Few records exist that describe the migrations of African Americans in the nineteenth-century American West. Efforts to assemble collections of oral histories, images, diaries, and other written documents on the black experience in the Western U.S. and Canada have proven surprisingly fruitful, however, and the rewarding culmination of such research flourishes in the archival images found in this expanded second edition of John Ravage’s Black Pioneers.
Utilizing public and private collections in every western state and in Canada, Ravage has compiled hundreds of new photographs, line drawings, lithographs, stereoviews, and other images. Sections on black entertainers and ranchers, a chapter on dating historic photographs and their genealogical significance, as well as an expanded bibliography all aid understanding of the black frontier experience.
Ravage goes beyond the stereotypical photography of the era, which often reflected white fears and egos, to present the works of black frontier photographers. Galveston’s Lucius Harper, Denver’s John Green, and the northwest’s nomadic James Presley Ball all bring genuine life to their subjects and meaning to their presence in the American West. Black Pioneers is a vibrant visual document of the profound impact blacks on communal and frontier history.