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 ©

“We choose to live together for a common purpose, and together we fight for our existence and our goals.”

Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide

Friday, April 23, 1920 “Will Drill at Blackdom”

The Herron Family Dynasty migrated from South Carolina during Blackdom’s revival (1909 -1919) and gained prominence with the advent of the Blackdom Oil Company. In 1917, Ester became the first in the family to homestead followed by Ura (1919), Ulysses (1920), Wedie (1920), Velma (1921),  Durand (1921 and 1924), Erastus (1921 and 1924). 

Erastus was 58 and wife Charlene was 52 when they completed their first homestead patent process. By the time of revival, uniformity of the Blackdomite movement allowed laborers to become landowning sovereigns later in life. In 1913, Erastus began his homestead process living as an apprentice of Pastor Crutcher Eubank. On the Eubank homestead, Erastus was able to learn best practices in the new culture of dry-farming. Collective action undergirds Blackdom’s sovereign society during ascendency. In 1927, Frank Boyer quick-deeded Blackdom’s 40 acres to Crutcher Eubank.

The Eubank Family Dynasty knew all too well the worst that New Mexican desert prairies had to offer. The harsh life deterred Crutcher’s son James, who instead, chose to serve Blackdom as a teacher. Crutcher endured Blackdom’s lost years (1903-1911) when Southern Black farmers had to manage a steep dry-farming learning curve during various times of drought. 

View fullsize

 Crutcher Eubank began his homestead in a dry winter planting kaffir corn—a warm-weather plant that has slow early growth and should not be planted in the cold ground. If planted too early, the stand of the kaffir-corn was poor and late replanting was needed. However, if a good stand was secured, the growth of the young plants would grow slowly, weeds aggressively grew, and more cultivation was necessary. Without a wealth of knowledge or access to specific knowledge, Crutcher’s future was uncertain. His land consisted of sandy loam (a mixture of silt, sand, and clay). He built a small home, with a porch, worth about $250 which was meager at the time.

In 1907, he broke ground on 2 acres of his land, which yielded very little that year. In the 1908 growing season, he planted kaffir corn on another two acres, bringing the total farming acreage up to 4. By 1909, he broke ground on another 2 acres, planting corn, beans, potatoes, and other garden products over the six acres. In 1910, Crutcher did not break new ground to farm; he replanted on the acreage of previous years. After a grueling 6-year period (3 years was a normal process), he finally filed for the completion of his homestead patent on Tuesday, November 28, 1911 

Crutcher had a well cased up with a mechanical pump worth $350. He fenced his 160 acres with 3x4-barbwire worth about $125. In November of 1911, at the age of 50, Crutcher completed a homestead patent a few months prior to New Mexico’s official statehood. Early Blackdomite society faced an uncertain future as the borders of jurisdiction crossed them. The Eubank’s family endurance was foundational for Erastus’s apprenticeship on the homestead.  

Imagine enduring the hardship of the lost years and Crutcher opening the Roswell Daily Record on Friday, April 23, 1920, to 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 ©