My Heroes, My People: African Americans and Native Americans in the West

by Morgan Monceaux, Ruth Katcher

An artist's look at how the West was won by some -- and lost by others.

This unique album introduces readers to African Americans and Native Americans who had a role in the westward expansion of the United States, as fur traders, stagecoach drivers, cowboys, soldiers, nurses, mail-order brides, and tribal chiefs. Through Morgan Monceaux's striking portraits (executed in oil pastels, paint, markers, and collage) and the accompanying biographical sketches and historical notes, readers meet some of the men and women -- black and red -- whose names have come down to us through legend and history. Some are well known; others were minor players on a great stage whose lives can be traced through a photograph, a letter, or a government record. Taken together, they give us an extraordinary picture of the West and an appreciation of the human need to be free -- for as African American settlers were enjoying newfound freedom, their Native American neighbors were fighting to preserve theirs.

64 pages, Hardcover

First published October 22, 1999

Reviews

[Phil J]

This book is eccentric. It covers mostly African-Americans of note in the West, but throws in a few American Indians. It's a little odd to do such a thorough job on African-American cowboys, but try to represent Indians with ten people. The African American bios are pretty cool, but they are a little light on things like dates and hard facts. I am grateful to this book for shining a light on some underrepresented people, but I would have liked more info on them, especially Cathy Williams, who sounds just incredible.

The artwork is eccentric. I'm not sure what Monceaux was going for here. The illustrations had a lot of energy to them, but in kind of a distracting way.

[Amy Layton]

I learned so much from this book!  This seems to be a pretty overlooked biography compilation, and I don't know why--it features many biographies from enslaved people, chiefs, bandits, and sheriffs.  It features figures such as Bass Reeves and Pocahontas, and even goes so far so as to mention lost stories ad narratives that history has (mostly) erased.  It was informative, and I loved that it offered such a wide array of persons.  I'm glad I read it!

Review cross-listed here!

[Kbord]

This is a short book filled with paintings about African-American and Native American people who lived in the American West. It's a coffee table book that I found randomly in a library. It's probably not a book that I would pick up a second time to read, but I'm glad I saw it once.

The pictures are simplistic and cartoonish in style. I thought the journaling on them was interesting: each portrait has the name and a short description in the paint that wound around the portrait's figure.

I learned about some people I'd never heard of before. There were also a few people whose names are well-known to historians. I enjoy seeing history from a non-dominant perspective.

This is the second book I've seen that mentions Clara Brown (the first was Women Pioneers), and having read the other, more detailed description of her life first, I can honestly say that seeing the brief description of her life in this book makes me think that all of the brief biographies that accompany the pictures must be inadequate.

I imagine that seeing the portraits on exhibit somewhere would have had more of an impact on me as an observer than seeing all of this in a book.