This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs-many never before seen-as well as revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on America's early frontiers. This revised volume includes an exciting new chapter on the Civil War and the experiences of African Americans on the western frontier. Among its fascinating accounts are those explaining how thousands of enslaved people in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas successfully escaped into the neighboring Indian Territory in Oklahoma. These runaways inspired the idea eventually adopted as the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves within the states that were in rebellion. Inspired by a conversation that William Loren Katz had with Langston Hughes, The Black West presents long-neglected stories of daring pioneers like Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick; Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary; Cranford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill-and a host of other intrepid men and women who marched into the wilderness alongside Chief Osceola, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo.
"Bill and I have enjoyed a friendship for many years, but we have been so consumed by the volume and uniqueness of our work, that for a while it seemed as though we had met in an earlier life. And maybe we did, for we have been brothers, in the true sense of the word, during most of my important years here in the United States. We, as scholars, have shared visuals, documents, stimulating discussio
