Entire Academic Article can be purchased @ [Great Plains Quarterly 39 (Winter 2019):11–37] via University of Nebraska-Lincoln Center for Great Plains Studies

by Jacob K. Friefeld, Mikal Brotnov Eckstrom, and Richard Edwards

Abstract: African Americans participated in homesteading in the Great Plains primarily by establishing “colonies” or geographically concentrated homesteading communities. We studied Nicodemus, Kansas; DeWitty, Nebraska; Dearfield, Colorado; Empire, Wyoming; Sully County, South Dakota; and Blackdom, New Mexico, which were the largest and most important Black homesteading communities in their states. Black homesteaders, like their white counterparts, were mostly very poor, struggled to grow crops in a harsh climate, and used the land they gained to build new futures. But because of their previous experiences in the South and racism in some nearby communities, Black homesteaders developed a distinct understanding of their efforts, particularly of schooling and the “success” of their communities.

Jacob K. Friefeld holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is co-author, with Richard Edwards and Rebecca Wingo, of Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History (2017).

Mikal Brotnov Eckstrom is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Great Plains Studies. His written work includes a co-authored chapter with Margaret Jacobs in Why You Can’t Teach US History without American Indians (University of North Carolina Press, 2012) and the Wall Street Journal.

Richard Edwards is director of the Center for Great Plains Studies, professor of economics, and senior vice chancellor (emeritus). Recent books include Atlas of Nebraska with J. Clark Archer and others (2017) and Natives of a Dry Place: Stories of Dakota Before the Oil Boom (2015).

Notes and credits the work of Timothy E. Nelson, Ph.D.

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KUNM | By ty bannerman

Published June 11, 2019, at 9:43 AM MDT

New Mexico has rich African American history and culture beginning with the arrival of Spanish explorers, continuing with the Homestead Act, through the Civil Rights era, and into the present day. In celebration of Juneteenth, we'll hear from folks who are working to preserve and share this legacy here.

We want to hear from you! How do you and your friends and family recognize Juneteenth? Do you have a family or personal history that showcases a unique experience of being black in New Mexico? What questions do you have about the history of black folks here? Email LetsTalk@KUNM.org, tweet us using the hashtag #LetsTalkNM or call in live during the show.

Guests:

• Cathryn McGill, Founder, and Director, New Mexico Black History Organizing Committee

• Rita Powdrell, Executive Director, African American Museum and Cultural Center of New Mexico

• Ebony Isis Booth, Founder, Burque Noir

• Jim Harvey, President, African American Performing Arts Center and Exhibit Hall

• Jon Ghahate, 17:12 Cultural Educator at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center

  • (NOTICE: Jon Ghahate was not listed as a guest on KUNM link.)

Blackdom and the African-American Experience in New Mexico

The Telling New Mexico Inaugural Lecture Series

New Mexico History Museum

NOTE: This lecture series goes back to 2010. Dr. Nelson was in his 5th year of his Ph.D.

The lecture on the pioneers of the Blackdom community and the African-American experience in New Mexico was held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010 in the New Mexico History Museum Auditorium. There was a special treat, the Afro-Gospel Praise Experience rocked the house with a mixture of Afro-Latin rhythms and traditional gospel music throughout the program.

The speakers:

Landjur Abukusumo, pastor of Roswell’s Washington Chapel Christian Worship Center and founder and chairman of the Blackdom Memorial Foundation, which oversees development of the proposed four-acre memorial, museum, restaurant and import shop.

Thomas Lark, curator for the African American Performing Arts Center and Exhibit Hall at Expo New Mexico.

Gregory Allen Waits, project designer of the Blackdom Memorial Gardens with Lloyd and Associates Architects from Santa Fe.

Lark will focus on the African-American roots of New Mexico, which date back to early Spanish exploration. The earliest among them include Esteban, an African slave who was killed during Fray Marcos de Niza’s ill-fated expedition for the Seven Cities of Cibola in 1539. After Mexican independence from Spain in 1828 and the abolishment of slavery in the Southwest, black fur trappers arrived. In the 1870s, the town of Dora was settled in the Cimarron Valley by freed slaves. Black cowboys and the fabled Buffalo Soldiers were some of the late 19th-century African-Americans who called New Mexico home.

Abukusumo will tell of the founding of Blackdom, a dream that began with Henry Boyer. In 1846, Boyer came to New Mexico as a U.S. Army wagoneer in one of Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny’s units. He was awed by its wide-open spaces and dreamed of a self-sustaining community – a dream shared by other African-Americans who likewise pursued the establishment of towns throughout the nation during Reconstruction. Henry Boyer’s son, Frank Boyer, educated at Morehouse and Fiske Colleges, decided to take advantage of the 1893 Homestead Act to pursue his own version of that dream. He and a student, Daniel Keyes, walked from Pellam, Ga., to New Mexico, settling near modern-day Dexter, in October 1900.

After working on ranches, the two were able to send for their wives and children and began marketing the town to African-American families in Oklahoma and Texas. Families from Mississippi and Ohio soon followed, and at one point, the town claimed 20 families of settlers. Besides the hardships of homesteading, residents faced racial discrimination, and Blackdom declined. The town was abandoned, leaving little physical evidence, but Boyer recreated the experiment south of Las Cruces in a town named Vado, which survives today.

Waits will talk about Blackdom Memorial Gardens, which commemorates the town’s role in shaping the African-American experience in the United States. The Memorial relocates the townsite plat into downtown Roswell as a gathering space with seating areas, water features, landscaping and open-air auditorium.

The lecture series supports the History Museum's core exhibition as well as the book Telling New Mexico: A New History (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2009).

Telling New Mexico: A New History features a collection of essays by a variety of historians who cover everything with a new vision -- from both scholarly and pop-culture viewpoints. Destined to be a resource for both classroom and armchair historians, the book presents New Mexico history from its prehistoric beginnings to the present in essays and articles by fifty prominent historians and scholars representing various disciplines including history, anthropology, Native American and Chicano studies. The writing comprises an eclectic mix of styles and intention in presenting both a historical narrative and multiple views of the people, places, and events that have shaped New Mexico.
For more information, contact the New Mexico History Museum at 505 476-5200