All Black Cowboy Towns...

5fish

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After the Civil War, many of the cowboys out west were black and in time all Black towns were created... The question that always asks what happen to them... Oklahoma had many of these Black townships... @dedej


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The All-Black towns of Oklahoma represent a unique chapter in American history. Nowhere else, neither in the Deep South nor in the Far West, did so many African American men and women come together to create, occupy, and govern their own communities. From 1865 to 1920 African Americans created more than fifty identifiable towns and settlements, some of short duration and some still existing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

All-Black towns grew in Indian Territory after the Civil War when the former slaves of the Five Tribes settled together for mutual protection and economic security. When the United States government forced American Indians to accept individual land allotments, most Indian "freedmen" chose land next to other African Americans. They created cohesive, prosperous farming communities that could support businesses, schools, and churches, eventually forming towns. Entrepreneurs in these communities started every imaginable kind of business, including newspapers, and advertised throughout the South for settlers. Many African Americans migrated to Oklahoma, considering it a kind of "promised land."


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Here is a list of Freedmen towns... texas had a lot...


A historically African-American municipality, known in various areas as "freedmen's town", "freedom towns", or "all-Black towns", are municipalities which were established by or for a predominantly African-American populace.[1] Many of these municipalities were established or populated by freed slaves[2] either during or after the period of legal slavery in the United States in the 19th century.[3]

In Oklahoma before the end of segregation there existed dozens of these communities as many African-American migrants from the Southeast found a space whereby they could establish municipalities on their own terms.[4] Chief among them was Edward P. McCabe, who envisioned so large a number of African-Americans settling in the territory that it would become a Black-governed state. In Texas, 357 such "freedom colonies" have been located and verified.[
 
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5fish

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Segregation among cowboys? The saloon was?


Being a cowboy was one of the few jobs open to men of color who wanted to not serve as elevator operators or delivery boys or other similar occupations. Black and White cowboys mixed and mingled with each other. Working for an outfit meant “riding for the brand.” If cowboys working for the same outfit came into a saloon it’s likely they drank together and if anybody didn’t like it there was a good chance a brawl occurred. Those who rode for the brand, Black and White, stuck together in the ruckus.
 

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Here is a list of historic Black Western locations...


Cowboying was an appealing line of work for many African Americans seeking freedom from the racial discrimination prevalent in the South. It was a line of work that paid decent wages and white cowpoke were ususally firendly to their Black counterparts. By the late 1800s, one of every four cowpokes was Black. While the profession drew a number of African Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War (1861-1865), historical records indicate that people of African descent had owned cattle ranches and herded cattle in North America since the early 1700s. The story of the Black cowpoke is an important part of the history of the American southwest. Discover some of the places associated with Black cowboys and cowgirls.  
 

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Enslave Black Cowboys before the Civil War...


With one-third of the state’s population comprising enslaved workers, African Americans were the majority of cowboys in Texas in the early 1850s. Enslaved cowboys were assigned the task of catching and tending wild cattle in the Gulf Coast brush

James Taylor White, the first Texas cattle baron, used African American drovers for the thousands of cattle he owned in Liberty County, Texas. As early as 1854, Amanda Wildy depended on African American slave cowboys to tend to her herd of cattle.


Here is Florida Black slave Cowboys...


Florida became a state in 1845. It quickly became a major cattle-producing state. During the Civil War, vast herds of cattle were driven north by black and white cowboys to supply the Confederate Army. Many runaway slaves joined the Union Army and often served as drovers to supply the troops with beef. After the war, many of Florida’s black cowboys migrated to work the large cattle ranches out west.

During Colonial Times … Repeated attacks by English invaders and their Indian allies took their toll on the rancheros in Florida. Eventually, the Seminole Indians rounded up untended cattle and adopted the Spanish ranching system for themselves. Many slaves and free blacks joined the Seminoles and found work in the cattle business …
 

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Here is a great article about an all-Black town from the 18th century and how Black men who learned cattle herding from the Spanish taught the Seminoles how to cattle herd... @diane


A new fort was built on the site in 1752, and the black settlers returned. The community prospered and the free slaves were now permitted to work as blacksmiths, shopkeepers, carpenters and cattlemen as long as they served in the black militia.

A few of the black militiamen, who had learned to ride and handle the herds with the Spanish colonists took this knowledge back to the Maroon and Seminole Villages where they taught others horsemanship and herding. An interesting sidelight of history is the first American cowboys (vaqueros) were not a John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart type, white and “tall in the saddle,” but were Indians, black men –slave or free – or descendants of the Spanish
 

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Here is South Carolina using slaves to cattle herding and they were called cow hunters...


The cowpen keepers or cowpen managers were usually white, but the cattle hunters were most often black. Many of the slaves brought to the colonies came from areas in Western Africa such as Ghana and Gambia where cattle were herded. Scientists using DNA analysis have determined that cattle were domesticated and being tended by humans as long as 6000 to 8000 years ago in Africa (Bradley et al 1996). Plantation owners with large herds of cattle often found that enslaved people from these areas already possessed great skills in herding animals. These enslaved men worked cattle in the tall grass ‘savannas,’ pine barrens and marshes of the Carolinas, often on horseback.

A small crew of cow hunters could manage a large and wide ranging herd of cattle. In 1692, records show that Barnard Schenkingh had amassed 292 cattle, and listed five horses and three enslaved men to manage them. James Joyner also listed three cattle hunters to manage his herd of 200. 134 of Schenkingh’s cattle were located on James Island, where they were tended by a single enslaved herdsman (Otto 1987). Thus, raising livestock enabled early Carolina colonists to create income and personal wealth with uncultivated land and minimal slave labor investment.
 

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Wyoming had an All-Black town once...


The Wyoming State Museum's traveling exhibit on black homesteaders, "Empire: A Community of African-Americans on the Wyoming Plains" is on display now at the Laramie County Library in Cheyenne. Founded in 1908, Empire was a black community about ten miles northeast of Torrington, and about a mile past the Nebraskan border.


Some people like Lizzie Speese came from DeWitty, Nebraska to Wyoming in 1908 seeking land. They worried that their Nebraska farms did not have enough land to support future generations. They sold their land in Nebraska and settled in Goshen County near the Nebraska-Wyoming state line. These families used the Enlarged Homestead Act to claim 320 acres of land.
 

rittmeister

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Wyoming had an All-Black town once...


The Wyoming State Museum's traveling exhibit on black homesteaders, "Empire: A Community of African-Americans on the Wyoming Plains" is on display now at the Laramie County Library in Cheyenne. Founded in 1908, Empire was a black community about ten miles northeast of Torrington, and about a mile past the Nebraskan border.


Some people like Lizzie Speese came from DeWitty, Nebraska to Wyoming in 1908 seeking land. They worried that their Nebraska farms did not have enough land to support future generations. They sold their land in Nebraska and settled in Goshen County near the Nebraska-Wyoming state line. These families used the Enlarged Homestead Act to claim 320 acres of land.
the 1.2% black wyoming?
 

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Here is California's first All Black town...


Allensworth is an unincorporated community in Tulare County, California.[2] Established by Allen Allensworth in 1908, the town was the first in California to be founded, financed, and governed by African-Americans. [3] The original townsite is designated as Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park. The 2010 United States census reported Allensworth's population was 471. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Allensworth as a census-designated place (CDP).

More on the town...


Joining Allensworth and Payne to establish their race colony were three other men, Dr. William H. Peck, an AME minister in Los Angeles, J.W. Palmer, a Nevada miner; and Harry Mitchell, a Los Angeles Realtor. Allensworth selected a location in southwest Tulare County which had virgin soil and plentiful water. Together they created the California Colonization and Home Promoting Association and soon thereafter filed a township site legal plan on August 3, 1908 to form the town of Solito, which had a depot connection Los Angeles and San Francisco on the Santa Fe Railroad. The town’s name was changed that same year to Allensworth, to honor its most prominent founder.


 

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Here is the first All black incorporated town in America and the town is located in my county here in Florida... I drive through it all the time...

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Ricket and a resident named Tony Taylor would be the first people to live in what would become Eatonville. In August 1887, 27 African American men unanimously voted for the Town of Eatonville in Orange County, Florida, to incorporate, officially establishing the oldest all-black town in the United States.


The first all-black city to be incorporated in Florida, Eatonville was established in 1887 after being settled two decades after the Civil War ended by former slaves. Located six miles north of Orlando, the town was first named Maitland and got its start when former slave, Joseph C. Clarke, along with northern philanthropist Lewis Lawrence, bought over a hundred acres of land from Josiah Eaton, one of the few white landowners willing to sell to African Americans. They then parceled the acres to black families from the surrounding area of central Florida. On the fifteenth of August, 1887, the town was officially incorporated when twenty-seven registered black voters indicated their intention to create a municipality. They named the town in honor of Josiah Eaton who eventually also served as its mayor. The new town’s citizens, however, chose Columbus H. Boger as its first mayor to head an entirely black-staffed government.


Eatonville is a town in Orange County, Florida, United States, six miles north of Orlando. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee metropolitan statistical area. Incorporated on August 15, 1887, it was one of the first self-governing all-black municipalities in the United States. The Eatonville Historic District and Moseley House Museum are in Eatonville.[4] Author Zora Neale Hurston grew up in Eatonville and the area features in many of her stories.
 

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There is a town in North Carolina that says it is older than Eatonville...


Residents in the town of Eatonville are celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. It was incorporated in 1887, making it one of the oldest historically black municipalities in the US. In fact, they say it is the oldest. But there’s another American town that makes the same claim – Princeville, North Carolina, incorporated 1885. Both towns want the prestige and the potential tourism revenue that comes with the title of “the country’s oldest incorporated African-American town.”

“Hands down I don't see how Eatonville can make that claim by virtue of, chronologically, Princeville was incorporated on February the 20th 1885, and Eatonville was in 1887”, said Knight.

Knight says Princeville began as a camp for Union soldiers sent to protect newly-freed slaves after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War. African-Americans settled nearby for relative safety, and a town began to form.


Princeville is a town in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, United States established by freed slaves after the Civil War. It was established in 1865 and known as Freedom Hill.[5] It was incorporated in 1885 as Princeville, the first independently governed African American community chartered in the United States. Princeville is part of the Rocky Mount, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 1,254 residents.[6] The town is on the opposite bank of the Tar River from Tarboro. The city of Rocky Mount is 16 miles (26 km) to the west.
 
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