African-American Homesteaders
Most African-Americans who settled in the West in the decades after the Civil War lived in cities. But a few were able to use homestead laws to acquire land and property. Hagen’s research on African-American homesteaders has documented their efforts to use a variety of homestead legislation in different areas of Washington and Montana. Across the rural West, some black women as well as men managed to gain title to substantial lands despite the difficulties of doing so. Among successful black women homesteaders as Agnes “Annie” Morgan, whose story Hagen traces from the Forest Homestead she acquired in the late 19th century. Born in Maryland, Morgan was about 20 when the Civil War ended, and she came west with the famed 7th Cavalry. After traveling to Dakota Territory as the domestic servant of a cavalry captain, Morgan made her way to the western Montana mining-town of Philipsburg. There she found work that took her to an abandoned farm on Upper Rock Creek. When her employment ended, she stayed on the farm, filing a homestead claim. Morgan eventually formed a domestic partnership with a white Civil War veteran, “Fisher Jack” Case, whom she found in 1894 lying on the bank of the creek, stricken with typhoid. Morgan nursed Case back to health: artifacts discovered at the homestead suggest her nursing included traditional practices based on the work of African root doctors, practices that African-Americans sustained and passed down through the generations. Morgan’s story, and others traced in Hagen’s research on black homesteaders, illuminates understudied aspects of African-American and Western history, and of their oft-overlooked intersection. It also sheds light on the history of interracial intimacy, and race relations more broadly, around the turn of the century, when such relationships were often illegal.
Portions of this research serve as the basis of a reports used by the U.S. Army to guide planning and management of Army-owned lands. Portions of this research also serve as the basis of the National Register of Historic Places Nomination for the Morgan-Case Homestead.
Portions of this research serve as the basis of a reports used by the U.S. Army to guide planning and management of Army-owned lands. Portions of this research also serve as the basis of the National Register of Historic Places Nomination for the Morgan-Case Homestead.