- anteontem
It is one of the West’s most powerful myths. The story of how the American Westwas won - by great heroes and white men. Black West tells the flip side of that myth. In 1875, one of four American cowboys was Black—Black sheriffs, Blacktrappers and Black soldiers. Some were adopted by Native American tribes, while others became slaves. These anonymous heroes were the inspiration for many great Westerns; yet Hollywood has erased them from the silver screen. Pieced together from archives, carefully crafted re-enactments and first-hand historical accounts, BLACK WEST restores these invisible heroes to their rightful place in history.
Categoria
😹
DiversãoTranscrição
00:01Art France and Kappa Press present a film by Cécile Donjon, the shadows of cowboys riding on a hill.
00:11They rushed down an arid gully, then in front of the setting sun.
00:15One cowboy is on a cliff watching over the brown landscape, produced by Patrice Lawton.
00:22The Wild West is one of the most powerful myths in the world.
00:25A world of cowboys and Indians, which for more than a century has populated our imagination.
00:36A legend manufactured by Hollywood, invariably with white heroes fighting against those who were once called Redskins.
00:47But it is time to tell the other side of the myth.
00:51A cowboy in a brown coat.
00:54In 1875, one in four cowboys were black.
00:59There were African Americans in the Wild West, and there were many of them.
01:05By the hundreds of thousands, they too wrote the pages of the National American Novel.
01:11They provide a fresh perspective on the brutal overpowering of an entire continent.
01:18In this new history of the Wild West, each iconic figure has a double, a black incarnation.
01:29The sheriff.
01:31The stagecoach driver.
01:33The cowboy.
01:34I have decided to write the record of slave and cowboy.
01:40My long horse-hide lariat and in my hand, I felt I could defy the world.
01:45A painting of a flying woman pulling telegraph line across the land above trains, horse-drawn carts, and Native Americans.
01:53American pioneers went west in search of adventure and wealth.
01:58Among them, the blacks sought even more.
02:01Freedom.
02:02Through half a century of adventures, their astonishing trajectories draw another history of the Wild West.
02:12A cowboy rides over curving, rocky mountains.
02:15Then a tumbleweed rolls into a town.
02:18In yellow western font, the Black West.
02:20A counter-history of the Wild West.
02:25A woman opens a front door and is silhouetted against a steep, clifed mountain.
02:29Summer 1955.
02:33John Wayne is starring in The Searchers.
02:37A film by John Ford.
02:38On horseback.
02:40The conservative star is at the height of his popularity.
02:44But does John Wayne know that he's playing a black man?
02:48He brandishes a gun.
02:49His character was based on the true story of Britton Johnson, a former slave who went in search of his wife and two children who had been kidnapped by the Kiowa Indians.
03:01Today, John Ford's masterpiece is considered the greatest western ever made.
03:10It perfectly portrays the violence of the time, while concealing the fact that an African American is hiding behind John Wayne.
03:20Art Burton, historian, South Holland, Illinois.
03:25The back of Art's shirt has an illustration of a Native American wearing a headdress.
03:30Art's also wearing a pale hat with a red ribbon around it that has a Native American design.
03:35To be an American hero, you had to be white.
03:40You know, that was the bottom line.
03:44Everybody else, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, they were not considered.
03:51Another shot from The Searchers.
03:52The history of the West is not limited to this eternal, stereotypical duel between the Redskins, as they were called at the time, and the Pale Faces, who looked like John Wayne.
04:05The reality is more complex.
04:08It must be reconstructed not with just two players, but with three.
04:14In the film, Native Americans on horseback are chasing after a group of cowboys.
04:18Now, a heavyset black man, Quintard Taylor, historian, University of Washington.
04:25The United States, through most of its history, was based on a principle called white supremacy.
04:33Whites accepted the notion that they were in charge and that they should be in charge.
04:39And if they are in charge and should be in charge, why should they care about anybody else?
04:43A rocky crag on the pinnacle of a tapered mountain in golden afternoon sunlight.
04:51History has been whitewashed without realizing that this white, this whiteness, was only an imaginary color, a political construction, a way for some to consider themselves superior to all others.
05:06Long shadows are splashed across the landscape, bleeding into valleys and dotted behind bushes.
05:13The sky moves through a gradient from hazy white to deep blue.
05:19Now, a woman in a wide-brimmed hat and a rich blue top.
05:23Angela Bates, historian, Nicodemus Historical Society.
05:27We participated in the settling of the West, and our story needs to be told.
05:34The part of our story has a little bit of a different twist because we were former slaves.
05:41And this is the first time that we are affording the opportunity to experience real freedom.
05:47An illustration of people dancing.
05:50This story begins with a celebration.
05:53An illustration of soldiers.
05:55We are in 1865.
06:00After four years of deadly conflict, the Civil War finally ends with the victory of the abolitionists.
06:10All slaves are emancipated.
06:14But few freedmen have enough money to buy their own farm.
06:20Where to live.
06:22On what land.
06:24Many of them leave to try their luck in the Wild West.
06:31A white man with a black hat strides down a path.
06:34He has snow-white hair and a matching moustache above his lip.
06:37Roger Hardaway, historian, Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
06:41When slavery is abolished, you've got four million free blacks.
06:47What do you do?
06:49The plantation owners are not going to give you any money.
06:54They're not going to give you any land.
06:55They will hire you back and let you live in the old slave cabin and do the same work you did when you were a slave,
07:02on the same piece of land and pay you practically nothing, and that happened a lot.
07:07A woman's washing a young black boy outside.
07:11Freed slaves now have to rent the land that they have always cultivated.
07:15They also need seeds, plows, and mules.
07:20They soon find themselves in debt, and economic slavery replaces the slavery of yesterday.
07:30A man steps into a pen.
07:34John Solomon Lewis.
07:36He's carrying two buckets.
07:39I am more and more in debt.
07:42I will go somewhere else and try to make headway like white working men.
07:47The man I rented from got very mad and said to me,
07:51If you try that job, you will get your head shot away.
07:56The man ambles back toward the pen's entrance as the picture blurs.
08:00Now, an illustration of a black man being held at gunpoint by two white men,
08:05then a building that's been set alight.
08:08A new violence breaks out against the former slaves.
08:13In reaction to the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery,
08:17militias go on the rampage.
08:19A group photo of people with a skull.
08:23A secret organization is created at the end of 1865
08:26to impose white supremacy by force.
08:30Their hats are marked with three large Ks.
08:35One word describes it all, and that's fear.
08:38People were afraid.
08:39White people were afraid that there was going to be retaliation,
08:43and blacks were afraid because they didn't know where to go.
08:46They didn't know who they could trust.
08:49Everything was based on fear.
08:50You also had the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist organizations in the South
08:55killing people who tried to rock the boat,
08:59who wanted to vote,
09:00who demanded equality under the law.
09:03And the federal government wasn't doing a whole heck of a lot
09:06to protect people in the South from the Ku Klux Klan.
09:10A photo of a black man in a hat.
09:13Letter to the Governor of Alabama
09:16I'm afraid to leave town in an inconstant dread of being murdered.
09:21This state of things cannot long continue.
09:24Either we must have protection or leave.
09:28To the Governor of South Carolina
09:32On Friday night there came a crowd of men to my house,
09:37calling, knocking, climbing and shoving at the door.
09:42It is a plot to drive me out of the country because I am a school teacher.
09:46Please, Your Honor, send some protection up here.
09:50A young black man in a suit, then a group of travelers.
09:55It becomes necessary to flee.
09:58The West then appears as a promised land.
10:01The home of those who were soon to be called the Exodusters.
10:07For many of the black people who came West,
10:10there was this dual promise.
10:12The promise of land and freedom.
10:15And so there's a push and pull factor.
10:17There's the push of racism, which is, you know, forcing them out.
10:22But there's the pull of Kansas, the lure of Kansas,
10:26that's seen as a better place.
10:29A sign advertises going to Kansas for $5.
10:32The exodus of black families from the South begins.
10:37In 1879, 20,000 freedmen leave the South.
10:42John Solomon Lewis, his wife and their four children are on the road.
10:48A group of travelers resting on the banks of a river,
10:51then boarding a huge steamboat.
10:53People and horses are standing near small houses.
10:57When I landed on the soil of Kansas,
11:01I looked on the ground and I said,
11:04this is free ground.
11:05One brick building is labelled AME Church, 1885.
11:11John wanders down a church aisle,
11:14removing his hat before his praying,
11:16hands held together and head bowed.
11:18Then I looked within my heart
11:21and I wondered,
11:23why was I never free before?
11:26A single thick tear rolls down the center of his cheek
11:31and into his beard
11:32as he stares unblinkingly up
11:34at the wooden ceiling of the church.
11:36Now, rustling golden grasses wave gently in the breeze
11:44and they fold down as the perspective
11:46slowly moves through fields of them.
11:48The promised land slips away from the exodusters.
11:54There are no trees on the plains of Kansas and Nebraska
11:58and the exodusters often have neither tools nor timber.
12:03Down a track through the flowing grasses,
12:05a nodding donkey moves slowly on the horizon.
12:08Now, a family outside a home.
12:10When that first large group arrived in September of 1877,
12:15they were living in dugouts,
12:17you know, earth homes.
12:20You would dig down into the ground
12:22and into the knoll
12:23and you'd clear it all out,
12:26like a gopher, yeah,
12:28and you would live in there,
12:30holes in the ground.
12:32A woman arranges things on a shelf inside,
12:35then two people walk down a hill
12:37before a twister curls across the ground.
12:40This was an environment that was,
12:42some people would consider hostile
12:44compared to the way they had lived,
12:46even as slaves.
12:48So it's very hard,
12:50but that tells you the determination
12:52of the people that did it.
12:54An aerial photo of several blocks of a young town.
12:58About 50 black towns spring up.
13:01One of the most famous is called Nicodemus.
13:05Four people stand out the front of a wooden house.
13:08Willianna Hickman remembers her first impressions
13:12when she arrived there with her six children
13:14in the spring of 1878.
13:17A woman wanders out of a house
13:18and begins hanging clothes on a line.
13:21I looked with all the eyes I had.
13:24I said,
13:25where is Nicodemus?
13:27I don't see it.
13:29My husband pointed out various smokes
13:32coming out of the ground
13:33and said,
13:35that is Nicodemus.
13:39The families lived in dugouts.
13:43The scenery was not at all inviting
13:45and I began to cry.
13:49Angela sings inside a church.
13:50Amazing grace
13:58How sweet
14:00How sweet
14:01The sound
14:05That saved
14:08A wretch
14:12Like me
14:16I once
14:23Was lost
14:24But now
14:28I'm found
14:30Was blind
14:33But now
14:36I see
14:39Kansas
14:41is not quite the promised land
14:43of the freedmen's dreams.
14:45But it's one of the places where a new profession
14:48is emerging for young African Americans.
14:51Cowboy
14:58A montage of cattle being rounded up
15:00then an animal that's been wrangled
15:02by two lasso-wielding cowboys on horseback.
15:05More images portray cowboys cooking themselves a meal
15:08and another leaning on his white horse.
15:11Texas ranchers,
15:12who can sell their meat for ten times as much
15:15in the northern states,
15:16decide to move their huge herds
15:18to where the railways stop,
15:20to Abilene and Dodge City in Kansas,
15:23and to Denver in Colorado.
15:25Among the thousands of cowboys they hire
15:29is Nat Love.
15:32The only black cowboy
15:34to have written an account of his incredible life.
15:37His horse gallops down a dusty slope,
15:41then a collection of riders canter through a valley
15:43dotted with small green bushes.
15:46Nat, who has long dark curly hair,
15:48comes to a stop with his two companions.
15:51I started out for the first time alone
15:53in a world I knew very little about.
15:55I was at the time about fifteen years old.
16:00Hard work and farm life had made me strong and hearty.
16:06I eventually brought up at Dodge City, Kansas.
16:10At that time, it was a typical Far West city,
16:14with a great many saloons, dance halls,
16:18and gambling houses.
16:22And very little of anything else.
16:25On horseback, Nat gazes about.
16:28An old monochrome photo of some Native Americans
16:31with long hair sitting on the steps of a building.
16:36Photos of the inside of saloons
16:38where men have their feet on the table,
16:40are holding beers and are dancing together.
16:43In a video clip, a bartender slides a drink
16:48down the length of the bar where a patron grabs it.
16:51Then, a black cowboy steps through the door.
16:54When he arrives in Dodge City,
16:57Nat Love spots a cowboy and asks him for a job.
17:01He's immediately hired for $30 a month.
17:04An excerpt from the memoir
17:06Life and Adventures of Nat Love.
17:09There were several colored cowboys.
17:11And good ones, too.
17:14The wild cowboy, prancing horses,
17:16and the wildlife generally.
17:18I was very fond of all these things.
17:21They all had their attractions for me.
17:24And I decided to try for a place with them.
17:29Nat has a five o'clock shadow,
17:32then one side of his lip curls into a confident grin.
17:36In fact, the cowboy profession had come about
17:39a long time before Nat Love discovered freedom.
17:43In the days of slavery,
17:46it was mainly blacks who looked after the herds
17:48on the ranches in Texas.
17:50The quintessential example of freedom for Americans
17:56is the cowboy.
17:58And yet, very few Americans know that the first cowboys
18:01were actually enslaved blacks.
18:02A photo of cowboys rounding up cattle.
18:06The word cowboy came from somebody who was handling cattle.
18:12And they called them boy instead of men to kind of keep them subservient
18:16and let them know that they weren't quite equal to the men who were Caucasians,
18:21you know, on the farm or on the plantation.
18:22Nat Love was proud to be a cowboy.
18:28On July 4th, 1876, he becomes a rodeo champion.
18:34He's sitting on his horse's back, gazing over the textured brown rippling cliffs of the landscape.
18:40The United States is now 100 years old.
18:43The telephone has just been invented.
18:47And Nat Love has no idea what the future will hold.
18:51When we'll meet up with him again, the world will have changed.
18:55Wind flaps his brown coat.
18:58A long, very thin mountain range separating two plains like a wall.
19:04The shadows of clouds glide over enormous natural pillars of a similar material
19:09near some tall, steep-cliffed mountains.
19:11The West offers another outlet for young African Americans, the Army.
19:18They're in lines behind a white man on horseback.
19:21In 1866, after the Civil War, Congress creates four black units.
19:30This is the first time in American history that black soldiers become a permanent part of the Army.
19:36Now they're on horseback.
19:38With the 9th and 10th Cavalry, 20% of the Cavalry is now African American, and they are sent to the Wild West.
19:47We were coming out of a great Civil War.
19:57We were four million slaves, penniless, uneducated, landless.
20:03One soldier's holding a bottle.
20:05Should I endure a life in the South, or should I take my chances in an unknown world?
20:12And others brandishing a pan.
20:14I would much rather be a soldier than anything else.
20:17Some of the men are in huge woolly coats.
20:22They got a uniform that made them proud to be a part of this nation.
20:27They got three meals a day, even though they may have eaten hardtack and spoiled pork.
20:32They got a horse to go to the West and be a part of that.
20:35They got paid.
20:37It gave them a sense of pride.
20:38A man standing in a military uniform, another on a horse, then a third with a handgun.
20:45Now a broad-shouldered man in a furry coat smoking a pipe.
20:49Private Charles Creek
20:51I thought, there must be a better living in this world.
20:55I got tired of looking at mules in the face sunrise to sunset.
20:58Charles sucks and puffs on his pipe.
21:02They are soon known as the Buffalo Soldiers.
21:08Bob Marley pays tribute to them in this song, written in 1978.
21:13Buffalo soldier
21:15In the heart of America
21:19Stolen from Africa
21:22Brought to America
21:25Said he was fighting on arrival
21:30Fighting for survivors
21:35Said he...
21:39Boy-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-Yooo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo-yo
21:55tame these remote lands laying bricks and building a railway the role of the
22:02Buffalo Soldiers is to protect the population but also to ensure the flow
22:07of mail and trains a train on a lattice bridge the black soldiers soon become
22:14the armed wing of the federal government which uses them to do their
22:18dirty work expelling the Native Americans from their land including by
22:24force of arms and collecting the dead from then on it is black skins against
22:32redskins under the orders of the white skins dead bodies are piled on a horse
22:38drawn cart the extermination of the Buffalo accompanies the American Indian
22:44genocide in a photograph two men stand with an enormous pile of bovine skulls
22:51the size of a large building now a man in a dark outfit cream gloves and a light
22:57neckerchief Henry McComb 10th Cavalry private we made the West we defeated the
23:06hostile tribes of Indians and made the country safe to live in in a clip from
23:11Buffalo Soldiers by Charles Haid what kind of soldiers are you what kind of a
23:18soldier is that all on horseback a man gestures an item at the sergeant who
23:25nods in response and offers a thumbs up then in a small village a Native American
23:31man with long dark hair speaks the sergeant turns to the translator then struggles to
23:44find words no I'm not a slave
23:48do a team beast done Schneider
23:51mean that being a Stanley now we are you were a slave yes I was oh I'm doing up in
23:59a week car why do you fight for those who were your masters come tomorrow son I will
24:10kill every man woman and child in this canyon a soldier looks appalled why do they fight I can
24:21speculate again part of it is the pay because it's a regular job part of it let's be honest part of it
24:30is that sometimes Buffalo Soldiers actually hate Indians not all of them but some of them do hate Indians
24:37we we tend to focus on the fact that whites are racist yes whites are racist but understand that
24:44that racism percolates down and so what happens then is that blacks know that whites hate them
24:52but blacks also recognize that whites hate the Indians and often the blacks will begin to hate the Indians as
24:59well there is a hierarchy and you always want to situate yourself if you're a person of color you want to
25:06situate yourself as close to the top of the hierarchy as possible a monochrome photo of a Native American
25:12man standing with a black man the black man took the land from the red man and gave it to the white man
25:21it wasn't just blacks they use they use other Indian tribes against other Indian tribes so you know divide and conquer that you know that's what they did and that's what they utilize
25:35you less a painting of someone ordering others about from the first centuries of colonization the
25:42Anglo-Europeans take care to avoid any alliance between blacks and Native Americans a painting of
25:50colonization to reinforce the slave system they soon encourage the Native Americans to own black slaves a
25:59painting of chain slaves then of a white man speaking to a group of Native Americans for the first American
26:06president George Washington the aim is to civilize Native Americans a sign for a Cherokee pharmacy because
26:16they agreed to adopt Western customs five Native American tribes the Cherokee Chickasaws Choctaws Creeks and the
26:28Seminole and Seminole are now considered civilized by white society among the criteria for so-called
26:36civilization includes living in a brick or wooden house eating at set times and also owning slaves a lot of them
26:48became slaveholders because they wanted to emulate the Caucasians so you had all of these things
26:58Christianity slaveholding the ability to read and write becoming educated all of that made you civilized
27:07right right what's civilized yeah America's supposed to be civilized but you know some of the stuff they
27:17do is not very civilized a photograph of a black family sitting in tattered clothes
27:22these tribes became quote civilized in the parlance of the time the Cherokee were example they developed
27:30the constitution they developed the government uh they lived in big houses they had slaves for those
27:37houses if you saw a Cherokee plantation in Georgia in the 1830s it would be identical to a white plantation
27:49this is the home of Greenwood LaFleur of the Choctaw tribe he owns about 400 black slaves
27:55Joseph van Cherokee about 100 slaves Holmes Colbert Chickasaw eight slaves and their children
28:06Peter Pitchlin left in Choctaw costume right in European dress 50 slaves
28:13John Ridge Cherokee about 30 slaves
28:20in 1830 it was estimated that 10 percent of the Cherokee had black slaves but blacks and native americans
28:32could have invented a different story I wish I could say that the alliance would rise I mean it sounds
28:38logical it sounds plausible there are these two groups you know blacks are oppressed you know Indians
28:44are oppressed you would think that they would get together but they didn't large rolling hills cast
28:50waves of curved shadows then a shallow valley with deep channels as if a huge claw had scraped across
28:56the earth the valley's floor is dotted with trees and now clouds are rippling light over the land
29:03old footage of horse riders 1875 in the Indian territory which will later become Oklahoma
29:11this is where the five main native american tribes are grouped together living according to their
29:18own laws in old monochrome footage native americans and cowboys both on horseback charge across a field
29:26and fire guns as a horse-drawn cart tumbles down a dusty road being pursued by more riders out of reach
29:33of the white justice system the wildest place of the wild west becomes a criminal's paradise
29:39people exit a train being held up amongst the many outlaws who have made this their home
29:46is Cherokee bill and the dalton brothers many of them wear wide-brimmed hats now a woman with platinum
29:53hair the author of bad news for outlaw vonda michu nelson indian territory had become a haven for
30:01outlaws because there was no real law there the um the tribal police could not arrest whites they
30:15were not of their jurisdiction a black man with a thick wide mustache this is where bass reeve settled
30:23the former runaway slave will become the outlaws worst nightmare he takes a wanted poster i would
30:32say this bass reeve was probably the greatest gunfighter in the wild west period there's no
30:38other lawman on note that killed that many people if you try to get in a gunfight with bass it was
30:43tentamount to kill committing suicide because he was so good he could shoot so good they said he shot folks
30:50at a quarter of a mile so i would put him at the top of the gunfighters in the wild west bass strides
30:57away from a building then pauses stroking his bold mustache roofless incorruptible bass reeves kept his cool
31:08under pressure a group of men behind bars over the course of his prolific career he will arrest more
31:16than three thousand criminals and kill 14 of them old footage of a masked white man riding a speeding
31:24white horse the lone ranger this zorro-like american vigilante was the most famous hero of his time
31:33like bass reeves the lone ranger rode a proud white stallion and wore a disguise to catch bandits
31:40but these two heroes had something else in common their faces were black
31:48when the lone ranger started in the 1930s he had a black mask that covered his whole face
31:57but why hide the fact that the hero is black by putting a black mask on a white actor
32:04a photo of the lone ranger posing with two revolvers at his hips aimed forward
32:08black people were invisible so they wore a mask anyway all the time psychologically to white people
32:17we were invisible we weren't seen we weren't seen as human beings we weren't seeing we're just you
32:24know we were like ghosts living ghosts walking up and down the street a black man with a broad grins
32:31riding a horse then he tips his hat it was not until 1974 that mel brooks directed a black sheriff
32:41he no longer hit his face but he still wore the mask of irony when blazing saddles came out it was a spoof
32:50on the wild west and they had a black man who was hired to be a sheriff of a town he rides down the main road
32:58the crowd stops cheering as he rides closer to them and some people's mouths are held ajar
33:10but the sheriff grins and tips his hat to them as chairman of the welcoming committee it is my privilege
33:18to extend the laurel and hearty handshake to our new
33:27the majority of people had never heard of black marshals in the wild west didn't have a clue
33:34and some people even thought it was a joke because they said the only thing they had to relate this
33:40to was blazing saddles where a black man was a lawman in the west and that was a comedy
33:45in a snippet from gore vabinski's the lone ranger the titular character stops with his sidekick at the
33:52top of a cliff what does the lone ranger's mask really hide all right let's do this
34:02in the 2013 version the real star of the film is bass reeves native american sidekick played by johnny
34:09depp nobody move the lone ranger is still white and rather stupid what's with the mask
34:18see i told you i feel ridiculous
34:22stupid white man depp's character holds up the lone ranger's black mask and a group of asian men
34:29holding lanterns nod at him but let's get back to the real story the rest of bass reeves life says a lot
34:37about america he's walking with his white horse at the turn of the 20th century everything falls apart
34:46for him his career his freedom and his family in 1902 his sense of justice is put to the test
34:58in 1902 he had to arrest his son for murder his son committed domestic murder and that was probably
35:05one of the toughest times of his life where he had to go out and arrest his son he said i'll take the
35:10writ the warrant a young man in a curled hat and benny was tried for murder and received a life sentence
35:24black bars slide over benny's mug shots then bass wonders past themselves
35:28in a sad irony it's thanks to the law that he so cherished that he will lose his own freedom
35:36in a photo a crowd is gathered outside the u.s land office building
35:41in 1889 the federal government opens up native american land for a settlement
35:47people standing along a line at noon on april 22nd thousands of pioneers gather to await the opening of
35:56the indian territory a man with a watch signals then they're off when the cannon sounds thousands of
36:05people rush in to claim a piece of land for themselves thousands of horse riders and horse-drawn
36:12carriages race across the landscape kicking up dust in their wake someone standing by a horse kneels down
36:19and makes note of a stake which reads seg 20t for bass reeves this influx of white people will change
36:29everything in 1907 the indian territory officially becomes oklahoma the new government immediately enacts
36:40segregation laws photos of the community this is the end of the mixed population that had characterized the
36:48territory bass reeves is no longer allowed to be deputy marshal and has to resign it's the law
36:58a photo highlights bass amongst the crowd now vonda's sitting on a chair on a veranda
37:05after working for our country for 32 years
37:10volunteers suddenly he is denied rights of a basic citizen
37:20even though all those years he had put his heart into making our nation better
37:28and bringing all those bad guys to justice but that's how he was repaid
37:36In the early morning, he wanders through the main street.
37:40Bass couldn't even be buried in the city cemetery
37:43due to the laws that were discriminatory against African Americans.
37:51January 12, 1910, the day that Bass Reeves died,
37:55the largest comet that appeared in the 20th century appeared in the sky on the day that he died.
38:01Bass and his horse are walking out of the silent town when overhead,
38:07a burning light streaks across the sky with a white smoky line trailing behind it.
38:14The comet disappears behind a two-story wooden building on Bass's right.
38:21A grainy sepia photo of a woman holding a long rifle in both hands.
38:25She has a thin belt and a small white collar.
38:29Going West to live in freedom only to end up in segregation
38:33is also the story of Mary Fields, who touched Gary Cooper's heart.
38:40Icon of the American Western, Gary Cooper, who won an Oscar for High Noon,
38:45is one of the few Hollywood actors who grew up in the Wild West.
38:49He has a tall face and is wearing round hats.
38:52Gary Cooper met Mary Fields when he was a child and she made a strong impression on him.
38:59In 1959, he writes about her in Ebony, a magazine for the black community.
39:05His magazine headline reads, Stagecoach Mary.
39:09The legend of Hollywood and the reality of the West collide.
39:14Mary Fields?
39:18She was six feet tall, weighing well over 200 pounds.
39:21She smoked cigars.
39:23She wore a 38 Smith & Wesson strapped under her apron.
39:27Mary Fields' destiny was exceptional, but as Gary Cooper writes,
39:34it was emblematic of all black women of the Wild West.
39:39Born a slave, Mary lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw breath.
39:45A photo of her in a garden.
39:49Mary Fields works for a while on the Mississippi River and heads across the United States to Montana.
39:56She carries two large suitcases along the tracks.
40:00And in 1895, at the age of 60, she applies for a job with the United States Postal Service.
40:08She tosses her cigar.
40:10Gary Cooper.
40:11She was a stagecoach driver, the first black woman ever to drive a U.S. mail route.
40:19The coach has huge wheels.
40:22Maybe because she was a Negro, she was never bothered by Indians.
40:28It is there, as in all stories of the Wild West, that the legend of Mary Fields begins.
40:36It is said that in the saloons where she was a regular, she liked to make a bet.
40:41Five dollars and a glass of whiskey that she could knock out any cowboy with one punch.
40:48Gradually, her fiery temperament made her a local celebrity.
40:53Cascade is joyful on Mary's birthday.
40:55We know today that the legend of Mary Fields stretches the truth by far.
41:01And perhaps that is why she is a true Western heroine.
41:06Her legend goes well beyond the reality.
41:08A woman with long white hairs walking across grass.
41:13Meante Metcalfe McConnell, the author of Deliverance, Mary Fields.
41:19She wasn't six foot.
41:21She wasn't 200 pounds.
41:23She was a crack shot rifle woman.
41:26And she probably was strong enough to beat two men up.
41:29But I don't think she ever did.
41:32So I guess one of those is accurate.
41:38Mary Fields is well liked, even becoming the baseball team's mascot.
41:42And she seems to have the unanimous support of the community.
41:45But when the town of Cascade becomes a city able to pass its own laws,
41:51Mary Fields' free ways begin to divide the population.
41:55The first law they make is a law that all women are not allowed to smoke or drink,
42:07and they are not allowed in the saloon.
42:10They made that law specifically for Mary Fields so that she could no longer go into the saloon.
42:20Mary Fields continued to smoke cigars until the end of her life in 1914.
42:25In old footage, thick steams billowing up into the sky from a single moving point.
42:41A dark steam train speeding up as it passes a station, then comes around a downhill corner.
42:49So-called civilization was on the march.
42:52Two men are pumping a hand car as another standing with them, pointing at something.
42:58A huge steam train with a lamp on its front is barreling down the tracks.
43:03As the new world bristled with rails and barbed wire, horses were replaced by motors.
43:11And city dwellers only tolerated cows on their plates.
43:14For the former slaves, the West and its promise of freedom were gone for good.
43:23A photo of a cowboy with his gun.
43:26When we meet Nat Love again, he too is looking back.
43:33History seems to have changed direction.
43:36The big-hearted cowboy has finally taken a new job on the railway.
43:41He is a baggage porter, then a doorman, but his heart is still on the prairie.
43:49He ambles around a table where a cigar is smoking.
43:53To us wild cowboys of the range, used to the wild and unrestricted life of the boundless plains,
44:01the new order of things did not appeal.
44:06Many of us became disgusted since quitting the wildlife for the pursuits of our more civilized brothers.
44:12Nat walks out of the saloon doors.
44:16No sooner than the Wild West had been settled, it was transformed into a spectacle.
44:24It was now up to the movies to tell the story of the Wild West, to distort it and embellish it.
44:33In Western after Western, the racial and economic violence of the Wild West was presented as a
44:39victory of civilization over barbarism.
44:43A dead body is lying in shallow water by some burnt-out teepees.
44:48In this version of history, the presence of African Americans was not necessary.
44:53We are discovering today that this erasure was nothing but storytelling.
44:59A narrative written by the dominant powers of the time, a legend imposed to keep everyone in their place.
45:05I grew up watching cowboy and Indians, and either I had to be an Indian or I had to be a cowboy who was
45:13a white man, and so I had no perspective about who I was. If you don't tell a person their history or
45:20things that happened to their people in the past, they think they don't have a history. And when other
45:26people don't know you have a history, they think less of you.
45:30We are finding out that, you know, we not only were snookered, but whites were snookered too.
45:36They didn't know. They were taught the same things that we were taught.
45:41The story is much richer. The story is about many people, not just one heroic people that took over
45:49and look at what we've done and look at the civilization that we brought.
45:53We thought, never mind our, you know, inhumane actions and our arrogant attitudes of superiority.
46:02I mean, come on. It's a different story.
46:05Angela walks over grass by a tall framework sculpture. Roger's wearing a blue shirt.
46:12It's often said that every generation has to rewrite their history. History doesn't change,
46:17but our perception of it does. What we choose to include and what we choose to exclude differs
46:25from generation to generation. I mean, we assume that everybody wants to hear the truth.
46:29That's a myth. Not everybody wants to hear the truth. People want to hear or believe
46:36what makes them comfortable. And the things that make them uncomfortable, they will push aside.
46:41Quintards walking in slow motion past several weathered wooden buildings.
46:49In the West, in the frontier, African-Americans were freer than they would be later.
46:58And in some ways, if we want a truly egalitarian society,
47:02it might be best for us not to sort of project into the future, but to look to the past.
47:07Grids of old portrait photographs of people from a diverse range of backgrounds, then the sun glinting
47:14through trees. Gently gliding over a craggy cliff on a hill splashed with golden afternoon sunlight.
47:25The memory of the Wild West is a living thing.
47:28Since the very beginning, it has been constructed on a foundation of distorted facts.
47:37Because we know today how political our history and our image of it can be,
47:42the time has come to recognize all the heroes of the Wild West and to write, in black ink,
47:49the missing pages of the American national novel.
47:53Hazy mountains in the distance top wide plains.
47:59Oh, freedom. Oh, freedom. Oh, freedom over me.
48:09Before I be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.
48:23I'll be buried in my grave and take me to go over the Caribbean to my home.
48:28làm a big time, and welcome back to Annabe .
48:31JGeS Jeho, can I get you?
48:38JGeS Jeho, can I call you?
48:46You're a man, Nneara.
48:49You're earned my favour спас champagne.
Recomendado
5:45
|
A Seguir
43:02
1:14:41
46:46
51:21
3:41
1:00:47
1:09:37
1:23
1:11:30
1:55:48
59:18
52:28
59:28
59:30