# Questions about Blacks and Indians in the Wild West Days? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264 "2008-04-07T02:18:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/21 "2008-04-07T11:31:53Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Having a job as a cowboy back then was the equivalent of having a job pumping gas. [/QUOTE] I was thinking… maybe a little more like truck drivers. They both have that sort of blue-collar romance to them — the tarnished glamour of a self-sufficient man in a man’s world. ---
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/22 "2008-04-07T16:32:13Z")
I lived in Deadwood, South Dakota more than 70 years ago and at that time there were no Blacks living there. I doubt that even before that there were blacks living there as cowboys. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/23 "2008-04-07T16:57:48Z")
[QUOTE=Chimera] Wow. Just…wow. :rolleyes: See **Exapno Mapcase** ’s post. And yes, there were black cowboys. [/QUOTE] Wow what? I don’t see what’s so shocking by my statement. You mean to tell me that black people were completely and 100% free once slavery ended? There was not ONE CASE of slavery once the thirteenth amendment came into play, not one? Not a single one was ordered around, hung from trees, enslaved, sold, lynched, beaten, burned, shot or otherwise degraded and killed by a white man in the south and southwest? Wow !..just WOW !! Hmm, then I guess the civil rights movement in the 1960’s was a complete farce. Those damn lying black people. I mean, they were freed a hundred years earlier, nobody tried to keep them from their freedom, so why the need to ask for more? Racism is different than slavery I know, but not by much. Here’s a secret, slavery still exists in the world today. And if that’s not the case and you do happen to be 100% correct, then excuse the hell out of me for trying to learn. I thought this site was here to fight ignorance. But some of you people are so condescending, no wonder people don’t want to post here anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/24 "2008-04-07T17:03:32Z")
Digglebop, there was plenty of discrimination against black people after 1865, including discriminatory laws and widespread lynching. But that’s not the same as slavery. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/25 "2008-04-07T17:04:19Z")
I also found this site that answers my question that you so delicately answered with ridicule [here](http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/3010/slavery.htm). Seems that slavery DID NOT in fact end once it “ended” in 1865. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/26 "2008-04-07T17:05:34Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Digglebop, there was plenty of discrimination against black people after 1865, including discriminatory laws and widespread lynching. But that’s not the same as slavery. [/QUOTE] I know, read my post thoroughly. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/27 "2008-04-07T17:15:02Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] I know, read my post thoroughly. [/QUOTE] Your original contention was not stupid at all. It is certainly not inconceivable that, particularly in the isolated West, it might be months or even years before slaves discovered that they were no longer legally bound to their masters. It might even have taken a few years for their masters to discover the same- and of course they would have little incentive to tell their slaves. However, this: > [@](#): > > You mean to tell me that black people were completely and 100% free once slavery ended? There was not ONE CASE of slavery once the thirteenth amendment came into play, not one? Not a single one was ordered around, hung from trees, enslaved, sold, lynched, beaten, burned, shot or otherwise degraded and killed by a white man in the south and southwest? Wow !..just WOW !! > > Hmm, then I guess the civil rights movement in the 1960’s was a complete farce. Those damn lying black people. I mean, they were freed a hundred years earlier, nobody tried to keep them from their freedom, so why the need to ask for more? Racism is different than slavery I know, but not by much. Here’s a secret, slavery still exists in the world today. … is a very poor defense of it. The treatment of African-Americans in the years leading up to the civil rights era was of course horrific, but was not slavery. Trying to muddy the waters by equating apartheid and slavery is just going to end up with this whole thread in the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/28 "2008-04-07T21:20:09Z")
Regardless of the above, it in no way renders non-ignorant the assumption that _Lonesome Dove_ presented an unrealistic portrayal of 1880’s cowboy life, on account of “black people were slaves back then, not hired hands.” ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/29 "2008-04-07T21:51:48Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] Regardless of the above, it in no way renders non-ignorant the assumption that _Lonesome Dove_ presented an unrealistic portrayal of 1880’s cowboy life, on account of “black people were slaves back then, not hired hands.” [/QUOTE] Yes, I find that amazing, in a rather sick way. Still lots of ignorance to fight! Danny Glover’s character in _Lonesome Dove_ is based on [Bose Ikard](http://www.blackcowboys.com/boseikard.htm). More [here–including The Buffalo Soldiers](http://www.blackcowboys.com/). Anyone who’s seen _Lone Star_ has heard of [The Black Seminoles](http://www.johnhorse.com/trail/05/index.htm). Of course, the _vaqueros_ were there first… ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/30 "2008-04-07T22:06:40Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Digglebop, there was plenty of discrimination against black people after 1865, including discriminatory laws and widespread lynching. But that’s not the same as slavery. [/QUOTE] A number of very serious historians would argue otherwise. [http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=03-25-2008&view=storyview](http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=03-25-2008&view=storyview) I found this author fairly convincing in his arguement, that no matter what the name, there was indeed slavery continuing well beyond 1865. In particular, he points to selectively enforced vagrancy laws which had impossible demands to prove perpetual employment. Local law enforcement would imprison large numbers of people and then provide them as laborers to whites for money. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/31 "2008-04-07T23:14:33Z")
[QUOTE=threemae] A number of very serious historians would argue otherwise. [http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=03-25-2008&view=storyview](http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=03-25-2008&view=storyview) I found this author fairly convincing in his arguement, that no matter what the name, there was indeed slavery continuing well beyond 1865. In particular, he points to selectively enforced vagrancy laws which had impossible demands to prove perpetual employment. Local law enforcement would imprison large numbers of people and then provide them as laborers to whites for money. [/QUOTE] The word at that link is “Neoslavery.” ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/32 "2008-04-07T23:18:17Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] You mean to tell me that black people were completely and 100% free once slavery ended? There was not ONE CASE of slavery once the thirteenth amendment came into play, not one? Not a single one was ordered around, hung from trees, enslaved, sold, lynched, beaten, burned, shot or otherwise degraded and killed by a white man in the south and southwest? Wow !..just WOW !! [/QUOTE] There is slavery in much of this world to this day. Reasonable estimates include about 30 million slaves mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia. There is also still slavery in the U.S. somewhere. It gets uncovered fairly frequently and the “slave owners” go to prison. That doesn’t mean that the U.S. is a slave owning culture either legally or socially however. That has no bearing on this type of discussion. Individual examples, even if they exist, don’t have any bearing on the level of your question. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/33 "2008-04-07T23:49:46Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] You mean to tell me that black people were completely and 100% free once slavery ended? There was not ONE CASE of slavery once the thirteenth amendment came into play, not one? Not a single one was ordered around, hung from trees, enslaved, sold, lynched, beaten, burned, shot or otherwise degraded and killed by a white man in the south and southwest? Wow !..just WOW !! [/QUOTE] You are completely over the top here. You make a very broad all-inclusive claim and then come back with an angry “not one case” response that would not prove your blanket claim. Then you follow with false logic into a sort of racial Godwin’s Law type rant. My “wow” was over what I considered an extremely ignorant blanket claim that blacks were slaves and not cowboys in a post-slavery era in a territory where slavery was never legal. The existence of free blacks for hundreds of years previous to this era and the existence of well known black cowboys notwithstanding. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/34 "2008-04-08T01:24:58Z")
[QUOTE=Bridget Burke] The word at that link is “Neoslavery.” [/QUOTE] To extend the semantic discussion, it’s neoslavery, not quasi- or semi- slavery. Please, take the time to listen to a part of the discussion and I think that the description rises to a modern definition of slavery. I’m just saying that, in this instance, **digglebop** ’s claim is not so completely off-base as to be an unreasonable area for discussion. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/35 "2008-04-08T02:02:48Z")
[QUOTE=robcaro] I lived in Deadwood, South Dakota more than 70 years ago and at that time there were no Blacks living there. I doubt that even before that there were blacks living there as cowboys. [/QUOTE] The HBO series Deadwood character, Nigger General, was based on the very real Samuel Fields. [Wiki link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger_general) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/36 "2008-04-08T06:20:36Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] I believe it is primarily cowboy movies that instilled the idea that there were few African American cowboys. I didn’t know there were so many of them until I took an American History course in college. Marc [/QUOTE] There was quite a bit of diversity. In addition to African Americans there were numerous Jewish cowboys, other immigrants from Europe, Mexicans, Asians, you name it. ---
**Author:** ![Will\_Repair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a698b9/32.png) [@Will\_Repair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Will_Repair)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/37 "2008-04-09T16:24:06Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] So what were relations between black people and Indians really like? [/QUOTE] [Black Seminoles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Seminoles) ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/38 "2008-04-09T18:05:15Z")
Much of the labor was done by Chinese “coolies”. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264/39 "2008-04-09T19:00:51Z")
[QUOTE=threemae] To extend the semantic discussion, it’s neoslavery, not quasi- or semi- slavery. Please, take the time to listen to a part of the discussion and I think that the description rises to a modern definition of slavery. I’m just saying that, in this instance, **digglebop** ’s claim is not so completely off-base as to be an unreasonable area for discussion. [/QUOTE] Digglebop’s friend was the one who made the lamebrained remark. > [@](#): > > I was watching Lonesome Dove with one of my idiot friends and he saw Danny Glover and was like, “yeah right, black people were slaves back then, not hired hands.” Yes, in some ways, some African-Americans were not totally “free” after the Civil War. But The Idiot Friend has a very slender grasp on American history. He needs to learn the basics before he gets into the subtleties. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-blacks-and-indians-in-the-wild-west-days/444264.md?page=1)