Friday, April 16, 1920 “Will Drill at Blackdom”

“How do you solve the situation? By staying outside the system, living alone. I found that to be an outsider is to be alienated and unhappy. In the Party, we have formed a family, a fighting family that is a vital unit itself.”

Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide 

The Herron Family Dynasty began a homestead in the time of Blackdom’s revival (1909-1919). In 1913, Erastus, patriarch of the Herron family, migrated to the area and stayed with the pastor of Blackdom’s church, Crutcher Eubank. The process of homesteading provided a fairly predictable five-year plan, which helped shape a Blackdomite cult of agronomy around dry-farming. Erastus started his journey on a homestead patent in January of 1914. World War I ended and his two sons came back to Blackdom from France, Erastus submitted his final set of proving-up documents in September of 1918 and sparked a legal dispute. 

Roswell Daily Record: Friday, April 16, 1920 [Pg 3]

Clayborn Stephens got his ass whipped by one of Erastus’ sons and the humiliation turned him petty. Clayborn filed an application to contest Erastus’ homestead entry claiming Erastus never established a residence on the land; a major requirement to earn the homestead patent. Clayborn attempted to commandeer the land by employing land reclamation and demanded the rights to Erastus’s land once the case was over; as a finders fee.

Erastus built a 2-room framed house 6ft by 24ft. Aside from the storm house and cellar, there was also a 2-wire fence surrounding a field 900ft by 1200ft. It included an enclosure of 300ft by 400ft that had a 3-wire fence. The land could have been plowed with 2- mules but the droughts as well as, the learning curve of dry-farming rendered Herron in need of capital. 

Special agent Mason Leming interviewed all of the witnesses on Erastus' final proof to resolve Clayborn’s dispute. On February 8, 1919, Leming interviewed Nick Gates on his homestead less than a mile away from Erastus’. Gates substantiated Herron’s claim to cultivate 12 acres. Leming also interviewed George Malone, the 1st lawyer under the condition of Blackness to argue in front of New Mexico’s Supreme Court.  In 1919, Malone was also Blackdom Townsite’s postmaster and teacher. Significantly, the interview took place in the federal space of the Post Office. Malone came to Blackdom in September of 1915 and lived with his family half a mile from Erastus. Malone stated that he too witnessed Erastus continuous residency. R. Gilmore agreed and Erastus received his patent, May 20, 1921.  

In 1919, the investigation showed the Herron Family Dynasty established residence on February 11, 1915. Raising livestock was the only way to make a profit at the time. Clayborn’s claim evolved from Blackdomite’s virtual existence, which caused homesteading Blackdomites to temporarily abandon the land. Herron proved-up by cultivating, plowing and planting a patch of land 410ft by 250ft in the 1914 season. The land didn’t produce well enough in the short term and he was more productive laboring on Pastor Eubank Family set of homesteads. The process continued and Erastus' absence was a cultural effect from raising capital to reinvest in Blackdom.   

Sovereignty was hard to gain and even trickier once achieved. It would be interesting to know how Clayborn, with his petty ass, felt opening the Roswell Daily Record on Friday, April 16, 1920, to read “Will Drill at Blackdom.”

by Dr. Timothy E. Nelson ©

“...these are idiosyncratic expressions, and the idiosyncrasies of an emerging middle-class might seem unimportant if they exist only in specific moments and spaces apart from the more dominant bourgeois realities of repression, firmness of identity, the exploitation of others, and competition.”

Brian Roberts, American Alchemy

Apache Land fell victim to colonization and disease. By 1900, a Southern Confederate-styled movement gained traction in the Mexico-U.S. Borderlands. American Reconstruction shaped a racialization process that materialized in the form of militarization of frontier spaces, and medicalization of Indigenous peoples. Opportunity for Black Colonization was born out of voluntary and involuntary participation in the mayhem. Colonization operates on a continuum.

Black Military personnel often seized the time in moments of chaos and found opportunity to lead liberation/colonization movements. Across time and space, colonizers compensated people of African descent like Juan Garrido, who gained land from the Mexican government in the 1520s. Juan was a tool of colonization and military service was his opportunity.   

Chaos and mayhem at the turn of the 19th Century presented Black Loyalists with options. In some cases, Military service, on behalf of the British, helped, people under the conditions of Blackness, (Black people) gain land sovereignty to the detriment of Indigenous Africans. Freemasonry, an adjacent set of institutions, had no immunity to opportunistic Black sovereignty seekers. After aiding Revolutionary War efforts, Prince Hall employed freedom to charter a new Freemasonry conducive to the illumination of Black people.  

By 1900, colonization left Mexico's northern frontier a contested space. Resilience of the Indigenismo{/a/x) stalled New Mexico’s statehood process from 1848 to 1912. Semiotically led by Buffalo Soldiers, Blackdomites and Prince Hall Freemasons achieved sovereignty in less than 20 years. The vision for Blackdom included plans to produce self-governing people. 

Blackdom differed little from the Manifest Destiny movements projected by “Anglo-Saxons.” Increased militarization of the Borderlands ushered in the establishment of the New Mexico Military Institute and helped fortify a relative supremacy of Whiteness in the regional consciousness. 

Roswell Daily Record

Wednesday, April 7, 1920

Roswell, New Mexico

On September 3, 1891, the Goss Military Academy was founded through the efforts of Captain James C. Lea and Colonel Robert Goss. With an initial enrollment of 28 students, including female students, the school was the first in New Mexico to adopt military features. The Academy was later made a territorial school and renamed New Mexico Military Institute in February 1893. {reference]

Robert Goss was a colonel in the Confederate Army. Semiotically, Black people also found opportunity in military service of the Confederacy.  

In 1903, Blackdomites colonized the notion of separate-but-equal. Separation of “Black” from “White” was a racialization strategy. In New Mexico, people with all rights and privileges associated with Whiteness had few real mechanisms to fully establish White supremacy in Chaves County. Jim Crow Laws were illegal in the New Mexico Territory. Blackdomites employed their freedom, volunteered to separate, and struck oil. Blackdomites exploited the distance between White Supremacy and free Black bodies in #TheAfrōFrontier they developed. 

by Dr. Timothy E. Nelson ©