April 15, 1920 “Will Drill at Blackdom”

“This is a chronicle of the life of a black woman-child in America.”

Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power

Mittie Moore Wilson was an infamous madam who ran her empire from 201 S. Virginia Ave in Roswell, New Mexico. Mittie used her influence, money, and land to buy herself Blackdomite status. Mittie’s original entrance into Blackdom’s business may have begun in 1909 with the 40-acre land acquisition for the Townsite. Nothing about the land acquisition was clear. By 1915, in the middle of a New Mexico Supreme Court case, Mittie fully invested in #TheAfrōFrontier® when she began her first of two 320 acre land patents. Nevertheless, as a woman of ill repute, #MittieMoore was in the margins of Blackdomite society.

Mittie was an independent woman but needed 4 Blackdomites to sign affidavits testifying to her integrity in the completion of her homestead claim. Lucky for her, in the summer of 1919, Blackdomites were in talks to pool their land to create and incorporate the Blackdom Oil Company. Before the official launch, Joe Blue, Clinton Ragsdale, Henry Smith, and #ErastusHerron agreed and signed off on Mittie’s homestead patent. Coincidentally, within a year, Blackdomites sold the church, reassembled the townsite’s business operation to Roswell, and Frank Boyer left Chaves County.

Roswell Daily Record: Thursday, April 15, 1920 [Pg2]

Mittie’s money and land proved her worthy by enhancing the size of Blackdom Oil’s land holdings. The dirty business of oil extraction often left the environment unfarmable. Oil exploration began in 1920, and Blackdom’s existence as a functioning town went virtual once more. The town physically existed on occasions. For example, Blackdomites celebrated Juneteenth with a grand feast and invited neighbors from nearby towns to play baseball. The rest of the time, Blackdom was quiet, except for wildcatters. The homestead-class remained and more so interacted with Rosewell.

Mittie’s participation in Blackdom was a sketchy development for the Roswell Daily Record and they memorialized the moment. During this time, speculating on oil exploration and extraction was risky, lucre, full of shady characters, and associating Blackdom Oil Company with a gun-toting bootlegging negress could discredit the whole operation, in infancy. 

For 31 days, the Roswell Daily Record unprecedentedly reprinted Mittie’s Notice for Publication. Homestead land patents were reported as a “Notice for Publication,” and the Department of the Interior used to document land ownership. The U.S. Land Office at Roswell, New Mexico reported and the Roswell Daily Record reprinted the notice every day through September to October of 1919.

On New Year’s Eve of 1919, the Roswell Daily Record reported that Blackdomites “Will Pool Acreage.”  They made arrangements to pool about 10,000 acres. The land was put in an account at a Roswell bank and kept there until a drilling company came to lease land plots to begin exploration. Word on the street, The National Exploration Co. out of New York, months earlier, had secured land in Orchard Park between Blackdom and Roswell.  

Mittie led a contentious life in Chaves County. Must have felt good to open the daily newspaper on April 15, 1920, and read, “Will Drill at Blackdom.”

by Dr. Timothy E. Nelson ©

“This may be democratic for the majority but for the minority it has the same effect as fascism.” 

Huey P. Newton, {May 1, 1971] To Die For the People

Thursday, April 22, 1920 “Will Drill at Blackdom”

Lives of the first 5 families of Blackdom represent a unique frontier space I refer to as the Blackdom Thesis or #TheAfrōFrontier®️. Blackdomites maintained a variety of philosophical and theoretical models that dictated their actions, reactions, and the development of the Blackdom idea. In 1907, Blackdom inspired Monroe and Mary Collins who migrated from Mississippi to be Blackdomites. Blackdom was a new beginning with freedoms and no Jim Crow laws in the territory. In Dexter, the Boyers hosted the Collins family for their first 6 months.

During the roaring 20s in Chaves County, New Mexico, Black people were in a renaissance of their own. Boyer, Collins, Eubank, Herron, Ragsdale, and Proffit were among the first 5 family dynasties who established culture around homesteading. People under the conditions of Blackness employed freedom to reach a state of sovereignty in spirit, mind, body, and space. Written in Blackdom’s articles of incorporation, Blackdomites envisioned schooling through college. In the early 1910s, Blackdom had a university/college that produced seminary students. Blackdom developed into a sovereign, dry-farming agronomy culture that also prioritized education.  

In a 1985 interview, Lillian Collins, recalled her education as a child in Blackdom’s school at the townsite. Lillian also remembered major challenges when she moved 20 miles north into Roswell, New Mexico at the beginning of school segregation. After New Mexico’s statehood in 1912, Blackdom’s ability to quarantine Black people from racism decreased. Lillian said the “Mexicans and Whites” were welcoming. “When we moved to town ( Blackdom to Roswell) we did not really have the problem because uh, they were such sweet people, uh, of any race.”

Roswell Daily Record: Thursday, April 22, 1920 [Pg3]

Lillian stuttered as she began to remember problems “in the later years when the kids would have rock fights.” Lillian described angry “Anglo kids” from a different school instigating the “Coloreds” from her school. The fight continued until someone called “the law.” Racialization materialized as a proxy fight with kids and rocks. After statehood, Roswell fell largely under the control of local New Mexicans influenced by Southern society, and the lives of people under the conditions of Blackness got progressively worse. A few years, Black high school graduates never received diplomas after graduation.  

Blackdomites had come from prestigious educational institutions now referred to as Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs). Frank Boyer, (Blackdom Townsite Company’s 1st President) was a Buffalo Soldier who attended Atlanta Baptist College (Morehouse College). Prior to statehood, Blackdomites embraced the freedom of being separate-but-equal and taught their kids within the society, culture, and community. They also made statements using mass media and communication. On October 13, 1910, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported, “Blackdom Wants a School.” 

Imagine a literate Black child from a poor Black family in Roswell, on April 22, 1920, opening the Roswell Daily Record and reading, “Will Drill at Blackdom.”

by Dr. Timothy E. Nelson ©

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 ©