African-Americans on the Western Frontier

webadmin@brainspiral.com — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:34:29 +0000

African-Americans were active participants on the western frontier, particularly in the years after the Civil War. Many cowboys were black, skilled as cowhands, horsebreakers and riders on the long drive. Although the top jobs of trail boss and ranch foreman were closed to them, blacks often filled the next most authoritative position — the chuckwagon or ranch cook. Blacks also homesteaded. In the late 1870s, tens of thousands of black “Exodusters” fled the poverty and discrimination of the post-Reconstruction South to found farming communities in Kansas, such as Nicodemus. And blacks served with distinction in the Indian Wars of 1865-1890. Two cavalry regiments (the Ninth and Tenth) and two infantry regiments (the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth) of the U.S. Army were composed of blacks, under white officers. These “buffalo soldiers” — as the Indians called them because of the texture of their hair — fought in numerous engagements against Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, Ute and Sioux warriors, several times coming to the aid of beleaguered white troops. they also took part in patrolling the disquiet Texas-Mexican border and staffed the garrisons of many frontier posts. Between 1870 and 1890, 14 black soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery as were four black Army scouts.

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African-Americans on the Western Frontier