Americas Black West, part 1

JAMES BECKWOURTH

The first Mountain Man Rendezvous was held in the summer of 1825, on Henry's Fork of the Green River. In attendance, among numerous buckskin-clad men, was a newcomer to the trapping trade. He was a young mulatto who went by the name of Jim Beckwourth who hailed from Virginia. When rendezvous ended Beckwourth partnered up with an old mountain man, Caleb Greenwood, and headed for Crow country. As the story goes, or the legend, due to a tall tale told by Greenwood, the Crows were led to believe that Beckwourth was one of their own. It seems that some years back, when Beckwourth was a child, the Cheyenne attack this particular band of Crow and carried off many of their women and children. Now these Crow believed that Beckwourth was one of those lost children and took him into the tribe. Even though the situation began as a prank its outcome was stranger than any truth. After a painful inspection of Jim's eyelid it was discovered that Beckwourth had a mole just where an old woman indicated he should, further proving to the lady's satisfaction that he was, indeed, her son. By Beckwourth's own admission, or yarning, he was later made a chief of this tribe.

BENJAMIN "PAP" SINGLETON

Singleton had been a slave in Tennessee. He was what white slave owners called a "runner" do to the fact that he ran away so many times. But at last, Pap made it to Canada on the Underground Railroad. Like many other slaves, and freed men after the Civil War, Singleton believed the future, and the Promised Land, for Blacks in America was out west. For many Blacks, that Promised Land became Kansas. Singleton endorsed this idea and movement in the years following the war. By 1880 more than fifteen thousand African Americans had migrated to Kansas. Several Black towns sprung up. Among them were such places as Juniper Town, Dunlap, and Rattlebone Hollow. Only one of those settlements remains today, the town of Nicodemus. The pioneering life for the Blacks of Kansas wasn't any different from any other migrating folks. The settlers of Nicodemus spent their first winter there in dugouts. They were hit by repeated crop failures, then searing winds that whipped across the town that blew away much of what few crops remained standing. The situation was well stated by one minister when he said: "We had to suffer and be

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