The Forgotten Black Pioneers Who Settled the Midwest

[rangerrebew]

The Forgotten Black Pioneers Who Settled the Midwest
Before the Civil War, free black settlements grew in the Northwest Territory.
by Sarah Laskow June 14, 2018
 

The image of the American pioneer, as painted by books, games, movies, and even history, rarely changes. Bonneted women and stalwart men traveled to the edges of United States territory with their few possession to break the land and start new lives. In these stories, the pioneers may come from different places or backgrounds—but they all seem to be white.

But in the decades before the Civil War, free black people migrating from the South and East lived the same story. In a new book, The Bone and Sinew of the Land, historian Anna-Lisa Cox documents the homesteading activities of thousands of “forgotten black pioneers” in the Northwest Territory—the area stretching from what’s now Ohio to Illinois and north into Wisconsin and Michigan.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/black-pioneers-in-the-midwest

[dfwgator]

"The white folks didn't let us travel in their circle, so we made our own."

[ABX]

Hollywood has whitewashed so much of the American expansion story, especially in the West.

Most people don't even realize, the real character that was a very rough basis for The Lone Ranger was an African American freed slave. US Marshal Bass Reeves. His real life story is as good as any Hollywood western.



https://www.policeone.com/police-heroes/articles/6408028-Police-History-Was-U-S-Marshal-Bass-Reeves-the-real-Lone-Ranger/