Juneteenth: A Bibliography

Juneteenth: a few references on the Black experience in the American West

By Leslie Budewitz (Originally published June 19, 2025, on the author’s blog)

Juneteenth—the commemoration of the day news of the end of slavery reached Galveston, Texas—is a day to celebrate Black history in the United States. And while we often think of history as Big Events (typically how it’s taught), what makes it come alive are the stories.

When I was researching All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, I read some really terrific books and articles on the Black experience in the American West, and watched some excellent documentaries. (Mary’s story also touches on the Catholic missionary era in Montana and the woman on her own in the west, and some of those resources are on my list, too.)

This is a list of books, articles, and videos featuring Black characters in the American West, roughly 1865-1915.

NONFICTION

A Black Woman’s West: The Life of Rose B. Gordon, Michael K. Johnson (Montana Historical Society Press, 2022)

Black Montana: Settler Colonialism and the Erosion of the Racial Frontier, 1877-1930, Anthony W. Wood (University of Nebraska Press, 2021); includes an extensive bibliography

In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990, Quintard Taylor (WW Norton & Co., 1998)

Ursuline Sisters of Great Falls, Sister Francis Xavier Porter, O.S.U., and Kristi D. Scott (Images of America series, Arcadia Publishing, 2012)

Lady Blackrobes: Missionaries in the Heart of Indian Country, Irene Mahoney, O.S.U. (Fulcrum Publishing, 2006)

“Historic St. Peter’s Mission: Landmark of the Jesuits and the Ursulines among the Blackfeet,” Wilfred P. Schoenberg, S.J., in Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter 1961)

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Penguin Press, 2019)

African American Women Confront the West, 1600-2000, ed. Quintard Taylor and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)

“Forgotten Heritage: African Americans in the Montana Territory, 1864-1889,” Barbara Carol Behan, in The Journal of African American History (Vol. 91, No. 1, 2006)

We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Dorothy Sterling (W.W. Norton & Co., 1984; 1997)

Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts, Dru Holly, director and producer; aired on PBS and WORLD Channel’s Local, USA series (2023)

Hidden Stories: Montana’s Black Past, produced by Montana State Historical Society; aired on Montana PBS (2023)

Reconstruction: America After the Civil War, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., PBS (2019)

Charlie Russell’s Old West, Montana PBS (2020)

Montana Historical Society files on Mary Fields, Mother Amadeus Dunne, and St. Peter’s Mission

Montana Historical Society, African American Heritage Resources Project

BlackPast.org, an online encyclopedia of African American and global African history

True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America, Betsy Gaines Quammen (Torrey House Press, 2023)

Montana 1889: Indians, Cowboys and Miners in the Year of Statehood, Ken Egan, Jr. (Riverbend Publishing, 2019)

Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman (Montana Historical Society Press, 2009)

Portraits of Women in the American West, ed. Dee Garceau-Hagen (Routledge, 2005)

The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West, Candy Moulton (Writer’s Digest Books, 1999)

Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Elinore Pruitt Stewart (letters originally published in the Atlantic Monthly, 1914-15; collection published by Houghton Mifflin Co., 1982)

Montana: A History of Two Centuries, Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder (University of Washington Press, 1976)

Mountains and Meadows: A Pioneer History of Cascade, Chestnut Valley, Hardy, St. Peter’s Mission, and Castner Falls, 1805 to 1925, ed. by Mrs. Clarence J. (Jean) Rowe (Great Falls, MT, undated, ca. 1970)

FICTION

In his remarks accepting the Western Writers of America’s 2024 Owen Wister Award for “Lifetime Achievement” in writing Western history and literature, Quintard Taylor, Ph.D., the preeminent historian of the Black experience in the American West, encouraged more authors, especially white authors, to include Black characters in our fiction—because they were here. I have not been able to find much fiction about the Black experience in the West. If you have titles to suggest, please drop me a line. (Note: I have not read all of these and can’t vouch for their historical accuracy.)

Lone Women, Victor LaValle (Penguin Random House, 2023). Montana—In 1915, after her parents’ deaths, Adelaide Henry leaves California for Montana, with a guidebook on homesteading for women and a mysterious trunk. The elements that give it the label “Western horror” are weird, but they won’t keep you up at night.

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves: the Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book One, Sidney Thompson (University of Nebraska Press, 2020). Texas—a fictionalization of the life of the first Black Deputy US Marshal, from slavery in Arkansas and Texas to law enforcement in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), followed by two more books. Source of the TV series: Lawmen: Bass Reeves.

The Book of Lost Friends, Lisa Wingate (Ballantine Books, 2020). Louisiana and Texas—follows efforts after the Civil War and the end of slavery to reunite with friends and relatives separated during slavery.

The Which Way Tree, Elizabeth Crook (Little Brown, 2018). The story of Sam(antha), the 12-year-old daughter of a former slave and a white man, and her older brother Ben, as they seek to avenge Sam’s mother’s death after an attack by a legendary panther on the post-war Texas frontier.

Paradise Sky, Joe R. Lansdale (Mulholland Books, 2015). A retelling of the life of the famous Black cowboy Nat Love, aka Deadwood Dick, set largely in Texas and South Dakota.

A Light in the Wilderness, Jane Kirkpatrick (Revell, 2014). Letitia Carson is a freed Black woman who goes West on the Oregon Trail with her white husband in 1845. Widowed, she fights for her rights in Oregon, despite laws hostile to both women and Black people, and successfully files a homestead claim in 1867. Based on a true story.

The Color of Lightning, Paulette Jiles (Harper Collins, 2009). Follows the life of a former slave in North Texas after the Civil War whose family is kidnapped in Indian raids. Based on family histories.

Gabriel’s Story: A Novel, David Anthony Durham (Anchor, 2007). After the Civil War, a 15-year-old Black boy and his family start over in Kansas with a group of Black settlers, but he is soon lured into Texas by a promise of adventure. It does not turn out as he’d expected.

Buffalo Soldiers, Tom Willard (Forge 1996). Part of Willard’s Black Sabre Chronicles following Black soldiers. This story focuses on the life of Augustus Sharp who joined the famous 10th Cavalry, aka the Buffalo Soldiers, after being freed from Kiowa captivity.

North of the border:

Just John and Northward Home, Reg Quest (CKN Christian Publishing, 2021). Two novels based on the story of John Ware, a slave who delivered a horse during the last days of the Civil War in exchange for his freedom. He eventually settled as a rancher and horse trainer in Alberta, Canada, where he finally chose a last name.

Novels of note set later but with deep roots in the historic American West:

Prairie Nocturne, Ivan Doig (Scribner, 2003). A Montana rancher and a music teacher work together to launch the career of a Montana native and gospel singer during the Harlem Renaissance, inspired by the life and career of a real-life Montanan, Taylor Gordon.

Paradise, Toni Morrison (Knopf, 1998). This story of myth, history, survival, and much more is rooted in he Black towns of Oklahoma, settled in the post-Civil War era.

A pre-war setting:

The Book of the Little Axe, Lauren Francis-Sharma (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020). A Trinidadian woman comes to Montana, where she marries a Crow chief; when her son begins to come of age, she takes him back to the island, to explore his roots and retrace her own path.

Novels of the Native American experience:

The Lost Journals of Sacajawea, Debra Magpie Earling (Milkweed, 2024)

Crow Mary, Kathleen Grissom (Atria, 2023)

Perma Red, Debra Magpie Earling (Milkweed, 2002)

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