James Beckwourth

James was born into slavery in Frederick County, Virginia, 1798.[4] Of mixed race, he had an enslaved mother who was African American. His white father was their master, Sir Jennings Beckwith, a descendant of Irish and English nobility. Little was known about Beckwourth's mother, but James was said to be third of her thirteen children. When James was a boy, his father arranged to apprentice him to a blacksmith so that he could learn a good trade. He acknowledged James as his son. Beckwourth was apprenticed to a blacksmith until age 19 to learn a trade. James was fired by the artisan after getting into an argument with him.[4]

Jennings Beckwith moved to Missouri around 1809, when James was young, taking his mother and all their children with him. Although Beckwith acknowledged and raised his mixed-race children as his own, he legally held them as master. He freed James Beckworth by manumission, by deed of emancipation in court in 1824, 1825, and 1826.[4] The young Beckwourth, as he later came to spell his surname, attended school in St. Louis for four years. When and why James changed his name to Beckwourth is unknown.

In 1824 as a young man, Beckwourth joined Gen. 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. He worked with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and was an Indian fighter. He was well known for telling tales about his adventures.

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.

Beckwourth as Indian warrior, 1856

Later that year, Beckwourth claimed to have been captured by Crow Indians 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.[5] Beckwourth married the daughter of a chief, and may have had multiple wives. (Marriages between Native Americans and fur trappers and traders were common for the valuable alliances they provided both parties.)

For the next eight to nine years, Beckwourth lived with a Crow band. He rose in their society from warrior to chief (a respected man) and leader of the "Dog Clan". According to his book, he eventually ascended to the highest-ranking war chieftaincy of the Crow Nation.[6] 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 claimed to have been a soldier and courier. According to historical records, he was a civilian wagon master in the baggage division.[7]

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 the Bent & St. Vrain Company (the Bent brothers built Fort Bent on the Arkansas River). Later that same year, Beckwourth became an independent trader. Together with other partners, he built a trading post in Colorado. It was the center of development of the community of Pueblo, Colorado.

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 US Army and helped suppress the Taos Revolt. His former employer, Charles Bent, then interim governor of New Mexico, was slain in that revolt.

By 1848 and the start of the Gold Rush, Beckwourth went to California. He first opened a store at Sonoma. He soon sold up 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 150 miles (240 km) 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 through, Marysville had suffered from two huge fires and town leaders were unable to pay. (In 1996, in recognition of his contribution to the city's development and of the outstanding debt to him, the City of Marysville officially renamed the town's largest park as Beckwourth Riverfront Park.)

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.[2] According to the contract, Beckwourth was entitled to one half of the proceeds, but he never received any income from Bonner.

In 1859, Beckwourth returned to Missouri briefly, but settled later that year in Denver, Colorado Territory. He was a storekeeper and was appointed as a local US agent for Indian affairs. In 1864, Beckwourth was hired as a scout, by Colonel John M. Chivington, commander of the 3rd Colorado Cavalry Regiment. He was to serve in a campaign against the Cheyenne and Apache, leading a frontier para-military volunteer militia formed to annihilate indigenous inhabitants in the Territory for the American settlers. The Colorado Territory campaign resulted in the Sand Creek Massacre, in which the hostile militia killed an estimated 70-163 friendly Cheyenne men, women and children, who had camped in an area suggested by the previous commander of Fort Lyon as a safe place and were flying an American flag to show their peaceful intentions. Outraged by his association with the massacre, the Cheyenne banned Beckwourth from trading with them.

Well into his 60s by then, Beckwourth returned to trapping. In 1866 during Red Cloud's War, the U.S. Army employed him as a scout at Fort Laramie and Fort Phil Kearny..

While guiding a military column to a Crow band in Montana, Beckwourth complained of severe headaches and suffered nosebleeds, most probably the result of a severe case of hypertension. He returned to the Crow village, where he died in 1867 of natural causes. William Byers, a personal friend and the founder of the Rocky Mountain News, claimed the Crow had poisoned Beckwourth. He said the tribe felt they could no longer trust him because of his involvement in the Sand Creek Massacre. But, Byers had no supporting evidence, and his claim was speculation. Beckwourth's body was placed on an elevated platform in the traditional funerary custom of the Crow Tribe at the Crow Indian Settlement Burial Ground, Laramie, Albany County, Wyoming.

At different times, Beckwourth had taken on many Native American wives and an African-American wife. He had numerous recorded children by them, conceived between his trapping and exploring expeditions.

Beckwourth recounted his life history to Thomas D. Bonner, who wrote the book The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth: Mountaineer, Scout, Pioneer and Chief of the Crow Nation.[2] Beckwourth's language and style (as written by Bonner) were as notable as the reported adventures. The book provides historical information on how US 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.

Jim Beckwourth, who knew, said that though the Indian could never become a white man, the white man lapsed easily into an Indian.[8]

• In the James Michener 1978 NBC television miniseries Centennial, the figure of Jim Beckworth appears briefly and is portrayed by actor Carl Franklin.
• In the 2015 film The Revenant, an unnamed African-American man is depicted, as part of Ashley's 100. Since the chronology of events in the life of Hugh Glass was changed slightly for the film, it is unclear if the African American shown was intended as James Beckwourth, Edward Rose, a lesser known black mountain man, or simply a representation of blacks on the western frontier, where men's actions counted for more than did their ethnicity.

• Beckwourth Pass, named in honor of Beckwourth, is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Plumas County, California. This pass and route was used by the Western Pacific Railroad to cross the Sierra along their Feather River route. The pass is located east of Portola, California. State Route 70 crosses the Sierra at this pass at an elevation of 1,591 m (5,221 ft); it is one of the lowest crossings of the Sierra Nevada in California.
• Beckwourth improved a Native American path to create what became known as the Beckwourth Trail through Plumas, Butte, and Yuba counties. In August 1851, he led the first intact wagon train into the burgeoning Gold Rush city of Marysville, California. Beckwourth demanded payment for improving the trail, claiming he had an agreement with the city and its merchants. As noted above, the city did not pay, as it has suffered disastrous fires.
• In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 29-cent commemorative postage stamp honoring Beckwourth.
• In 1996, the city of Marysville renamed its largest park as Beckwourth Riverfront Park to commemorate his contributions to development of the city. For a few years, the "Beckwourth Frontier Days" were celebrated annually in October, and were the only living history festival in northern California.

• Beckwourth Pass
• Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site
• Mount Ina Coolbrith
• Second Seminole War
• Sand Creek Massacre
• Red Cloud's War
• George Bonga

• Thomas D. Bonner (Hrsg.), The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth: Mountaineer, Scout and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians, New York: Harper and Brothers; London: Sampson, Low, Son & Co., 1856; (online: The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth)
• Oswald, Delmot R. "James P. Beckwourth", in Trappers of the Far West, Leroy R. Hafen, editor. 1972, Arthur H. Clark Company, reprint: Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, October 1983. ISBN 0-8032-7218-9
• John W. Ravage, Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1997, 2002
• Sifakis, Carl, The Encyclopedia of American Crime, Facts of File Inc., 1982
• Elinor Wilson, Jim Beckwourth: Black Mountain Man, War Chief of the Crows, Trader, Trapper, Explorer, Frontiersman, Guide, Scout, Interpreter, Adventurer and Gaudy Liar, Norman, OK and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972, ISBN 0-8061-1555-6

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Beckwourth.

• James Beckwourth at Find a Grave