Dearfield, Colorado

In the post–Civil War era, it became clear to African Americans in the South that emancipation did not mean equality. Beginning in the 1890s, tens of thousands of southern blacks facing racism, Jim Crow laws, lynching, and economic and social inferiority decided to migrate to other regions within the United States. This so-called Great Migration of southern blacks to northern and western lands took place starting in the 1890s and lasted well into the 1970s. The majority of African Americans relocated to urban areas in the north. It is estimated that perhaps more than 1 million blacks migrated to northern cities between 1890 and 1920 in order to occupy unskilled positions in factories. However, other African Americans felt that, in order to improve their status, they ought to move west.

The story of African American migration to the West and their role on the frontier has often been overlooked in U.S. history. For these black pioneers, the West offered the possibility to take on new roles as explorers, fur trappers, gold miners, cowboys, and homesteaders. Often, these African Americans embodied the American frontier experience as they carved out new farming communities where they could exercise autonomy and independence. One such community was in Dearfield, Colorado.

Some African Americans felt that city life in the north left little room for advancement due to the constant competition with whites. These individuals sought new opportunities by moving westward. Between 1890 and 1910, nearly 35,000 blacks decided to move to the frontier. Many African Americans argued that blacks should depart from the factories and return to the land where they can “work out their salvation from the land up.” Black entrepreneurs pooled their meager resources and formed black farming communities in order to collectively better their lives. Colorado was seen as a region where African Americans could work hard and enjoy the fruits of their labor. By 1890, the vast majority of the black population that settled in Colorado owned land. According to the U.S. census, about 6,000 African Americans were living in Colorado, and 5,000 of them had purchased their own land.

African American entrepreneurs such as Oliver Toussaint Jackson sought to create a black farming community in Colorado after being inspired by the writings of Booker T. Washington. Washington urged African Americans to return to the land and earn their own way with their own hands. Influenced by Washington's writings, Oliver Toussaint Jackson arrived in Colorado in 1887 where he envisioned the establishment of an African American farming colony. His idea inspired a settlement in Weld County, where Jackson and his wife, Minerva, helped found the city of Dearfield, located about 85 miles northeast of Denver. Oliver and Minerva Jackson filed for the original [Page 196]160 acres of land in 1910, and by the end of 1911 there were seven families and three teams of horses, making Jackson's dream a reality. Efforts to recruit homesteaders to the new African American colony, where settlers could live off the land and become self-sufficient, were successful and the original residents were soon joined by 60 newcomers. Within five years, Dearfield, Colorado, had more than 40 wooden homes, two churches, a schoolhouse, a doctor's office, a cement factory, and a filling station. Over the next decade, the population increased to nearly 700 residents, as black men and women flocked to the colony to start a new life.

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