The Long Road From Slavery To 21st Century

Chapter 3:  The Brave African Americans That Helped Build America

African Americans Were with White Adventurers

The history books purposely left out the names and exploits of the many Africans that helped build America.  The impact of Africans on our nation’s growth and progress is barely shown across the land in the edifices that have survived our forefathers and the monuments erected by succeeding generations in memory of what they did.

African Americans were with the first Spanish explores who landed on Florida’s coast.  Estevanico blazed the wooden crosses on the trail that enabled Fray Marcos de Niza to be “the first White man” in Arizona down to New-Mexico.  They were with the founders of Maryland on the Ark and the Dove, and constituted a majority of the original settlers of Los Angeles.  When Captain Robert Gay encountered hostile Indians on his discovery visit to the Pacific Northwest, an African American in his crew met death at their hands.

When Paul Revere rallied the Minutemen to Lexington and Concord, African Americans were among the first to respond to his call and the first man killed in the American Revolution was African American.  They were with George Washington when he crossed the ice-filled Delaware and Prince Whipple was in the general’s own boat.  During the War of 1812 when Admiral Oliver Hazard Peary defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Eric, one-fourth of his sailors were African Americans.

Matthew Henson went with Admiral Robert E. Peary to the North Pole on April 6, 1909.  Henson was the first man to walk on the North Pole.  Peary could hardly walk because of frostbite and illness and Henson returned to carry him to the North Pole.  The record of the two men, Henson African American and Perry, White, is and inspiration and victory.  When Matthew Henson planted the flag of the United States of America at the North Pole, he was following in the path of many African explorers and adventurers before him, most of whom have remained anonymous to history because their stories were never written.  Figure 3.1 shows Matthew Henson.

One hundred sixty six regiments of African Americans fought to save the Union during the Civil War, only after they had first fought for the right to fight and during the Indian Wars in the pioneer West, the White troops” who fought the red men were really African Americans.

The “Last Stand when Custer fought Sitting Bull, an African American that did not have to be there was among those who died.  Texas African Americans were with the heroic defenders of the Alamo and they died with Colonel Fannin at Goliad.  They fought and died with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba in 1898 flanking the famed Rough Riders in the charge up San Juan Hill.

They sailed on whaling ships in the East, were prominent in the Gold Rush in the West and were with Lewis and Clark.  In the entire book on their Western Trip, at no time was it mention that even one African American was with them. They were with Fremont, Ashley, Sublette and with the pioneers on the Oregon, Santa Fe and Mormon Trails.  They fought the Apache and the Cheyenne to open the famous cattle trails that led North out of Texas and over 5,000 African American cowboys rode the Western Plains.

Nearly 170,000 African Americans soldiers helped to hold the war together, and years after the Civil War, they proved their ability in government until their race was systematically disenfranchised, and the African Americans went down in defeat the results of killings, burning of homes, and scare tactics.

An African American named George Bush was well known and highly respected among the early settlers.  They sought his counsel, and he often staked them with seed, provisions, and supplies.  The area in which they settled is still Bush prairie, but it is doubtful that the origin of the name is known to many of their descendants who are attending Olympia and Seattle schools today.  In Cascade, Montana, an early resident was Mary Fields, an African American woman who worked as a teamster and even drove a

stagecoach for awhile.  She was past seventy before she settled down to a less active life as the village laundress, and she is scarcely remembered today.  The same is true of Sarah Campbell, the first African American woman to enter the Black Hills of South Dakota.  That state’s history records Annie Tallent as the first woman to enter the Black Hills.  Aunt

Sally Campbell, an African American, preceded her by several months, is remembered only on