The Conquest; the Story of a Negro Pioneer/Chapter 25
t had been just four years since I bought the relinquishment and seven since leaving southern Illinois. I had been very successful in farming although I had made some very poor deals in the beginning, and when my crops were sold that season I found I had made three thousand, five hundred dollars. Futhermore, I had in the beginning sought to secure the best land in the best location and had succeeded. I had put two hundred eighty acres under cultivation, with eight head of horses—I had done a little better in my later horse deals—and had machinery, seed and feed sufficient to farm it. My efforts in the seven years had resulted in the ownership of land and stock to the value of twenty thousand dollars and was only two thousand dollars in debt and still under twenty-five years of age.
During the years I had spent on the Little Crow I had "kept batch" all the while until that summer. A Scotch family had moved from Indiana that spring consisting of the father, a widower, two sons and two daughters. One of the boys worked for me and as it was much handier, I boarded with them.
The older of the two girls was a beautiful blonde maiden of twenty summers, who attended to the household duties, and considering the small opportunities she had to secure an education, was an unusually intelligent girl. She had composed some verses and songs but not knowing where to send them, had never submitted them to a publisher. I secured the name of a company that accepted some of her writings and paid her fifty dollars for them. She was so anxious to improve her mind that I took an interest in her and as I received much literature in the way of newspapers and magazines and read lots of copy-right books, I gave them to her. She seemed delighted and appreciated the gifts.
Before long, however, and without any intention of being other than kind, I found myself being drawn to her in a way that threatened to become serious. While custom frowns on even the discussion of the amalgamation of races, it is only human to be kind, and it was only my intention to encourage the desire to improve, which I could see in her, but I found myself on the verge of falling in love with her. To make matters more awkward, that love was being returned by the object of my kindness. She, however, like myself, had no thought of being other than kind and grateful. It placed me as well as her in an awkward position—for before we realized it, we had learned to understand each other to such an extent, that it became visible in every look and action.
It reached a stage of embarrassment one day when we were reading a volume of Shakespeare. She was sitting at the table and I was standing over her. The volume was "Othello" and when we came to the climax where Othello has murdered his wife, driven to it by the evil machinations of Iago, as if by instinct she looked up and caught my eyes and when I came to myself I had kissed her twice on the lips she held up.
After that, being near her caused me to feel awkwardly uncomfortable. We could not even look into each other's eyes, without showing the feeling that existed in the heart.
Now during the time I had lived among the white people, I had kept my place as regards custom, and had been treated with every courtesy and respect; had been referred to in the local papers in the most complimentary terms, and was regarded as one of the Little Crow's best citizens.
But when the reality of the situation dawned upon me, I became in a way frightened, for I did not by any means want to fall in love with a white girl. I had always disapproved of intermarriage, considering it as being above all things, the very thing that a colored man could not even think of. That we would become desperately in love, however, seemed inevitable.
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Lived a man—the history of the American Negro shows—who had been the foremost member of his race. He had acquitted himself of many honorable deeds for more than a score of years, in the interest of his race. He had filled a federal office but at the zenith of his career had brought disappointment to his race and criticism from the white people who had honored him, by marrying a white woman, a stenographer in his office.
They were no doubt in love with each other, which in all likelihood overcame the fear of social ostracism, they must have known would follow the marriage. I speak of love and presume that she loved him for in my opinion a white woman, intelligent and respectable and knowing what it means, who would marry a colored man, must love him and love him dearly. To make that love stronger is the feeling that haunts the mind; the knowledge that custom, tradition, and the dignity of both races are against it. Like anything forbidden, however, it arouses the spirit of opposition, causing the mind to battle with what is felt to be oppression. The sole claim is the right to love.
These thoughts fell upon me like a clap of thunder and frightened me the more. It was then too, that I realized how pleasant the summer just passed had been, and that I had not been in the least lonesome, but perfectly contented, aye, happy. And that was the reason.
During the summer when I had read a good story or had on mind to discuss my hopes, she had listened attentively and I had found companionship. If I was melancholy, I had been cheered in the same demure manner. Yet, on the whole, I had been unaware of the affection growing silently; drawing two lonesome hearts together. With the reality of it upon us, we were unable to extricate ourselves from our own weak predicament. We tried avoiding each other; tried everything to crush the weakness. God has thus endowed. We found it hard.
I have felt, if a person could only order his mind as he does his limbs and have it respond or submit to the will, how much easier life would be. For it is that relentless thinking all the time until one's mind becomes a slave to its own imaginations, that brings eternal misery, where happiness might be had.
To love is life—love lives to seek reply—but I would contend with myself as to whether or not it was right to fall in love with this poor little white girl. I contended with myself that there were good girls in my race and coincident with this I quit boarding with them and went to batching again, to try to successfully combat my emotions. I continued to send her papers and books to read—I could hardly restrain the inclinations to be kind. Then one day I went to the house to settle with her father for the boy's work and found her alone. I could see she had been crying, and her very expression was one of unhappiness. Well, what is a fellow going to do. What I did was to take her into my arms and in spite of all the custom, loyalty, or the dignity of either Ethiopian or the Caucasian race, loved her like a lover.
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It was during a street carnival at Megory some time before the Tipp county opening, when one afternoon in company with three or four white men, I saw a nice looking colored man coming along the street. It was very seldom any colored people came to those parts and when they did, it was with a show troupe or a concert of some kind. Whenever any colored people were in town, I had usually made myself acquainted and welcomed them—if it was acceptable, and it usually was—so when I saw this young man approaching I called the attention of my companions, saying, "There is a nice-looking colored man." He was about five feet, eleven, of a light brown complexion, and chestnut-like hair, neatly trimmed. He wore glasses and was dressed in a well-fitting suit that matched his complexion. He had the appearance of being intelligent and amiable.
I was in the act of starting to speak, when one of the fellows nudged me and whispered in my ear, that it was one of the Woodrings from a town a short distance away in Nebraska, who was known to be of mixed blood but never admitted it.
According to what I had been told, the father of the three boys was about half negro but had married a white woman, and this one was the youngest son. Needless to say I did not speak but kept clear of him.
There is a difference in races that can be distinguished in the features, in the eyes, and even if carefully noted, in the sound of the voice.
It seemed the family claimed to be part Mexican, which would account for the darkness of their complexion. But I had seen too many different races, however, to mistake a streak of Ethiopian. Having been in Mexico, I knew them to be almost entirely straight-haired (being a cross between an Indian and a Spaniard). When I observed this young man, I readily distinguished the negro features; the brown eyes, the curly hair, and the set of the nose.
The father had come into the sand hills of Nebraska some thirty-five years before, taken a homestead, but from where he came from no one seemed to know. It was there he married his white wife, and to the union was born the three sons, Frank, the eldest, Will, and Len, the youngest.
The father sold the homestead some twenty years before and moved to another county, and had run a hotel since in the town of Fencer, where they now live.
Unlike his younger brother, Frank, the eldest son, could easily have passed for a white, that is, so long as no one looked for the streak. But when the fellow whose timely information had kept me from embarrassing myself, and perhaps from insulting the young man, a few minutes later called out, "Hello, Frank!" to a tall man, one look disclosed to my scrutiny the negro in his features. I was not mistaken. It was Frank Woodring.
In view of the fact, that in some chapters of this story I dwell on the negro, and on account of the insistence of many of them who declare they are deprived of opportunities on account of their color, I take the privilege of putting down here a sketch of this Frank Woodring's life. And although these people deny a relation to the negro race, it was well known by the public in that part of the country, that they were mixed, for it had been told to me by every one who knew them, therefore the instance cannot be regarded altogether as an exception.
Shortly after coming to Fencer, he went to work for an Iowa man on a ranch near by, and later a prosperous squaw-man, who owned a bank, took him in, where in time he became book-keeper and all round handy man, later assistant cashier. The ranchman whom Woodring had worked for previous to entering the bank, bought the squaw-man out, made Woodring cashier, and sold to him a block of stock and took his note for the amount. In time Woodring proved a good banker and his efficient management of the institution, which had been a State bank with a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, had been incorporated into a National bank and the capital increased to fifty thousand dollars, and later on to one hundred thousand dollars. He dealt in buying and selling land as well as feeding cattle, on the side, and had prospered until he was soon well-to-do. Coincident with this prosperity he had been made president of not only that bank—whose footing was near a half-million dollars—but or some other three or four local banks in Nebraska, also a Megory county bank at Fairview—which is the county depository—and a large bank and trust company at the town of Megory, with a capital stock of sixty thousand dollars. Today Frank Woodring is one of the wealthiest men in northwest Nebraska.
The local ball team of their town was playing Megory that day, and a few hours later out at the ball park, I was shouting for the home team with all my breath, the batter struck a foul, and when I turned to look where the ball went, there, standing on the bench above me, between two white girls, and looking down at me with a look that betrayed his mind, was Len Woodring. Our eyes met for only the fraction of a minute but I read his thoughts. He looked away quickly, but I shall not soon forget that moment of racial recognition.
And now when I found my affections in jeopardy regarding the love of the Scotch girl, I thought long and seriously over the matter, and pictured myself in the place of the Woodring family, successful, _page_160.jpg)
respected, and efficient business men, but still members of the down-trodden race. I pondered as to whether I could make the sacrifice. Maybe they were happy, the boys had never known or associated with the race they denied, and maybe were not so conscientious as myself, although the look of Len's had betrayed what was on his mind.
I had learned that throughout these Dakotas and Nebraska, that other lone colored men who had drifted from the haunts and homes of the race, as I had—maybe discontented, as I had been—and had with time and natural development, through the increase in the valuation of their homesteads or other lands they had acquired, grown prosperous and had finally, with hardly an exception, married into the white race. Even the daughter of the only colored farmer between the Little Crow and Omaha was only prevented from marrying a white man, at the altar, when it was found the law of the state forbids it.
I could diagnose their condition by my own. Life in a new country is always rough in the beginning. In the past it had taken ten and fifteen years for a newly opened country to develop into a state of cultivation and prosperity, that the Little Crow had in the four years.
At the time it had been opened to settlement, the reaction from the effects of the dry years and hard times of 93–4 and 5 had set in and at that time, with plenty of available capital, the early extension of the railroad, and other advantages too numerous to mention, life had been quite different for the settlers. Such advantages had not been the lot of the homesteader twenty and thirty years before.
These people had no doubt been honorable and had intended to remain loyal to their race, but long, hard years, lean crops, and the long, lonesome days had changed them. It is easier to control the thoughts than the emotions. The craving for love and understanding pervades the very core of a human, and makes the mind reckless to even such a grave matter as race loyalty. In most cases it had been years before these people had the means and time to get away for a visit to their old homes, while around them were the neighbors and friends of pioneer days, and maybe, too, some girl had come into their lives—like this one had into mine—who understood them and was kind and sympathetic. What worried me most, however, even frightened me, was, that after marriage and when their children had grown to manhood and womanhood, they, like the Woodring family, had a terror of their race; disowning and denying the blood that coursed through their veins; claiming to be of some foreign descent; in fact, anything to hide or conceal the mixture of Ethopian. They looked on me with fear, sometimes contempt. Even the mixed-blood Indians and negroes seemed to crave a marriage with the whites.
The question uppermost in my mind became, "'Would not I become like that, would I too, deny my race?" The thought was a desperate one. I did not feel that I could become that way, but what about those to come after me, would they have to submit to the indignities I had seen some of these referred to, do, in order that they may marry whites and try to banish from memory the relation of a race that is hated, in many instances, for no other reason than the coloring matter in their pigment. Would my life, and the thought involved and occupied my mind daily, innocent as my life now appeared, lead into such straits if I married the Scotch girl. It became harder for me, for at that time, I had not even a correspondence with a girl of my race. As I look back upon it the condition was a complicated affair. I confess at the time, however, that I was on the verge of making the sacrifice. This was due to the sights that had met my gaze when I would go on trips to Chicago, and such times I would return home feeling disgusted.