# The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth

Memoir of a mountain man and scout of mixed Black and White ancestry; considered by most historians to be highly embroidered
​"Adventures are to the Adventurous." Beaconsfield.
THE ADVENTURE SERIES. Illustrated.Crown 8vo, 5s.
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(OTHERS IN THE PRESS.)
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JAMES P. BECKWOURTH, MOUNTAINEER, SCOUT, PIONEER, AND CHIEF OF THE CROW NATION OF INDIANS
WRITTEN FROM HIS OWN DICTATION BY T. D. BONNER
NEW EDITION. EDITED, WITH PREFACE, BY CHARLES G. LELAND ("HANS BREITMANN")
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE. MDCCCXCII
PREFACE TO THE NEW ENGLISH EDITION.
hough there has been for more than thirty years a vast manufacture of cheap romances of the "Scalp Hunter" and "Bandits of the Plains" description, it is still true that works setting forth the frontier life of America by men who have really experienced it, are actually rare, and this is specially the case as regards real residence on familiar terms among the Red Indians. This is to be regretted, because every student of History will, in another generation, wonder at this indifference as regards a state of society which is, even by us, regarded as intensely interesting. The chief reason for this is that those who were best qualified by experience were in most cases the worst fitted as regards education, to observe, or record, what they had lived through. Young people very generally believe that the mere fact of having seen much of the world, or the having travelled, qualifies anybody to describe well, when, on the contrary, a man who has not keenly cultivated the arts of observation and writing, generally acquires nothing of the kind. On the contrary, as we often see in sailors, constant change makes him indifferent to everything save mere personal interests. Like the stork who had travelled every year of his life from Antwerp to Egypt or India, yet could tell of nothing except where the best swamps and pools were with the fattest frogs and largest worms, so ​men who have travelled most can, very often, only tell us where are the best restaurants and hotels.
James Beckwourth was a man who had really had a very wild and varied life on the frontier, all of which might have remained unknown had he not chanced upon Mr. T. D. Bonner, who, as this work indicates, wrote English in a straightforward manner, and knew how to elicit narratives from his subject in a straightforward style. Beckwourth had lived among Indians in the old "buffalo days"—which means, without exaggeration, that he had perhaps "held his life in his hand," on an average about once a day—had really been recognized by the United States Government as a man who was capable of influencing and restraining the formidable tribe of Crow Indians, for which very badly performed duty he was for a long time paid a high salary, and finally he had, beyond all question, undergone hundreds of adventures as wild and characteristic as any described in this book. I would here protest that so far as I am concerned, the revising and editing this work is by no means a piece of literary hack-work, since it was my intention to write on this man thirty years ago. Through personal channels I had often heard of him. Mrs. General Ashley, so celebrated for her grace and refinement—of whom Beckwourth speaks so admiringly—was an intimate friend of my mother, and I have often conversed about Beckwourth himself with Mr. Chouteau. But it was to Mr. Robert P. Hunt, of Saint Louis, who had known Beckwourth well in his wildest life in the Plains, that I was chiefly indebted for my knowledge and interest in this strange semi-outlaw, and of him I will speak anon.
I am also very much indebted, and hereby return my most cordial thanks, to Horace Klephart, Esq., Librarian of the Mercantile Library of Saint Louis, Missouri, for kindly taking the pains to look up for me the two following paragraphs which supply the principal data of Beckwourth's life not given in Mr. Bonner's book, or which are subsequent to it as to time.
​"James P. Beckwourth was born in Virginia of a negro slave mother and an Irish overseer. He resided for a time in the valley of the Sierra Nevada, but being implicated in certain transactions which attracted the notice of the vigilants, fled and went to Missouri. When the migration to Colorado was at its height in 1859, he proceeded to Denver, and was taken into partnership with Louis Vasquez and his nephew. Being tired of trade, he went to live on a farm, and took a Mexican wife, but fell out with her, and finally relapsed into his former mode of savage life, dying about 1867" (Montana Post, February 28, 1867).
The following note is pencilled on the margin of the copy of Bonner's "Life of Beckwourth," in the Mercantile Library of Saint Louis:—
"He now (1865?) lives three miles south of Denver City, on Cherry Creek, Colorado; has a ranch, and was in the engagement against the Cheyennes at Sand Creek, November 29 (November 27, 1864), and is a noted old lier" (sic).
This last word brings us to a critical point in the Beckwourthiana. It recalls the anecdote that some one said of him that some men are rarely worthy of belief, but that Jim was always Beckwourthy of un-belief. At the same time we are told that this man who was so splendide mendax was really in a fight with the Cheyennes, of which it may be truly said that no lying whatever was necessary to enable a participant to tell a perfectly true and thrilling tale.
That Beckwourth had the very general frontier weakness of spinning marvellous yarns, and that he seldom narrated an adventure without making the utmost of it, even when it was perfectly needless, is probably true. I once knew a ​woman whose authentic adventures are matter of history, and who had really led the most marvellous life in every corner of the globe, yet whose imagination and love of exciting astonishment were so great that I always discounted fifty per cent. from her reminiscences. So it may have been with the Crow chief. In relation to this weakness, I find the following from an American newspaper:—
"There was a camp of miners in California to whom Beckwourth was well known, and when his life appeared they commissioned one of their number, who was going to San Francisco to obtain stores, to purchase the book. Not being very careful, he got by mistake a copy of the Bible. In the evening, after his return, the messenger was requested to read aloud to the rest from the long-expected work. Opening the volume at random, he hit upon and read aloud the story of Samson and the foxes. Whereupon one of the listeners cried: 'That'll do! I'd know that story for one of Jim Beckwourth's lies anywhere!'"
Against this cloudy reputation it may be remarked that perhaps the most extraordinary, desperately daring, and highly creditable adventure of his life, the account of which I had from an eye-witness who was a truthful gentleman, if such a man ever existed, and who had been at the same university where I myself graduated—is not mentioned in Bonner's life. It was as follows:—
"I do not think that Beckwourth was ever head chief among the Crows, though I dare say he made himself out to be such; but that he was really a sub-chief is true, for I myself was on the ground when they made him one—and a strange sight it was. Beckwourth was a very powerful man—he had been a blacksmith—and he certainly was a desperately brave fighter.
"A very large grizzly bear had been driven into a cave, ​and Beckwourth asked of a great number of Crows who were present whether any one of them would go in and kill the creature. All declined, for it seemed to be certain death. Then Beckwourth stripped himself naked, and wrapping a Mexican blanket round his left arm, and holding a strong sharp knife, entered the cave, and after a desperate fight, killed the bear. I came up to the place in time to see Beckwourth come out of the cave, all torn and bleeding. He looked like the devil if ever man did. The Crows were so much pleased at this that he was declared a sub-chief on the spot."
This same authority stated that Beckwourth was the offspring, not of a negress, but of a quadroon and a planter. I incline to believe this. If Beckwourth's mother had been a negress, he could never have resembled an Indian so much as to pass for one; while the education given him and the care bestowed on him in youth, are more likely to have come from an American planter than an Irish overseer. It may be remarked here that among the rough class of frontiersmen from whom biographical items of one another may be derived, there is always a cynical disposition to ridicule and make fun of, or to detract from the reputation of, almost everybody. Ask any one of them who has known Kit Carson, or Buffalo Bill, or any other great man of the Plains, for information as to them, and nine times out of ten he will demonstrate to you that the man in question was a humbug, and proceed to relate anecdotes to his discredit. For this reason I incline to think that Beckwourth has been too severely judged as regards veracity, since the strictest judges must admit that there is nothing improbable in his biography, or which might not have occurred to any bold and intelligent man who was in the varied positions which, according to the most authentic testimony of others, he really occupied.
The same friend to whom I have alluded, who had ​passed twenty-five years as hunter, trapper, and trader in the West, narrated to me the following:—
"I once, as I verily believe, saved Beckwourth's life. I found him and his party nearly starved to death, and gave them supplies—food and ammunition and things which I could ill afford. (Here certain details were added which I do not now distinctly recall.)
"Well, it happened a long time after that I and my party convoyed a large waggon train over the Plains. After a while a party of Crow Indians began to 'run' us badly. They hovered about, trying to shoot and scalp our stragglers and steal our cattle, and at last things became intolerable. They were in such numbers that I feared lest they might wipe us out.
"I soon observed, from their manner of attack, that they were under command of a white man, and came to the conclusion that it must be Beckwourth. I resolved on a bold stroke. When the Indians had settled down one evening, I took my best men and rode right into their camp. As I expected, I found that Beckwourth was leader. I said to him at once—
"'Jim Beckwourth, you———' [the reader may fill this hiatus with the choicest flowers of Western phraseology], 'what do you mean by acting in this manner? The United States Government pays you two thousand dollars a year for acting as agent, and keeping your Indians quiet, and you repay it by scalping and robbing the travellers whom you are paid to protect. Have you forgotten how I once saved your life—the very last time we met? Now here I am, and our lives are in your hands, but I tell you that by God I will shoot you dead this instant if you dont call off your Indians, and make a clear way. You know very well that if you kill me it will be known far and wide, from here to Washington.'
"Then Beckwourth spoke me fair, and said that he did not know it was I, and so on. And looking about, I saw a ​white boy, a Mexican. He was the handsomest boy I ever saw in my life. And I said—
"'You have no business to take and keep white captives, American or Mexican; and that boy must go with me."
"And he made great demur, but finally consented. So he called off his Indians, and we went peacefully over the Plains."
"And the Mexican boy?"
"I wished I had left him among the Indians. He turned out to be the most infernal young scoundrel on the face of the earth."
The reader may be perfectly assured of the truth of every word of these reminiscences, and it is evident that they correspond altogether to the manner and style of adventure narrated by Beckwourth himself. Daily life on the Plains consisted in those days of constant raiding and being raided, robbing and "running," or in horse-stealing, with not a little fighting. On the very first hour on which I myself arrived at the most advanced surveyor’s station on the Kansas-Pacific Railway in 1866, an employé came in, reporting that he had just escaped with his life from a party of Apaches in war-paint, four miles distant. And before another half-hour passed, there came in a Lieutenant Hesselberger, who brought in a poor woman and her two daughters, whom he had recently ransomed from Indians at the risk of his life. They had seen husband and father murdered before their eyes at their home in Texas, their house being burned; after which they had been subjected for six months to such infamous and horrible brutalities that it was a marvel that they survived the treatment. It is worth mentioning that Henry Stanley, who has since become known as the great African explorer, was on the spot, and wrote an account of the captivity of these poor creatures for the New York Herald. Such were for a long time the daily events of my life. At one time it was a buffalo hunt, another an adventure of ​some curious sort among Indians. Altogether, when I recall my own experiences and adventures on different occasions in the West and on the frontier during and after the War of the Rebellion, I cannot find that it was much less interesting, varied, or striking than that of Beckwourth, the one great difference being that it was less bloody, albeit there was no lack of sanguinary occurrences in the guerilla country at the time of the Battle of Murfreesboro, &c., about which place, and Nashville, I then passed the winter.
If a man like Beckwourth had been intelligent enough to take an interest in folk-lore—that is to say, in Indian traditions, superstitions, and observances—or a student of nature in its varied forms, one can imagine what an extraordinary book he might have written. As it was, only the most startling incidents of battle and murder remained in his memory. The nomadic Indians among whom he lived are the most savage and brutal of their kind. The Algonkin and other tribes of Canada, which include the Chippewas, are of a different sort. They represent a decayed civilization, so to speak—that is, a state of society which, though essentially savage, was, two centuries since, strangely developed as regards social relations—the administration of justice, and the culture of myths. But the "horse Indians" of the Plains, though they have, as recent researches establish, much that is peculiar and recondite in their cult, are still, on the whole, extremely wild and rough. What may be deduced is that Beckwourth's narrative, making every allowance for exaggeration and falsehood, reflects very truly the real spirit of life as it was among those aborigines with whom he lived. The anecdotes which I have here selected abundantly prove this.
My own honest opinion of the work is that it is true in the main, simply because it was impossible for its hero to have lived through the life which other sources prove that he experienced, and not have met with quite as extraor​dinary adventures as those which he describes. Life is, even to this day, as exciting and full of peril in some parts of America as is possible. I can remember on one occasion to have met with a man who, in journeying from Western Arkansas to Philadelphia, had been shot at twelve times on the route. This was in 1866. But much more recently, in this Langham Hotel where I am now writing, the following actually occurred:—
There happened to be assembled in the smoking-room half-a-dozen men from the Far West. Conversation turned on wild adventure in and west of the Rocky Mountains, and many thrilling tales were told, not as marvels, but as matters of ordinary occurrence. There was present one who took no part in the conversation. After the rest had departed he remained smoking in silence, I remarked that what we had heard was very interesting. He did not seem to quite understand what I meant, and asked to what I specially alluded. I said that such stories of Indian warfare were highly exciting. To which he replied—
"Oh, yes! Injuns are the devil—that's a fact. The last time I came over the Plains—six months ago—they shot seven balls into me. There are four of 'em in me yet. I went to-day to one of the best surgeons in London, and he says there are three of 'em which he can never get out."
This was told in a matter-of-fact, common-place tone, as if having bullets shot into one by Indians was no more remarkable than an attack of the rheumatism might be. Beckwourth's adventures are, in reality, nothing beyond such experiences as this. Even he never had seven bullets in him at once. This number recalls another anecdote. One day in Western Kansas, a man who had shown me some kindness, observing that I collected Indian arms, &c., observed—
"Mr, Leland, I wish I had known you cared for such things. The Indians killed a man right near here a little while ago, and I pulled seven arrows out of his dead ​body. I gave 'em all away. I wish now I had kept 'em for you."
It may be remarked in this connection that there are certain men who have a strange and mysterious gift of getting on with and conciliating Indians. I myself am one of these, and it is an hereditary endowment. There is a legend in the family that my great-grandfather more than a century ago went into Canada to trade with the Indians, and made such a favourable impression on them that they took him captive, and kept him prisoner among them all winter, merely to enjoy the pleasure of his company. In the Canadian records I find that this Mr. Leland on one occasion acted as interpreter in the French and Indian tongues. It was once remarked of me by one who had observed closely that among a number of white men Indians picked me out at sight to confide in; and it was said that I might go among the wildest tribes safely. He who said this had had great experience among them, spoke several Indian tongues, and he declared that about one white man in a hundred had the gift. Beckwourth was one of these naturally "Indian white men," and I believe that it was the real secret of his influence—a fact worth considering in reading this book.
All things considered and all due allowance being made, this Life of Beckwourth still remains, beyond all question, an extremely interesting record of a most interesting state of society, manners, and customs of classes of people who are very rapidly passing away. In this work a kind of life every whit as daring, desperate, and marvellous as that recorded in the Norse sagas, and, indeed, far more abounding in fighting and murder, is brought before us with much real skill, and yet in the simplest and most direct language. In this latter respect it deserves great commendation. I myself can testify that, having read it when it first appeared, more than thirty years after I still retained its leading incidents in my mind as I have done with those of very few other books. And as it combines the two great ​requisites of valuable information and that of deep interest for readers of all classes and ages, I cordially commend it to the public, hoping that all may find it as attractive as I have done.
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.
Langham Hotel, London, September 25, 1891.
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
uried amid the sublime passes of the Sierra Nevada are old men, who, when children, strayed away from our crowded settlements, and, gradually moving farther and farther from civilization, have in time become domiciliated among the wild beasts and wilder savages—have lived scores of years whetting their intellects in the constant struggle for self-preservation; whose only pleasurable excitement was found in facing danger; whose only repose was to recuperate, preparatory to participating in new and thrilling adventures. Such men, whose simple tale would pale the imaginative creations of our most popular fictionists, sink into their obscure graves unnoticed and unknown. Indian warriors, whose bravery and self-devotion find no parallels in the preserved traditions of all history, end their career on the "war-path," sing in triumph their death-song, and become silent, leaving no impression on the intellectual world.
Among the many men who have distinguished themselves as mountaineers, traders, chiefs of the great Indian nations, and as early pioneers in the settlement of our Pacific coast, is James P. Beckwourth, whose varied and startling personal adventures would have found no record but for the accident of meeting with a wanderer in the mountains of California, who became interested in the man, and, patiently listening to his story, proceeded, as it fell from his lips, to put it upon paper.
This autobiography was thus produced, and was the result ​of some months' labour in the winter of 1854–55. In prosecuting the task, the author has in no instance departed from the story of the narrator, but it was taken down literally as it was from day to day related. Beckwourth kept no journal, and, of course, relied upon his memory alone; consequently dates are often wanting, which it was impossible to give with accuracy when recurring to events transpiring in the course of very many years. Beckwourth is personally known to thousands of people "living on both sides of the mountains," and also, from his service under the United States government, has enjoyed the acquaintance of many officers of the United States Army, who have been stationed in Florida, Mexico, and California. In his long residence with the Indians he adopted their habits, and in every respect conformed to their ways: the consequence was, from his great courage and superior mental endowments, he rose rapidly in their estimation, and finally became their chief. As an Indian, therefore, he speaks of their customs, and describes their characteristics; and probably, in his autobiography, we have more interesting particulars than were ever before given of the aborigines.
Beckwourth, after ten thousand adventures, finally became involved in the stream that set toward the Pacific, and, almost unconsciously, he established a home in one of the pleasant valleys that border on Feather River. Discovering a pass in the mountains that greatly facilitated emigrants in reaching California, his house became a stopping-place for the weary and dispirited among them, and no doubt the associations thus presented have done much to efface his natural disposition to wander and seek excitement among the Indian tribes.
In person he is of medium height, of strong muscular power, quick of apprehension, and, for a man of his years, very active. From his neck is suspended a perforated bullet, with a large oblong bead each side of it, secured by a thread of sinew; this amulet is just as he wore it while chief among the Crows. With the exception of this, he has now assumed the usual costume of civilized life, and, in his occasional visits to San Francisco, vies with many prominent residents in the dress and manners of the refined gentleman.
It is unnecessary to speak of the natural superiority of his ​mind: his autobiography everywhere displays it. His sagacity in determining what would please the Indians has never been surpassed; for on the most trying occasions, where hundreds of others would have fallen victims to circumstances, he escaped. His courage is of the highest order, and probably few men ever lived who have met with more personal adventure involving danger to life, though in this respect he is not an exception to all mountaineers and hunters who early engaged in the fur trade and faced the perils of an unknown wilderness.
CONTENTS.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
(These are taken from reproductions of the portraits of individual Crows and Blackfeet Indians, painted by Catlin during his stay among the North American Indians).
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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