James Beckwourth

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 1829, Beckwourth had his fill of fur trapping and in January or February of that year he “. . . began his life with the Crow Indians.

 

In his Biography Beckwourth records that he earned the chieftaincy in the Crow Tribe by proving himself as any member of the tribe would have had to do and not by the outrageous means circulated in myths about him. Any man achieving a war honor of each kind became a chief, although not necessarily the head chief.

 

To the east of today’s Interstate 25 just three miles south of the Wyoming border lies an exceptionally large outcrop of gray sandstone. Here, in 1831, a battle was fought between the crow and the Blackfeet, both driven from their usual hunting grounds by a long drought that sent the buffalo southward from the Yellowstone country. The Crow, led by Beckwourth and aided by a number of white trappers, inflicted a crushing defeat upon their enemies” (Korber).

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1835, Beckwourth embarked on a fur trading expedition that took him through the Santa Fe Trail with Fort Vasquez as the destination. “[Beckwourth] immediately set out to establish himself among the Cheyenne. Through a Crow interpreter, he put on a display of braggadocio for the astonished Indians, playing on their pride and respect for the brave deeds of enemy warriors.

 

“ ‘William Bent, who was trading in the same village, had just one comment for Beckwourth: “You are certainly bereft of your senses. Indians will make sausage-meat of you.’

 

But the braggadocio worked (That and two ten gallon kegs of whiskey.) Thanks to Beckwourth’s skill, [the trappers] had a successful fall and winter trade, and made enough to pay off debts and outfit the next season’s trade. But the following winter was disappointing, and they sold out in 1840.

“Beckwourth soon found himself in the employ of the Bent brothers, dealing with the same tribes as before. His friendship with the Cheyenne was cemented and woud last for many years. But he soon began to tire of the monotony of his life, and he set out with a companion over the rugged passes and down into Taos, New Mexico, where he formed a partnership with a friend and set out once again to trade with the Cheyenne, this time on his own account.

 

“In October, 1842, Beckwourth took his wife north to the Arkansas in what is not Colorado, where he built a trading post. They were soon joined by twenty or thirty settler families, and a triving community was born” (Beckwourth on the Santa Fe Trail).

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ According to [his] autobiography, Beckwourth and his wife reached the Arkansas about the first of October, 1842. There they erected a trading post and began a successful business. Very shortly afterwards they were joined by fifteen to twenty free trappers and their families. Uniting their labors, they built an adobe fort sisty yards square. By the following spring the settlement had grown, and they named it Pueblo. Many of the men raised very good crops the first season, “such as wheat, corn, oats, potatoes and abundance of almost all kinds of vegetables.

 

“ The fact is, Beckwourth did not build either a trading post or an adobe fort in October, 1842. By October the Pueblo had already been in existence several months. Nor was the fort sixty yards square, which would have made it one of the largest in the West. Nor could Beckwourth have known how the crops matured the following summer, for he left in the spring of 1843 not to return for three years. Behind him at Pueblo he left his wife and apparently a daughter Matilda as hostages to the truth of his story that he was ever there at all. His wife’s name was Luisa Sandoval, but church records of Taos show no marriage between them. During [Beckwourth’s] absence, according to his autobiography, another man brought Luisa a forged letter purporting to be from Jim declaring that he no longer cared for her and releasing her from marital obligations toward him. Luisa married the other man, probably in the same informal way she had married [Beckwourth]. On [Beckwourth’s] return she regretted her new marriage and offered herself back. The gallant [Beckwourth] declined. When [Beckwourth’s] book containing this unpleasant story was published in 1856, Luisa and her husband – John Brown – were living comfortably in California with their ten children. If John and Luisa Brown could have denied the story, they never did so publicly, perhaps because it had a grain of truth in it” (Lecompte).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In November [1894] Beckwourth was hired as a guide for the Third Regiment of Colorado Volunteer Cavalry under Colonel J.M. Chivington. He led the troops south to Pueblo, east to Bent’s Stockade, and onto the site of the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. Beckwourth said the atrocities he witnessed there revolted him. He then toured the Cheyenne country but the Indians no longer would listen to him.

 

“In the Spring of 1866 [Beckwourth] . . . went on a trapping expedition to the Green River with three others. Two members were killed by the Blackfeet and one drowned. Only [Beckwourth] survived to make his way back to Denver.

 

“He then sent [his native wife] back to her people and returned to Wyoming Territory, where he found employment as a scout and messenger at Fort Laramie.

“Trouble was brewing between the whites and the Crow Indians so [Beckwourth] was hired as a guide and interpreter by Colonel Henry B. Carrington. Hearing that [Beckwourth] was at Fort C.F. Smith, the Crows agreed to talk if Jim would come back to their village. He declined a military escort and went with only one companion. [Beckwourth] never returned but did extract a promise from the Crows to help the white man fight the Sioux. As a result the Crows moved to Fort C.F. Smith and remained friendly to the whites” (Korber).

 

 

 

 

 

 

“There is a romantic account that Jim Beckwourth was poisoned by the Crow so that his spirit would remain with them. [A friend of Beckwourth’s] reported that [Beckwourth] complained of being sick on the same evening that he left Fort C.F. Smith. Soon he commenced bleeding. On their arrival at the Indian Village [Beckwourth] was taken into the lodge of “The Iron Bull” and where his guests remained. There Beckwourth died and was buried by his host as a Crow Indian, on a platform in a tree” Korber.   Korber, John. Pueblo Lore.  5th ed., Vol16, Pueblo County Historical Society, 1991.

 

“By the mid-1860’s Beckwourth was back in Crow Country, working for the U.S. Army as a scout at Fort Phil Kearney, along the Bozeman Trail. Not long after visiting the newly established Fort C.F. Smith in October, 1866. Beckwourth began to experience nosebleeds and severe headaches. As his condition worsened he made his way to the lodge of Crow Chief Iron Bull.

 

“There he spent the last days of his life close to the chief, with the Crow people he had grown to revere many years before. On October 29, 1866 he passed into history. Jim Beckwourth is today acknowledged as the greatest African-American Frontiersman in the history of the American West” (National Parks Service).