Black Fur Traders and Frontiersmen in The American West

When we look at American history even black history, our past doesn’t tell us much about black people who played a significant role in the development of the American West. It seems like all the major accomplishments that black men and women made out West aren’t important in history. We are here to tell you that they were. From the birth of the nation until the 1840’s the fur trade was one of the vanguards of the American Industry. When you look at business in America it could be compared to Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegies and John D. Rockefellers. At that time women wore coats, hats and collars made from beaver. Every man wore a hat that was also made form beaver. The American fur trade played a major role in the development of the United States and Canada for more than 300 years. When we do research and look at history, history tells us that some of the most famous fur companies were can John Jacobs Astor’s American Fur Company, Hudson Bay Company which is the oldest company in North America and Manuel Lisa’s Missouri Fur Company. Like all aspects of American History, the fur trade is a many layered story of different cultures.

Native Americans had been in the business since the 1500’s. The American West was big because of fur trade and the role that African Americans played out West. Any time you look up history of fur trade in the American West you will repeatedly come across references of black mountain men, traders and even black voyagers in the American fur trade. Blacks held positions in the fur trade ranging from slave to free trappers and from camp keeper to independent entrepreneur. Slavery was still legal in the United States during the fur trade era and numerous traders and fur company principals utilized slaves to help create their fur trade empires. William Clark's slave, York, who apparently never had any other name, accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition across the continent and back. While the men of the expedition were said to have worked well, it was also said by one of the two leaders of the expedition that the only two who could be relied on to do as they were told were York and the Newfoundland dog, Scammon. Fur trapper Davy Jackson's slave, known only as Jim, accompanied an expedition to California through Santa Rita del Cobre in Mexico, and over the desolate Gila trail. Trading posts often had black employees in various capacities including horse wrangler, cook, trader, laborer, interpreter, hunter and trapper. Jim Hawkins was a black man working at Fort Union Trading Post on the upper Missouri River. Hawkins was the cook at Fort Union and later held the same job at Fort Laramie in present day Wyoming.

Hawkins ran away with a company boat while at Fort Union and went to work for Pierre Sarpy. He was evidently a slave and sent some of his pay to his master in St. Louis and kept the rest. Fort Union was also home to Jasper, a black man whose job at the fur trading post was not recorded. There was several Black Frontiersman as well. Jacob Dodson and Sanders Jackson were both free blacks who accompanied John C. Fremont on his expedition to California in 1848. Dodson went with Fremont and Kit Carson on all three expeditions to California and Oregon and braved the same threats and hazardous conditions as the rest of the group. Dodson also fought in California's struggle for independence during the Bear Flag revolt. Oregon frontiersman George William Bush was an African-American who had seen combat as a soldier during the battle of New Orleans in 1814. In the mid-19th Century, Bush and his party of white companions rode from the Mexican border to the Columbia River only to find that the territory had passed a law stipulating that any black who entered Oregon would be seized and whipped to discourage settlement.

Many blacks founds themselves attracted to the free life of the fur trapper and voyageur. None was more famous that James Pierson Beckwourth. The son of a slave mother and a white plantation owner, Beckwourth would see the fur trade run its course and would experience a meteoric rise to notoriety and success. His skill and suitability to the wilderness environment in which he found himself were awe inspiring. His ability and eagerness to learn and master fur trade skills was phenomenal. Beckwourth succeeded in becoming one of the most skillful, powerful and dramatic of that rare breed of free trappers.

Beckwourth's career spanned almost fifty years and saw him advance from wrangler to cook, then on to hunter, trapper, interpreter, trader, war chief of a band of Crow Indians, explorer, soldier, scout and ghostwriter of an autobiography. Beckwourth was also a hotel keeper and pioneer California rancher. Despite dismissals from certain historians over the years, Beckwourth's story of life during the fur trade era has emerged again under the light of recent historical evaluations and discoveries as a useful and largely accurate document reflecting what life was like during the hey-day of the American Fur trade.

Other black trappers and mountaineers including Edward Rose, a notorious brigand whose life story is almost as fantastic as that of Beckwourth. There is also Auguste Janisse and Polette Labrosse whose paths in the Rocky Mountains crossed those of others whose stories were recorded. Peter Ranne, a free black, rode with Jedediah Smith over the Mojave Desert during that grueling journey that threatened the life of the toughest mountaineer. Ranne is thought by some to be the first black to have come to California over a land route. In conclusion the American fur trade would not have been successful without black slaves, pioneers and frontiersman. History in America today dose not teach us or tell about these black men and women who helped establish the American West. We cannot forget who they are and what they have done for our country.