Hi! I'm currently working on a comic project centered on the Wild West, but I want an almost entirely PoC cast for it since I remember reading before that very few cowboys and other people out there back then were white. The thing is, I'm having a really hard time finding information about back then that focuses on PoC at all, so I was wondering if any of you wonderful people know of any sources/books/blogs that I might be able to look at? (This blog is marvelous, btw, you do fantastic work!!!)
Cowboys of Color in the West
It is inaccurate to say that very few cowboys and people out in the west were white. However, it is also inaccurate to say that very few cowboys and people out in the west were POC! So regardless, that you want to write about POC in the West is fantastic!
To understand what life was like back then, if you could only read ONE book at all to understand what life was like for a cowboy, it would be The Log Of A Cowboy by Andy Adams, period, end of story.
Another interesting work to give you insight is Life Of Billy Dixon by Olive K. Dixon (his wife) which will help you understand the role of the government and the significance of buffalo hunting and the railroads expanding westward and changing lives as they stretched.
Pony Tracks by Frederic Remington (the artist) is also a valuable resource because he cataloged expeditions with the military and, because you’re doing a comic project, his illustrations in general are priceless because they are supremely accurate when it comes to landscape, fauna, flora, outfit, tack, and equipment.
Also priceless is the work of George Catlin, an artist who was one of the few White men of the 1800s to see the Native Americans or American Indians as not just people, but people needing representation. He set out to document them and has made powerful portraiture and illustrations. Yes, there is controversy around his work and how he chose to promote it, especially later on, and I am not here to tell you my opinion on that. The fact remains that, without his work, some cultures’ practices (in terms of culture and way of life like what they ate and wore) would be utterly lost because few if any of Catlin’s contemporaries saw these people as worthy of representation.
The works above are where you should start for your story, and they will point you towards places to go when you read them.
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