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James Beckwourth, a legend of his time and today


James Pierson Beckwourth was a man of the West. He witnessed or participated in many events that shaped this region, including fur trade rendezvous, gold rushes, and conflict and alliances between American Indian nations and newcomers.

Beckwourth was born into slavery around 1798. His father, Jennings Beckwith, owned his mother, whose name has been lost to history. The household moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in the early 1800s. After a brief career as an apprentice blacksmith, James Beckwourth joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company in the 1820s and headed west. It is not clear if Beckwourth was ever formally emancipated from slavery, but the West was a place where he freed himself. He got to know the legendary “mountain men” Jim Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, and Jedediah Smith. Beckwourth’s skills as a trapper and storyteller made him a popular figure among his colleagues.

The Crow Indians captured and adopted Beckwourth in the 1820s, and this tall, rangy African American formed a lifelong alliance with the Crows. Over the next three decades, Beckwourth ranged widely throughout the Rocky Mountains, Utah, and New Mexico. During his adventurous career he worked as a scout, trader, and trapper ,and he married several times. Beckwourth’s travels led him to modern-day Colorado, where he met traders Louis Vasquez and William Bent and became acquainted with the Southern Cheyenne Indians. He helped establish the trading post of El Pueblo, along the Arkansas River, before he turned west to California. In 1856, in collaboration with T. D. Bonner, he published The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, an autobiography made him a legendary figure throughout the country.

Beckwourth returned to Colorado in 1859 and settled in the new city of Denver. The Rocky Mountain News described him as a “polished gentleman. . . hale, hearty, and straight as an arrow.” Beckwourth managed a store for his old friend, the merchant Louis Vasquez. The aging fur trader also witnessed the deteriorating relations between settlers and the American Indians who called the land home. In April 1860, a letter appeared in the Rocky Mountain News, signed by Beckwourth, in which he condemned the sexual assault of several Arapaho women and girls by a group of white men, whom he called “drunken devils.” Beckwourth counseled the Arapaho to wait for justice, but the community of Denver failed to take action against the assailants.

Under circumstances historians are still debating, James Beckwourth accompanied Colonel John Chivington’s troops to the Cheyenne and Arapaho camp at Sand Creek. In the early morning of November 29, 1864, soldiers began killing women and children despite the U.S. and white flags flying over the camp. Beckwourth, appalled by the killing, withdrew from the massacre. He visited a Cheyenne camp in January 1865, advising them to make peace with the government. The Sand Creek survivors were not interested. Their leader, Leg-in-the-Water, greeted Beckwourth coldly, asking if he was leading more white men to kill them. A few months later, in March 1865, Beckwourth appeared before an army commission investigating the massacre. He confirmed that the soldiers had killed people from “one week old up to eighty years.” Beckwourth’s testimony enraged Chivington’s supporters, and perhaps the aging mountain man saw that there was no future for him in the region. He left Colorado in 1866 for Fort Laramie, where he became an interpreter between the Crow Indians and the U.S. government. In late September of 1866, while he was in Montana visiting his old friends among the Crows, he took ill and died. He was buried on Crow land.

Beckwourth’s exploits made him legendary in his own time. The facts of his life reveal a complex man who made opportunities in the West but struggled as he saw gold-rushers and settlers transform the region he loved.

For more about Beckwourth: Denver’s James P. Beckwourth Mountain Club, incorporated in 1994, is dedicated to providing experiential outdoor education for youth and families. Also visit the El Pueblo History Museum, which stands near the site of the original structure in downtown Pueblo.

by Modupe Labode
Chief Historian, Colorado Historical Society

This is the last article of a series contributed by historians at the Colorado Historical Society to celebrate Black History Month. For more information about the Colorado Historical Society and Colorado History Museum, visit www.coloradohistory.org.


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Colorado Historical Society/ Colorado History Museum has posted 110 stories and 0 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Colorado Historical Society/ Colorado History Museum's average story rating is 5.
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