"James P. Beckwourth was born in Virginia of a negro slave mother and an Irish overseer. He resided for a time in the valley of the Sierra Nevada, but being implicated in certain transactions which attracted the notice of the vigilants, fled and went to Missouri. When the migration to Colorado was at its height in 1859, he proceeded to Denver, and was taken into partnership with Louis Vasquez and his nephew. Being tired of trade, he went to live on a farm, and took a Mexican wife, but fell out with her, and finally relapsed into his former mode of savage life, dying about 1867" (Montana Post, February 28, 1867).[1]
The following note is pencilled on the margin of the copy of Bonner's "Life of Beckwourth," in the Mercantile Library of Saint Louis:—
"He now (1865?) lives three miles south of Denver City, on Cherry Creek, Colorado; has a ranch, and was in the engagement against the Cheyennes at Sand Creek, November 29 (November 27, 1864), and is a noted old lier" (sic).
This last word brings us to a critical point in the Beckwourthiana. It recalls the anecdote that some one said of him that some men are rarely worthy of belief, but that Jim was always Beckwourthy of un-belief. At the same time we are told that this man who was so splendide mendax was really in a fight with the Cheyennes, of which it may be truly said that no lying whatever was necessary to enable a participant to tell a perfectly true and thrilling tale.
That Beckwourth had the very general frontier weakness of spinning marvellous yarns, and that he seldom narrated an adventure without making the utmost of it, even when it was perfectly needless, is probably true. I once knew a
- ↑ Cited in C. H. Bancroft's "History of the Pacific States," vol. xx. p. 352.
