James Beckwourth
James Pierson Beckwourth was an American fur trapper, rancher, businessman, explorer, author and scout. Known as "Bloody Arm" because of his skill as a fighter, Beckwourth was of multiracial descent, being born into slavery in Frederick County, Virginia. He was eventually emancipated by his enslaver, who was also his father, and apprenticed to a blacksmith so that he could learn a trade.
As a young man, Beckwourth moved to the Western United States, first making connections with fur traders in St. Louis, Missouri. As a mountain man, he lived with the Crow people for several years. He is credited with the discovery of Beckwourth Pass, the lowest pass through the Sierra Nevada, connecting Reno, Nevada, and Portola, California during the California Gold Rush. He improved the Beckwourth Trail, which thousands of settlers followed to central California. Beckwourth narrated his life story to Thomas D. Bonner, who was described as "an itinerant justice of the peace", but was also a temperance speaker and journalist, who, according to his preface, by chance was present in Beckwourth's rustic California hotel when he decided to dictate his memoirs. The book was published in New York City and London in 1856 as The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth: Mountaineer, Scout and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians. A translation appeared in France in 1860.
The reliability of Beckworth's autobiography was called into question from the beginning; an editor of it quoted the observation "that some one said of him that some men are rarely worthy of belief, but that Jim was always Beckwourthy of un-belief." "I knew Jim intimately and he was the biggest liar that ever lived." A review when it appeared called it "half fiction":
Elinor Wilson has defended Beckwourth's narration as a valuable source of social history, especially for life among the Crow, although not all its details are reliable or accurate. The civil rights movement of the 1960s celebrated Beckwourth as an early African-American pioneer. He has since been featured as a role model in children's literature and textbooks.
Early life
James Beckwith was born into slavery in April 26, 1798, in Frederick County, Virginia. Of multiracial descent, his father was Jennings Beckwith, a white planter, and his mother was a Black woman enslaved by Jennings. Jennings was the son of Sir Marmaduke Beckwith, 3rd Baronet, who had immigrated to Virginia and worked as a merchant. Jennings reportedly had thirteen children with James' mother.Jennings moved to Missouri around 1809, when James was young, taking James' mother and all her children with him. Although Beckwith acknowledged and raised his mixed-race children as his own, he legally held them as owner. His father arranged to apprentice him to a blacksmith so that he could learn a good trade. At age 19, he was fired by the artisan after getting into an argument with him. His father freed Beckwourth by manumission, by deed of emancipation in court in 1824, 1825, and 1826.
Career
Fur trade and Crow tribe
As a young man in 1824 Beckwourth joined General William Ashley's Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He worked as a wrangler during Ashley's expedition to explore the Rocky Mountains. In the following years, Beckwourth became known as a prominent trapper and mountain man. In July 1825, rendezvous, trapper and colleague Caleb Greenwood told the campfire story of Beckwourth's being the child of a Crow chief. He claimed Beckwourth had been stolen as a baby by raiding Cheyenne and sold to whites. This lore was widely believed, as Beckwourth had adopted Native American dress and was taken by some people as an Indian.Image:Beckwourth indian warrior05.jpg|thumb|Beckwourth as Indian warrior, 1856
Later that year, Beckwourth claimed to have been captured by Crow while trapping in the border county between the territories of Crow, Cheyenne, and Blackfoot. According to his account, he was mistaken for the lost son of a Crow chief, so they admitted him to the nation. Independent accounts suggest his stay with the Crow was planned by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to advance its trade with the tribe. Beckwourth married the daughter of a chief.
For the next eight to nine years, Beckwourth lived with a Crow band, who named him "Bull's Robe." He rose in their society from warrior to chief and leader of the "Dog Clan". According to his book, he eventually ascended to the highest-ranking war chieftaincy of the Crow tribe. He still trapped but did not sell his or Crow furs to his former partners of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Instead, he sold to John Jacob Astor's competing American Fur Company. Beckwourth participated in raids by the Crow on neighboring nations and the occasional white party. Sometimes such raids escalated to warfare, most often against bands of their traditional Blackfoot enemy.
In 1837, when the American Fur Company did not renew his contract, Beckwourth returned to St. Louis. He volunteered with the United States Army to fight in the Second Seminole War in Florida. In his book, he claims to have been a soldier and courier. According to historical records, he was a civilian wagon master in the baggage division.
During one trade exchange Beckwourth may have helped to spread smallpox to an Indian tribe. When Little Robe had complained to fur trapper Jim Bridger that "white men" were responsible for destroying his people, Bridger replied that Whites didn't do that, "he told Little Robe how Jim Beckwourth a Mulatto...had done this evil thing," by trading infected blankets with the Indians, and pointing out that "Beckwourth...was a Negro, and therefore not a white man."
From 1838 to 1840, Beckwourth was an Indian trader to the Cheyenne, on the Arkansas River, working out of Fort Vasquez, Colorado, near Platteville. In 1840, he moved to Bent, St. Vrain & Company. Later that same year, Beckwourth became an independent trader. In 1842, Beckwourth moved to new settlement at Pueblo, Colorado with a wife, Maria Luisa Sandoval and a child Matilda. In 1843, he departed for California and when he returned to Pueblo in 1846 Luisa was married to John Brown.
In 1844, Beckwourth traded on the Old Spanish Trail between the Arkansas River and California, then controlled by Mexico. When the Mexican–American War began in 1846, Beckwourth returned to the United States. He brought along nearly 1,800 stolen Mexican horses as spoils of war. In the war, he served as a courier with the U.S. Army and helped suppress the Taos Revolt. His former employer, Charles Bent, then interim governor of New Mexico, was slain in that revolt.
Business
By 1848 and the start of the Gold Rush, Beckwourth went to California. He first opened a store at Sonoma. He soon sold and went to Sacramento, then a boomtown close to the mines, to live as a professional card player.In 1850, Beckwourth was credited with discovering what came to be called Beckwourth Pass, a low-elevation pass through the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. In 1851, he improved what became the Beckwourth Trail, originally a Native American path through the mountains. It began near Pyramid Lake and the Truckee Meadows east of the mountains, climbed to the pass named for him, and went along a ridge, between two forks of Feather River, before passing down through the gold fields of northern California, and on to Marysville. The trail spared the settlers and gold seekers about and several steep grades and dangerous passes, such as Donner Pass.
By his account, the business communities of the gold towns in California were supposed to fund the making of the trail. However, when Beckwourth tried to collect his payment in 1851 after leading a party, Marysville suffered from two huge fires and town leaders were unable to pay.
Beckwourth began ranching in the Sierra. His ranch, trading post, and hotel, in today's Sierra Valley, were the starting of the settlement of Beckwourth, California. In the winter of 1854/55, the itinerant judge Thomas D. Bonner stayed in the hotel, and on winter nights Beckwourth told him his life story. Bonner wrote it down, edited the material the following year, and offered the book to Harper & Brothers in New York. The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth was published in 1856. According to the contract, Beckwourth was entitled to one-half of the proceeds, but he never received any income from Bonner. The book provides historical information on how U.S. government officials used alcohol; how occupations affect those who work in the field; the historical relationship among diseases, wildlife, and the environment; as well as reports dealing with massacres and war.