth found freedom of movement and social and economic opportunity in the West. Through the 1830s and 1840s, fugitive slaves from the South found refuge in or near settlements of Mexicans, Indians, and Asian Americans. In the far West, some blacks were Afro-Spaniards and slaves brought to colonial Mexico. Afro-Spaniards often intermarried with the Indians. In 1794, 56% of Los Angeles's population was part black.

Some of the most adventurous African Americans became fur trappers and traders, exploring much of the Rocky Mountain area. Trapper Peter Ranne was part of the first group of Americans to reach California. In 1825, another African-American, Moses Harris was the first non-Indian to explore the Great Salt Lake area. James P. Beckwourth and Edward Rose, along with other mountain men, crisscrossed the far western states. Though some black settlers migrated West and some participated in the Gold Rush, the largest African-American migration occurred after slavery ended in 1865. Between 1870 and 1900 1,000 blacks homesteaded in Colorado, 4,000 in Nebraska, 40,000 in Kansas, and over 100,000 in Oklahoma. These newcomers sometimes created all-black settlements and some became socially and economically prominent. Barney L, Ford, for example, became one of Colorado's richest men.

In this selection, James P. Beckwourth, mountain man, tells of his experiences with the Crow Indians.

About the Author

James P. Beckwourth (1798-1866), U.S. frontiersman, soldier, and mountain man, was born in Virginia, the son of Sir Jennings Beckwith-a minor Irish aristocrat and Revolutionary War major-and a mulatto slave woman. Sir Jennings moved to Louisiana Territory and, by 1810, to St. Louis. In St. Louis, Sir Jennings freed his slave son when he reached manhood.

In 1822, Beckwourth joined the rush to the Fever River lead mines, and then went to New Orleans. In 1824, he joined General William Ashley's supply expedition to fur trappers in the Rocky Mountains. Apparently Beckwourth served as blacksmith, groom, and Ashley's servant. Beckwourth became a trapper and a mountain man, wintering in 1825-1826 with the famous western explorer Jedediah Smith. Smith was the first American citizen to travel overland to California, cross the Great Basin, and journey up the California coast to Oregon.

The facts of Beckwourth's life are difficult to separate from fictional exaggerations. But it is known that he worked for various Rocky Mountain Fur Company partners and then was adopted into a tribe of Crow Indians, living with them for at least six years. In 1837, Beckwourth returned to St. Louis for a few years, and then fought in Florida's Seminole War with General Zachary Taylor. He later was a trader on the Santa Fe Trail, a horse thief in California, a guide, a messenger, and a mail rider. After 1846, he ran a saloon in Santa Fe, joined California's Gold Rush, and found a trail through the Sierra Nevada Mountains named Beckwourth Pass in his honor. As immigrants poured into California, he housed them at his ranch, trading post, and hotel for immigrants. In 1854, a New Englander named Thomas D. Bonner was fascinated by Beckwourth's stories and interviewed him, producing The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation (1856), which reportedly is full of exaggerations.

In 1858, Beckwourth went back to St. Louis, then to the Pike's Peak area, seeking gold. He worked as a guide, a trapper, an interpreter. He died in 1866 or 1867 while on a visit to the Crow Indians.

Captain Bridger—Jim Bridger (1804-1881), famous fur trapper and mountain man.

entail—bring about.

inevitable—unavoidable.

Crows—Plains Indian people generally friendly to whites.

Shi-ans—Cheyennes, a Plains Indian people.

dilated—widened.

visage—face.

pretensions—claims.

quailed—shrank back in fear; cowered.

breastwork—defense.

wellnigh—nearly.

toilet—grooming.

opulence—wealth.

irrevocable—unalterable.

patrimony—property from her father; that is, a dowry.

deportment—behavior.

connubial—relating to

DURING READING

Use the STUDY GUIDE below as a way to work through the selection and improve your comprehension of the essay.

AFTER READING

Answer the Questions to Consider in the book as a way to deepen your interpretation of the selection.

1. Why did the Crows believe that Beckwourth was a member of their tribe who had been kidnapped by the Cheyenne?

2. Why did Beckwourth let the Crows believe he was one of their people?

3. What attitude in general did Beckwourth seem to have toward the Indians?

Bibliography

The American West

Isabella Bird. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (reprinted 1987). An adventurous Victorian Englishwoman's journeys in the Rockies, as told in her vivid letters to her sister.

George Catlin. North American Indians (1841, 1989). Catlin's notes on and paintings of the Plains Indians between 1786 and 1812, his attempt to record their dying way of life.

Donald Dale Jackson. Gold Dust (1980). The fascinating story of the California Gold Rush, 1840 to 1850, and of the people who went to the West to strike it rich.

Helen Hunt Jackson. A Century of Dishonor (1881). An American author's history of mistreatment of the Indians by the government and white settlers in the West.

Lauren Katz. The Black West (1987). The struggles and experiences of Black Americans who went to the West to take their chances at building new lives.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1981). A shortened version of the daily journals of the West's explorers, written in 1804-1806.

Franklin Ng. The Asians in America (1998). A six-volume study of the Asian experience in the United States.

Francis Parkman. The Oregon Trail (1950). A classic text in which an articulate Harvard-educated lawyer records his adventures on the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s.

Joanne L. Stratton. Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier (1981). Fascinating first-person accounts from 800 women pioneers who settled in Kansas in the 1800s.

Earl H. Swanson. The Ancient Americas (1989). A survey of the Indian cultures of North and South America from the pre-Columbian through New World eras.

Jon Manchip White. Everyday Life of the North American Indian (1979). An analysis of Indian civilizations with information on the daily lives of medicine men, hunters, artists, and other tribal social groups.