The Remarkable Life of James P. Beckworth

You're no more than a kid, but you're a bruiser. You don't go out of your way to start fights, but you end them effectively. You're in St. Louis, 1820 or so. Your father took his family west. The population is four, maybe five thousand. Things are hopping. The west is calling.

A few days ago, a note in the newspaper said a man named General Ashley was recruiting young men to "ascend the Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one or two or three years." The ad promised the frontier, the west. The ad said this was all about beaver. Europeans are still nuts about beaver hats. 

Your name is Jim Beckworth, and, like the others, you want like heck to explore, to discover, to test your mettle. You sign up as one of "Ashley's Hundred.” You haven't trapped a beaver in your life. 

But you're, well, special, and you know it. You're built like a fort, haven't spent a night of your life in fear. You're of mixed race. Your father is an Irishman; your mother was mixed race herself. You're African-American--at a time most everyone would use the n-word. But you're built like a tight end. You could bite through a bullet, at least that's what you tell yourself. 

There are 34 of you signed up with this batch of "Ashley's Hundred." Early on, out on the prairie and dangerously short on grub, you and your rifle go out your own and bag a couple of deer. "Oh, yeah," you tell your friends, "and I shot something big and brown, huge."

Buffalo. You'd never seen one before. That night, everyone eats good.

One day, you’re shoeing the General's horse. This horse of his is not particularly compliant. When he refuses to cooperate, you whack him the way you'd always had done in St. Louis. Nothing harmful. But the boss sees you do it and goes ballistic, or so the story goes: "he poured his curses thick and fast" with words you can't repeat.” 

Those curses make you burn. You control your own anger and tell him you'd finished three of the horse's four shoes. "There is one more nail to drive," you tell the General, "which you may drive for yourself or let go undriven," And then you unload: "I will see you dead before I will lift another finger to serve you."

Not a good idea to talk that way, but you tell your friends that the General’s "words will never be forgiven."

That’s just one story from the life of James P. Beckworth, a mountain man, a trapper out here in the early years of the 19th century, a man born a slave.

Somewhere during those years in the frontier, a remarkable thing happened. Among the Crow, Beckworth again and again proved himself in battle, so well that when the Crow watched him face off against their enemy, the Blackfoot, his valor didn't go unnoticed.

A chief who'd lost his son in battle, formally adopted this mountain man for his very own son. For a time, James P. Beckworth became a head man, the chief among the Crow. For six years, he lived among them, fought through a string of battles, even took several wives. He wore buckskin and braided his hair like his adopted brothers and sisters.  

He was a strong man, a fierce leader in battle, this man born a slave. What's beyond doubt is that Beckworth would have had a far different life back east. Instead, he'd gone west, a mountain man, was renowned by his adoptive people in a way he could never have been valued among those who would have made him pay a price for the color of his skin. 

James P. Beckworth discovered a path through the Rockies to California, fought Seminoles in Florida and Mexicans in the Mexican War. He worked as a guide for the U. S. Cavalry, played cards professionally, and loved sitting around telling his wild, life story, not without some embellishment here and there.

There's much more to the story of James P. Beckworth, a most remarkable African-American.