"James Person Beckwourth" (April 6,1798-October 29,1866)

American mountain men who lived for an extended period among Native Americans.


He was the son of a white man,Sir Jennings,Beckwith,and a mulatto slave woman and legally was born a slave.His daddy took him to Louisiana Territory in 1810 and eventually to St.Louis and there apparently manumitted him,for he was thereafter regarded as a "free Negro."His featured said to have resembled those of a Native American.


At diffirent times,James had married at least four women:two Native Americans,a Hispanic and an African American.He eventually settled down for about six years to live among the Crow Native Americans.According to his own testimony,James greatly impressed the Native Americans with his strength and skill.Other evidence supports this claim,although James was universally considered to exaggerate widly.


He return to white settlements in 1833,apparently abandoning his wives.James established a route through the Sierras for Easternners en route to California after gold was discovered there in 1848.There he encountered a wandering journalists,Thomas D.Bonner,who recorded many of the frontiersman's yarns and recollections in an 1856 book that made his subject famous for a time: The Life and adventure of James P.Beckwourth,Mountaineer,Scout,Pioneer and Chief of the Crow of Nation of Indians.After participating briefly in the Mexican War,he returned to Missiouri but soon joined the flood of settlers bound for Colorado in 1859.He served,probably as a guide and interpreter for U.S.troops,in the Cheynne War of 1864,then settled near Denver.He died during a visit to the Crow Nation variously described as occurring on a hunting trip or by poison at the hands of a former wife.