Shaded Heroes

THE NEGRO COWBOYS by Philip Durham and Everett L. Jones. 278 pages. Dodd, Mead. $5.

Most were ropers, others horsebreakers, wranglers, cooks, and trail bosses. Some became law enforcers, ranch owners or, like Cheyenne's B. M. Ford, hotel proprietors. Several were celebrated mountain men, notably Jim Beckwith, a trapper whose exploits rivaled Kit Carson's. Others became swindlers like Dodge City's Ben Hodges, or outlaws like Texas' Cherokee Bill, who murdered for profit, seduced for fun, and was hanged a month before his 20th birthday, telling the crowd gathered around the gallows: "I came here to die --not to make a speech." All were Negro cowboys of the old Far West.

Trail Drivers. The time was post-Civil War, when men were men and the key to respect lay not in the color of skin but in quickness with a gun and ability to handle a horse. Among the cowboys who rode the ranges from Texas to Montana, driving millions of cattle to market, were more than 5,000 Negroes. This startling fact was uncovered by University of California Professors Philip Durham and Everett L. Jones, who plowed through 300 memoirs and histories in search of references to Ne gro cowboys. Their findings, described in lively prose and vivid detail, fill a neglected gap in U.S. history.

The point of the Negro cowboys' history, they say, "is not that they were different from their companions, but that they were similar. They had neither peculiar virtues to be glorified nor vices to be condemned. But they should be remembered." Most came from Texas; all began their trade as slaves who were brought West when their masters moved to Texas and acquired cattle. They learned to ride, rope and brand cattle from their white owners, and from local Indians and Mexicans.

The Civil War freed them, and the Negro cowboys suffered far less from the white's emotional backlash than other Negroes. "The demands of their job made the white cowboys transcend much of their prejudice. A wild longhorn had no more respect for a white Texan than for a Negro." This was the time of the long drives north in search of new markets, and cattlemen were happy to sign on able Negroes. A typical trail crew of eight cowboys would include two or three Negroes.

In their drives north through Colorado and Wyoming, where there was little anti-Negro feeling, many Negroes stayed behind to become permanent settlers. They worked on ranges, in stockyards and saloons, and at least one became a detective. In other states racial prejudice lingered, and the Negro preferred to turn back for Texas as soon as he had delivered his herd. Nonetheless, hundreds of Negroes flocked to the Dakota territory when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Among many other Negroes who made their names or fortunes in Dakota's Deadwood City was Nat Love, a rootin' tootin' former slave who wrote that his prowess with gun and lariat earned him the title of "Deadwood Dick," claimed that he was the original inspiration for the fictional (and white) hero of 33 dime Westerns by Edward L. Wheeler.

Legend & History. Durham and Jones tell their tales well. One of the most fascinating stories concerns a Negro named Bob Lemmons. Bob was one of a tough group of men who made their living capturing wild mustangs, but Bob's method was unique. He would follow a herd of mustangs alone for days, until they began to accept him as part of the group: "I acted like I was a mustang. I made the mustangs think I was one of them." When the herd was completely in his control, Bob slowly led them straight into the waiting corral.

The authors' explanation of the Negro disappearance from Western folklore is less satisfying. They say it is be, cause the first published western, Owen Wister's The Virginian, included no Negroes. Since the book was an extraordinary success, no one dared change a good thing. But by that time, the West was mostly legend, and the values of legend tend to black-and-white good guys and bad guys, and permit of little shading. As legend, the oldtime cowboy will go on looking like Tom Mix. History, thanks to Durham and Jones, has acquired new shadings.

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