Jim Beckwourth

Explorer and entrepreneur

• Born: April 26, 1798
• Birthplace: Fredericksburg, Virginia
• Died: c. 1867
• Place of death: Denver, Colorado

Beckwourth was one of the best-known African Americans involved in the early history and development of the American West. He is especially remembered for the discovery of the famous trail that bears his name and for his autobiography, The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth(1856).

Early Life

James Pierson Beckwourth (PEER-suhn BEHK-wuhrth) was born on April 26, 1798, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His father, Sir Jennings Beckwith (James at some point changed the spelling of the name), was of English ancestry while his mother, about whom little is known, was probably one of his father’s slaves.

While Beckwourth was still a boy, the family moved to Missouri and settled near the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, a short distance from the town of St. Charles. During the years that followed, he attended school briefly in St. Louis before being apprenticed to a local blacksmith. Although technically a slave until the mid-1820’s, when his father took the legal steps to free him, Beckwourth was generally treated even in his early years as free. By the time he reached adulthood, he was six feet tall and of rugged build.

When he was in his mid-twenties, Beckwourth joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He worked in the Rocky Mountain region and became known for his storytelling ability, often telling greatly embellished tales of his own exploits. During this time, he also came into contact with some of the best-known “mountain men” connected with the early development of the fur trade, such as Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, and David Jackson.

Beckwourth’s work brought him into frequent contact with American Indians. After his capture by a Crow tribe in the late 1820’s, he stayed with the group for several years, marrying a number of Crow women and eventually gaining recognition as a war chief and participating in battles against other Indian tribes in the area. He also switched allegiance from the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to the powerful American Fur Company founded by John Jacob Astor. In the mid-1830’s, however, changes in the trade led Beckwourth to seek other outlets for his skills and energy.

Life’s Work

In 1837, Beckwourth entered the employment of the U.S. Army as a mule driver and took part in the Second Seminole Indian War in Florida. He was present at the famous Battle of Okeechobee on Christmas Day, 1837, and was chosen to carry the news of its outcome to the Army headquarters at Tampa Bay. Shortly afterward, he returned to the West and the fur trade, working in Colorado and along the Santa Fe Trail before arriving in California in the mid-1840’s. In California, he sided with the American settlers in their revolt against Mexico and during the Mexican War that followed (1846-1848), Beckwourth rejoined the Army as a courier.

After the war, Beckwourth returned to California. The state’s gold rush was just beginning, and he engaged in several business ventures related to it. In 1850, while traveling to the mining camps along the California-Nevada border, Beckwourth discovered the mountain pass that would later bear his name. The pass was extremely important at the time, cutting nearly 150 miles off the route normally taken by overland travelers to California. Beckwourth worked to develop the trail in the years that followed, believing that he would be paid for his efforts by the town leaders of Marysville at the California end of the trail; however, that never occurred. He turned to ranching and established a hotel and trading post in the area that he called the “pleasant valley” at the eastern end of the trail.

In the winter of 1854, Beckwourth was approached by Thomas D. Bonner, an easterner who had just arrived in the area, about the possibility of recording his life story. Beckwourth, with his long history as a storyteller, agreed to the venture, and he and Bonner soon began work on the project. The result was The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth: Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians, published by Harper and Brothers in New York in 1856. Although the book became a best seller and brought considerable fame to Beckwourth, its veracity has long been a subject of debate among historians.

Beckwourth remained at his trading post and hotel in the valley he had discovered until November of 1858. He then traveled back to Missouri for a brief stay before resettling in Denver, Colorado, in 1859. He managed a general store there for several years and entered into the last of his many marriages. In 1864, after the death of his infant daughter and the breakup of his marriage, he signed on as a scout with the Third Colorado Volunteers, commanded by Colonel John Chivington, for a campaign against the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians. He was present at the Sand Creek Massacre, led by Chivington, in November of that year, although he did not participate directly and later testified against Chivington in the official inquiry.

In the final years of his life, Beckwourth returned to the Crow territory in the vicinity of the Bighorn River in Montana. He became ill and died in Denver, Colorado, around 1867.

Significance

While he is most often remembered for the discovery of the famous trail that bears his name and for his autobiography, Beckwourth was a participant in a number of the major historical events of his era, including the Second Seminole Indian War in Florida, the Mexican War, and the California gold rush. His role in the early years of the Rocky Mountain fur trade found him living and working alongside such other famous “mountain men” as Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger, and David Jackson, and the time he spent among the Crow Indians provides an interesting case study in intercultural interaction as well as offering valuable insights into American Indian culture. Beckwourth’s life provides an excellent example of the role played by African Americans in the early exploration and development of the American West.

Bibliography

Beckwourth, James P., and T. D. Bonner. The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth. Edited by Bernard DeVoto. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931. Famous edition of Beckwourth’s autobiography, edited and with an introduction by twentieth century historian Bernard DeVoto.

Dolan, Sean. James Beckwourth. New York: Chelsea House, 1992. A short, well-illustrated popular biography.

Lape, Noreen Groover. West of the Border: The Multicultural Literature of the Western American Frontiers. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000. Offers modern literary and sociohistorical analysis of Beckwourth’s autobiography.

Wilson, Elinor. Jim Beckwourth: Black Mountain Man and War Chief of the Crows. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. A well-researched biography that seeks to sort out the facts from the fiction of Beckwourth’s remarkable life.