Some Africa Americans on the Frontier

The black troopers of the 10th Cavalry among U.S. forces tracked down Geronimo, based in Arizona at Fort Huachuca. They were sometimes known as Buffalo soldiers. This term was given to them by the Indians. In the 1800s there was quite a few African-American recruits serving in uniform in the west. Of course there were different regiments in the  10th Calvary and also the 24th and 25th infantry. Back in the day it was very hard for them to have any opportunity for advancement and very seldom did they rise above the rank of sergeant. It was quite a thing in the 1800s when Frederick Remington accompanied the 10th Calvary campaign in Arizona. Frederick Remington was an artist. Frederick had written that they may be hungry and miserable but didn't feel fit to complain. Most of Remington's assessments was confirmed by white officers to lead the Buffalo soldiers on the front tier, including a former Civil war hero Benjamin Grierson and the future commander in the American forces during World War I. But John Pershing, also known as" blackjack" took charge of the 10th Calvary in 1896. By this time dozens of African American soldiers had won metals of honor for bravery on the frontier.
Long before the Buffalo soldiers began patrolling the west in the 1860s, Black Mountain Men and prospectors were blazing trails staking claims. As early as 1850 nearly 1000  African Americans had made it to California. One man named Peter Brown said that California what's the best place for black folks.
It seems that the white miners fared better than that the black prospectors of this time.  But Moses Dinks unearthed a 825 pound chunk of gold that was worth nearly $100,000. It didn't take long until the African Americans began riding as Cowboys in Texas before the Civil War. Many of the African Americans were born into slavery and later gained their own freedom and we're joined by black cowhands from other states on the long trails from Texas to Kansas and beyond. It's been said that they believe that one fourth of the cows driven from Texas North we're drove by African American cowboys. Some of them became successful ranchers like Daniel Webster Wallace of Texas, or Nat Love who was a standout rodeo performer and took the nickname Deadwood Dick.  This story was published and is a colorful account of his life.
For some the west was not simply a great opportunity. It was where people who had labored in bondage sought deliverance. By the late 1870s conditions for African-Americans in the south had deteriorated very alarming since the start of reconstruction in 1865, The federal government had promised to those freed from slavery in the former Confederate states civil rights  economic opportunities, including land grants for black homesteaders. This did not go over very well because 12 years later white southern authorities many of them former slave holders imposed strict regulations in public places stripping most black men of the right to vote, and left radical assaults by white's unpublished. It became extremely difficult for blacks to farm the land excepting the hay sharecroppers, most of whom we're deeply indebted to white landowners. In 1879, such leaders as Benjamin Singleton a former slave who had fled north to freedom before returning to Tennessee after the Civil War lead more than 15,000 African-Americans from the south to Kansas in the migration known as the great Exodus. However difficult there life was in Kansas very few African American settlers returned to the former slave states they left behind.As the editor of the TOPEKA COLORED CITIZEN declared in print, it is better to starve to death in Kansas then be shot and killed in the south.

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