When people think of Black history in America, their minds usually go to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, or slavery in the South.
Rarely do ideas of Black history cross the Mississippi River.
So on Sept. 12, Margaret Hangan, a forest archaeologist in the Tonto National Forest, took a deep dive into this “hidden history” of African Americans in the West for a Crow Canyon webinar.
“Many people are familiar with the Black Diaspora out of the south to the north,” said Hangan. “But there was also a major migration out West.”
In the webinar, Hangan started at the beginning of the timeline, when Africans first arrived in what’s now the United States.
That timeline didn’t begin with slavery in the colonies; Africans were here nearly a century before that.
They were first brought to America by the Spanish and Portuguese, as they had had a relationship with Northern and Western Africa for hundreds of years, Hangan said.
“Some were enslaved, some were free, some were various different status. But the point is, Africans landed here long before it came to be the English colonies,” Hangan said.
“So they’ve actually been here much longer, especially here in the Southwest, than we realize.”
Fast-forward to the post-Civil War era of the mid-to-late 1860s.
Hangan said there’s evidence of Buffalo Soldiers – Black American troops – all over the Centennial State of Colorado, who were sent West in the late 1800s as the nation underwent its westward expansion.
The Buffalo Soldiers built roads, supported the military in battles against Native Americans and served as some of the first national park rangers, according to the National Museum of African American History & Culture.
“Almost every fort had them stationed there at one point or another,” said Hangan. “They were U.S. Customs Border Patrol before that was established.”
Fort Garland, about three hours south of Denver, was home to Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry from 1876 to 1879. Today, it’s a museum and cultural center folks can visit to learn more about its history.
After completing their military duties, some Buffalo Soldiers decided to settle out West.
Another major draw to the region was the timber industry, which is often misrepresented, Hangan said.
“This big burly white man is the lumberjack, and that is the view, or at least the idea, of what a lumberjack ideally looks like,” said Hangan. “When in fact, in Northern Arizona, a good chunk, not all, but there certainly was a major amount of African Americans, Hispanics and tribal people who were working in the lumber industry.”
Other Black Americans were drawn West for opportunities in the service industry.
Plenty worked in restaurants. Women worked as prostitutes, domestics, wives and cooks, and men could be barbers, Hangan said.
She touched on Black cowboys and ranchers, too, from Texas and southern New Mexico.
In 1862, the Homestead Act passed, which drew even more folks West.
Homesteading was an equal opportunity system: If you met requirements to homestead and paid the price, you could buy the property, Hangan said.
“It was open to everybody,” she said. “Many Black people took advantage of this, including out here in Arizona.”
Homesteading was an opportunity for Black people to start their own community for economic independence, Hangan said.
Dearfield, 70 miles northeast of Denver, was the state’s largest Black homesteading settlement. Established in 1911, it prospered during WWI and suffered after the war, especially in the wake of the Dust Bowl, which forced a lot of its residents out.
In 2010, a monument was erected beside a building in Dearfield that still stands, commemorating its history.
Homesteading in the South wasn’t as inclusive as it was in the West.
Segregation, racism, violence and restrictions suffocated the Black population there.
“So people were looking for opportunities to get out of the South and saw the West as a place where there were tools to make new opportunities and would hopefully escape the worst of this violence,” Hangan said.
To be clear, the West wasn’t devoid of segregation.
“Was there a little more freedom occasionally for Black people who came out West? In some instances, yes. But not in all. They were definitely subject to the same kind of racism that you are getting in the South and other parts of the county,” Hangan said.
There just wasn’t the same kind of laws out here that there were in the South. Instead, “a lot of it was systemic and social,” Hangan said.
Hangan related a Black person’s experience in the West to an elf making toys.
“You were fine so long as you stayed within the social norms … that your local community accepted you in. If you moved outside of that, then you were definitely barred. But so long as you stayed within those realms, you were absolutely accepted,” Hangan said.
Actually getting out West was difficult, though, because until the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s passed, African Americans could be denied services in restaurants or at gas stations as they traveled.
The Green Book was one of many guides for Black people to make their travels a bit safer.
“It would list various different places with hotels where you could actually stay, restaurants where you could eat, or grocery stores where you could actually get supplies, and gas stations,” Hangan said.
As an archaeologist, Hangan said she studies the material culture people leave behind – which typically consists of toys and trash – to determine who was in an area and when.
Population census helps. There’s written record, too, which unfortunately isn’t always accurate.
“Luckily with historic archaeology, we do have written records. But who is really written in those written records? Who’s actually identified in those written records?”
“Generally, it’s not workers. And it’s not people who were laborers,” she answered.
Hangan said that’s probably the biggest misconception, that history is all written down.
“We absolutely don’t know everything … though more people are recognizing the need for this history.”
She encouraged people to re-look at their assumptions about Black history in the West and the concept of Black history in America in general.
“It’s much broader than people realize,” she said.
