PSU Magazine Winter 1994

oldier "by the Native American becau e of their wooly hair. lt was a flattering label: The Indian con idered black to be worthy opponents like the buffalo, which wa the animal of greatest importance in the Plains Indian cu lture. It was an ironic relation hip. Here, in the first generat ion since the Civil War, former laves imposing an almost lave-like condition on the native populations. The irony was not lost on the Indians, nor on the blacks, who had plenty of time for reflection during the long dull hours of garri on duty. If fighting Indian seemed contra– dictory to the black who joined the cavalry, it also had the same powerful draw as other elements of the West: It offered an escape. After the Civil War, becoming a cavalry soldier wa infinitely more attractiv for many blacks than staying in the outh to pick cotton. And blacks were ready-made soldiers. In the final Northern cam– paigns in Virginia during the Civil War, blacks comprised as much as a third of Grant's army. Blacks wept into the Northern Army ranks as Sherman marched through the outh. The same military leaders who won the war for the North were now the one fighting Indians in the West. It come as little urprise that blacks would find belonging there. And these soldiers were often better fit for the job than their white comrade . In the book Son of the Morning Star, about George Armstrong Cu ter and the Seventh Cavalry, author Evan . Connell describes cru hing boredom and miserable living conditions that drove large numbers of oldier to desertion or suicide. But the blacks, according to Millner, were so cond itioned by their fo rmer lives as slaves, that they were much better equipped to hand le cavalry life. They knew hardship and experienced a mall fraction of the suicide and desertions that the whites did. In the Northern-dominated military of the post-Civil War era, black not only were prominent, but were rewarded alongside white . Ten black members of the cavalry units that Jim Beckwourth was portrayed by white actor Jack Oakie (left) in the 1951 movie "Tomahawk." flanked Teddy Roosevelt on San Juan Hill won the Congres ional Medal of Honor. Curiously (or maybe not) when outherners began to dominate the military in the 20th Century, the rewards for black began to dimini h. o black oldier won the Congres– sional Medal of Hon r between the Spani h American War and the Korean War, says Millner. Black women may have been a little more accepted in the West than black men, Millner say , if only because women in general played important domestic and sexual roles. "In pioneer situation , women are a rarity. Anything that' rare is valuable," Millner says. Even Oregon' black exclusion law made that apparent. It tared that black males had to leave the territory within two year . Women could ray three. It's nor surprising that the tory of America's western expan ion i large ly the story of whites. After all, white far outnumbered the blacks who moved west. Whites held most of the powerfu l positions. But the real story remains incomplete; the faces of black in the ea rly West remain largely anonymou . Millner recalls an account by Jesse Applegate, a white settler, of a vio lent storm on the Willamette River in the 1840s. A black girl went down to the river with a bucket to get water for her family. he was swept away and drowned. He never gives her name. "In mo t of the stories of the black experience in the We t, we wi ll never know their names," says Millner. "We just get brief glimpses of them a they pas through someone else' life." D (]ohn Kirkland , a Portland freelance writer, is a regular contributor to P U Magazine .) WINTER L994 11