01Biography
James Beckwourth was born to an enslaved mother and a white father, Jennings Beckwith, who moved the family to Missouri. In 1824 he joined William Ashley's trappers, and before he left, his father went to court to make his freedom official. He trapped for Ashley and then for Jedediah Smith and his partners, and from 1829 he lived among the Crow for about seven years and became a leader in their villages.
In the gold rush he found a low pass over the Sierra Nevada, and in 1851 he opened a wagon road across it into California and guided emigrants over it. One girl in an early train, Ina Coolbrith, later said she rode into California on his saddle. She grew up to be California's first poet laureate.
02Why they matter
Found the lowest pass over the Sierra Nevada and guided emigrant wagons across it into California.
03How they died
In 1856 he published his life story, told to a writer, Thomas Bonner, who changed the spelling of his name from Beckwith to Beckwourth. He later kept a store in Denver and guided Army troops, and he was with the soldiers at the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. He went back to the Crow and died among them, probably in late October 1866, aged about 68.
04Legacy
Beckwourth Pass, at 5,221 feet the lowest pass in the Sierra Nevada, is a California Historical Landmark. Historians long called him a liar, but later research found most of his stories were true, and California's fourth-grade standards name him beside John Bidwell and John C. Frémont.