Seeking a New Life: Blacks in Post-Civil War Colorado

Scholars have gleaned invaluable data from the Slave Narratives. One aspect of these data, but not by any means the most important, is the ex-slaves' and antebellum free blacks' remembrances of the "peculiar institution." Other questions discussed in the Slave Narratives include life during the Civil War, the Reconstruction and the post-Reconstruction eras. The economic hardships and emotional traumas that blacks were subjected to during the Great Depression era are also given prominence in the Slave Narratives. This essay is primarily concerned with a select number of blacks born during the antebellum, the Civil War, the Reconstruction, or post-Reconstruction eras who, upon leaving their place of birth, sought a new life in the Territory or State of Colorado. The data examined in preparation for the writing of this essay are found in the United States Census Bureau Reports, the State of Colorado BUreau of Labor Statistics Reports, and the Slave Narratives. Census bureau reports and labor statistics data provide useful insights into the population characteristics of the Territory or State of Colorado. The Slave Narratives shed light on how the black population fared and what race relations were like in a "Wild West" state. It should be noted that only nine of the twenty-three black Coloradans included in the Slave Narratives had been slaves. All others, except for one, were born during or toward the end of the Reconstruction era. Slavery was a mature institution in the Southern states by the time of the Civil War. Although a minority of Southern whites had owned slaves, a majority perceived themselves to be superior to blacks and expected to be accorded deference whenever a black was in their presence. It is unclear whether or not whites in the Western territories and states held similar views. The emancipation of the slave population by the Thirteenth Amendment did not radically alter Southern whites' perceptions of blacks, or for that matter blacks' perceptions of themselves. But it affirmed blacks' humanness, and the Fourteenth Amendment bestowed on them citizenship. Most important is the fact that both Amendments enabled blacks to move about freely, and scores of them established residence in the Territory and later the State of Colorado. Census data do not record any blacks residing in the Territory of Colorado in 1850.(1) A mere 46 were counted among the Territory's total population in 1860, and by 1870, the number stood at 456. The white population totaled 34,277 in 1860, and 39,221 when Colorado was admitted into the Union in 1876. Little is known about whites' reactions to Colorado's first black settlers or what the racial climate was like in 1865.(2) But it is unlikely that whites in Colorado and in other Western territories and states were totally free of racial prejudices. Blacks were a curiosity, perhaps even an amusement, to Western whites, but fears that whites harbored of blacks in other sections of America seemed not to have been an issue in the "Wild West." For example, whites had little to fear of blacks changing the character of the West, much less of challenging them for scarce economic and political resources.(3) Conversely, those blacks who settled in Colorado or in other Western territories and states did not have to concern themselves with allaying whites' fears of their attempting to exercise political power, as was the case in a number of the Southern states where blacks were a significant proportion of the total population. Colorado had a large foreign-born white population, a group which most likely did not view blacks in the same vein as American-born whites. Data on foreign-born whites in Colorado are presented in Table 1. Table 1 Foreign Born Population in Colorado in 1900, According to(*) Country of Birth Total Number Residing in Colorado Austria 6,024 Bohemia 330 Canada (English) 8,837 Canada (French) 960 Denmark 2,050 England 13,575 France 1,162 Germany 14,606 Holland 260 Hungary 574 Ireland 10,132 Italy 6,818 Norway 1,149 Russia 2,938 Scotland 4,069 Sweden 10,765 Switzerland 1,479 Wales 1,955 Other Countries 2,578 * Data extracted from Census Reports: Population, 1900 (Washington: U. …