PSU Magazine Winter 1994

History and pop culture have been ambivalent about including blacks in the West. By John Kirkland Professor Darrell Millner Nat Love (background photo) was a black cowboy in the 1870s. The historical photograj)h are from the collection of William Loren Katz, an academic pioneer in researching the role of blacks in the Wes tern movement. His books include "Black Indians" and "The Black Wes t." • 1oneers ollywood's portrayal of the Old West has rarely been praised for its historical accuracy. The example that comes quickly to the mind of Darrell Millner, head of Portland State's Black Stud ies Department, is the 1951 Western "Tomahawk," in which famou mountain man Jim Beckwourth is played by white comic actor Jack Oakie. Problem is, Beckwourth was black. Whether the producers didn't know that, or whether they chose to change the story points to the same fact: Blacks were a common sight on the American frontier a settlers, soldiers, cowboys, hero and villains, but history and popular culture have lagged miserably in telling their ta le. Us ing the 150th anniversary of the O regon T ra il as a catalyst, Millner has been speaking to groups throughout Portland and outhwe t Washi ngton to set the record straight. The response from audiences i typically surprise and sometimes embarrassment that they didn't know-and maybe should have known- the important role blacks played in the early We t. One out of eve ry fi ve members of the U.S. Cavalry during the late- 1800 Indian Wars was black. Black ur trappers and mountain men worked the Western wilderne ince the nation' earliest years-even when t e "West" was no fa rther han the western Appalachians. One of Washington state's found ing citizens was black, a man named George Washington Bush. And California had two black governors by the time O regon became a state. Not only were blacks intertwined into every element of Western expan ion, Millner says, but the West held a special attraction for them because it could fu lfi ll dreams that were impo sible to attain in the American South even after the C ivil War. "The frontier was the most mu lti– racial part of the American experience in every generation," he says. "It could not have been otherwise. The frontiers always attracted those elements of the American population that, fo r one reason or another, had the greate t moti vation to seek opportunity or tart over." Even though life on the frontier migh t be dangerous, it was often better than the alternat ives people of color had m the East or the South. "We in our generation have lost all acknowledgement of that ~nulticultural frontier experience," he says. Part of the reason lies with the level of discomfort America has fe lt with racial issues-both in its history and its present. The myths and symbols that glorified Western exp ns ion were more appealino to American society than the realities f injustice. The frontier ha come to be a ymbol of the American spirit, the embodiment of the American WINTER 1994 9