Flyin' West Act 1 Scene III

Slavery was abolished in 1865 (XIII Amendment)

Section 1 of the XIV Amendment (1868) stated that. . . .

All persons born or naturalized in the united States, and subject to jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, (without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws).

Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow was the nineteenth-century American version of apartheid. These unconstitutional laws are away the legal rights and human dignity of Blacks in the South, imposing the separation of the races as the only acceptable way of life for Whites. Based on the separate but equal doctrine, Jim Crow affected everyday Black-White relations - from the workplace to travel and entertainment.

The first jim Crow Law came into operation in Tennessee (1875) and was soon followed by the other ex-Confederate States. The railroads were a prime target for separate but equal treatment. The Louisiana rail road 'law' of 1890 provided separate carriages for Black passengers. Homer Plessy had been arrested for travelling in a White-only carriage. In 1892 he challenged this in the State courts but lost. Secretly supported by the railroads (who had incurred enormous expense in providing separate cars), the case was taken on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 1896 ruling of the Supreme Court found that the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment did not debar separate but equal accommodation. This made Jim Crow Laws constitutional. These Jim Crow laws remained in effect in most southern states until the 1960's.

Passing for White
There was a train of thought that believe that the lighter the skin the more accepted Blacks became in White society. Light-skinned Blacks or mixed-race slaves could 'pass for' (be mistaken for or act as) being White. To pass for White for some simply meant self preservation and acceptance. To others it meant the denial of the Black race and culture and an incomprehensible demonstration of self hate.

House or Field?
The 'Field Negro' performed hard labour and worked the land. 'Field' was commonly used as an adjective for an unyielding and combative attitude to being captive. The 'House Negro' chiefly worked as a domestic servant, often in the house of a slave master, 'House' was an adjective used to describe a more placid and compliant attitude toward being a slave.

Lynching &; Mob Rule
(from 'Historical &; Cultural Atlas of African Americans' by Asante &; Matson)

The lynching of Africans in the South became one of the greatest blots on American society at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century. In 1872, twelve Africans were reported Lynched. Twenty years later the reported number had reached 255. Benjamin Brawley claims that 'within a period of thirty-five years not less than 3200 Negro men and women were lynched within the boundaries of the United States, and sometimes the burning or mutilation of the victims was savage in its brutality'. Exploitation of Black labour could not exist without deprivation of political rights and denial of justice of justice in the courts. Thus the South proclaimed that Blacks were inferior and were to receive inferior wages and services.

By 1893, white mobs lynched and African a day. Crime against a white woman was the reason most frequently given as to what justified the lynching. However Brawley says that 'this did not figure in more than 30% of the cases recorded 'over a thirty year period. The most common cause was murder growing out of disputes over wages. The situation did not moderate with the entry into the First Worsld War. Black soldiers returned from war and had the same conditions of segregation, lynching and racism to greet them.

Black Life in the West
Black men and women played a fundamental role in the development of America long before the western frontier was established, from those travelling with Columbus to those who were already ther when Columbus arrived. Often the Black people who accompanied the explorers were slaves and were consequently unmentioned in later documentation.

Recognising the African presence on the western frontier prompts key questions about the truth in the way that the West developed. This is in conflict with the way American history has generally been written. Failing to mention Black involvement, as most texts on the West do, suggests that Blacks played no part in building the country. The Black frontier experience was ignored when history was put into print and consequently denied Blacks, and others, the right to accurate historical information.

It was not until the 1960's and the Civil Rights Movement that histories of Black cowboys were being told, 'The Negro Cowboys' (1965) Philip Durham and Everett L. Jones, and 'The Buffalo Soldiers' (1967), William H. Leckie. Ignoring the fundamental Black presence continued with the development of the media and in particular with Hollywood's epic portrayals of the West. The films were about cowboys and Indians, depicting cunning adorable white cowboys versus the evil, ignorant and rather less adorable Indians. Black people did not feature at all.

The Cowboys
Life in the western territories was dangerous. Outlaws controlled by their laws and those of the gun. Distinction in the West was gained by killing. By 1877 the Texas wanted list numbered five thousand. Despite the violence, by 1890, there were half a million Black men, women and children living in Texas and Oklahoma alone.

Cherokee Bill
Proclaimed as the Black counterpart to Billy The Kid.

He was born on the military reserve of Fort Concho. Texas, where his father was a soldier in the famed 10th Cavalry. At age 3 his parents separated. Aged 12 his mother remarried making no room for him in the new home. At 18 he had his first shoot-out, wounding a middle-aged Black man who had beaten him in a fist fight. He became a scout with the Cherokee Nation, and then with Creek and Seminole Nations. In 1894, he joined with Cool brothers' outlaw gang. Unlike white outlaws, he was able to travel over Indian lands without fear of attack. During his short life he was famed for his firearms and rapid fire skills.

A month before his 20th birthday he was sentenced to die for his many crimes. On his dying day he commented,
'this is about as good a day as any to die'. Asked if he had any last words he told the judge, 'I came here to die not to make a speech'. Judge Parker of Arkansas, the famous 'hanging judge' described him as a human monster from whom innocent people could expect no safety.

Mary Fields
Known as Stage Coach Mary.

Born in a Tennessee slave cabin she was six feet tall and strong. In 1884, she worked for the Ursuline nuns, hauling freight. One night, whilst working, wolves attached her wagon and she spent the night keeping them at bay with her rifle. Always ready to fight, she would protect herself in any way she felt necessary. She was fired from the Catholic mission due to a shoot out with a man. In 1895, now in her sixties, she worked for the U.S. mail delivering letters. She quickly gained a reputation for getting her work done whatever the weather or terrain.

During her seventies she ran a laundry and spent time in the local saloon drinking and smoking cigars with men. She was known to have knocked down a customer for not paying his laundry bill. She regarded the beating as sufficient payment for he work. By the time she died in 1914 she had mellowed dramatically, giving her neighbours no clue as to her former antics.

Isom Dart
Famed for his attempts to go straight.

Born into slavery in Arkansas in 1849, and shot dead in 1900 he had tried, without succeeding, to go straight many times. He was probably killed by Tom Horn, one of the West's most notorious hired assassins. He was a rodeo clown and cattle thief. He gave up rustling to become a prospector and then a bronco-buster. He then went back to rustling and became a member of the Gault gang. One night whilst he was burying a friend who was kicked to death by a horse, the gang were ambushed and killed. He survived by spending the night in the grave alongside his dead companion.

On being arrested by a deputy sheriff from Sweetwater county, Wyoming, the deputy's buckboard ran off the road, injuring the deputy but leaving Dart unscathed. He gave the deputy first aid, calmed the horses, lifted the buckboard onto its wheels, drove the deputy to hospital and turned himself in. He was released for his good behaviour.

Some Cowboy Facts
The first man shot in Dodge City was a cowboy named Tex, a bystander to a fight between two White men. He was Black.

The first man to be jailed in Abilene's new stone jail was Black. His friends staged the first jailbreak and shot up the town.

In the Black town of Boley, Oklahoma, a White horseman shot Dick Shafer, the Black town Marshall. Fallinf from his horse he shot and killed his assailant before dying himself. Shortly after, the Boley Town Council elected another Black man as Marshall.

Britton Johnson became a local legend as the best shot on the Texas frontier during and immediately after the Civil War. A Black man.

Among the cowboys on the last frontier, 5 thousand Black men helped drive cattle up the Chisolm Trail after the Civil War. The crew of 8 would usually have 2 Black cowboys.

Black cowboys found less discrimination out on the trail than in the towns, and more equality on the ranch than in the frontier communities. Historian Kenneth Porter states that Black cowboys probably suffered less discrimination than in any other occupation at the time anywhere in the nation. They were hired to do the hardest work as bronco busters. They received equal wages and despite their lower rank, Blacks and Whites slept together. Socially however, segregation was apparent, with Blacks an Whites being served at opposite ends of the bar. It should also be noted that if White women were present. Barriers were immediately put up to Black cowboys.

Black men were not only cowboys, but also played a significant role in Western military life. Black men were continuously used to fight battles on the western front. Their achievements as fighters were remarkable, yet their numerous battle victories seldom, if ever, benefited them directly.

The Homesteaders
In 1860 the Homestead Act was announced. It offered 320 acres of land to U.S. citizens who were prepared to settle in the West. When the Homestead Act was being discussed in Congress in 1860, a Senator from Wisbonsin said he supported it,

'because its benign operation will postpone for centuries, if it will not forever, all serious conflict between capital and labour in the older free states, withdrawing their surplus population to create in greater abundance the means of subsistence'.

This did not happen. What took place was three decades of the most bitter and widespread labour trouble that had yet been seen in the United States. It also failed to bring peace to the farm country of the West. Black people moved out West to find that there was no land for them, or that it had been taken away by speculators. It was not however, purely the Homestead Act that encouraged Blacks to go out West.

By the late 1870's White supremacy ruled every area of the South. Free Blacks were still being beaten and treated as slaves. A committee of 500 Black men was formed in the South. The committee appealed to the President and the Senate 'to help us out of our distress, or protect us in our rights and privileges'. When this plea was unheeded the committee then asked for land in the West or money to be shipped to Liberia in Africa, where they could live in peace and quiet. When this was ignored they considered asking other governments to let them live under their flag outside of the U.S.

Due to the lack of favourable responses Black initiatives continued and in 1879 Henry Adams and his committee organised what was later called 'Exodus of 1879' a huge Black migration into Kansas. Propoganda for migrating to Kansas has been in circulation since 1874 - by courtesy of Benjamin 'Pap' Singleton. 'Pap' Singleton was one of the leaders of this movement, who called himself Moses and his followers of the Exodusters. The 1879 mass exodus saw over 20,000 penniless Blacks reach Kansas. They went by boat along the Mississippi, or walked up the Chisolm Trail. They went in hope of owning their own land and homes.

Local leaders of the Exodus were driven out of towns or beaten, by White supremacists who were now afraid of losing labour. By May 1879 White Mississippi's had closed the river and threatened to sink all boats carrying Black migrants. Every river landing was blockaded by White enemies of the exodus. One Kansas settler had his hands chopped off and was thrown to his wife with the comment., 'Now go to work in Kansas'.

By 1879 Democrats in Congress ordered a full scale investigation of the exodus. They feared it was a Rebublican plot to move voteless Black men into areas where they could and would vote Republican. A year later in 1880, a Senate committee dominated by Democrats began calling Black witnesses to discover what was going on. After 1700 pages of testimony, the Senate learned that it was not a Republican conspiracy but White oppression, coupled with the possibility of owning land in Kansas, which caused Blacks to move West.

In Kansas the Exodusters faced severe problems in terms of accommodation and living conditions. A harsh winter climate and little protection against the elements saw many Blacks dying shortly after their arrival. In Nicodemus, the only Black settlement left in Kansas, the settlers spent their first winter in dugouts and were unable to build their first homes until the following spring. Shortly afterwards, they were struck by repeated crop failures and finally had their crops blown away by a searing wind that left the rest of Kansas untouched. The Exodusters did however, receive some relief and within a few years they had purchased 23,000 acres of land and built 300 homes.

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