#john ware

In honour of #BlackHistoryMonth, we wanted to share the story of John Ware, one of many Black individuals who have helped shape Alberta and Canada’s heritage and identity.

Born into slavery on a South Carolina plantation around 1845, he rose to fame on the prairies because of his exceptional horsemanship skills. Ware purchased a ranch near Millarville in 1891 and the next year he married Mildred Lewis. The couple had six children.

As more people moved into the Millarville area, the family relocated along the Red Deer River, north of Brooks Alberta, near what is now Dinosaur Provincial Park.

I just stumbled upon this interview with John Ware of FNB fame.

Here are some rare FNB pics:

John Ware (The Silt Verses, I Am In Eskew, etc) is a masterful writer, and deeply critical of our world in all of the works I've seen from him. It's not much of a stretch to imagine that this too, is a criticism of our modern, 3rd world society, just another degree removed from reality.

Here, in our world, homeless people are shot dead in the streets by the people supposed to protect our cities. The same thing happens to LGB and speifically TQ people. Here, the youth cannot afford to live, can barely afford to learn. Here, our jobs are slowly (but far too quickly) being replaced by soulless amalgamations of illicitly gained text and images. Here, we drain the essence of the long dead creatures that came before us, light it on fire, and send it into the air to melt our icebergs and raise our oceans and warm our climate. Here, rapists and politicians (sometimes indistinguishable from the other) walk freely in our world. But we don't call it that.

We say we're keeping our streets safe. We say it's for the best, difference is dangerous! We say we're improving our productivity. We say we're saving our economy. We say it's not real, that this is normal, that it's okay! These are how things are supposed to be! It's just how things work!

And so, we see this reflected to an EXTREME degree in the works of John Ware. Here, people are sacrificed daily to appease gods beyond comprehension. Here, the government disfigures it's citizens and straps them into nukes, into trains, into the electricity grid itself, and monetize it. Here, entire groups of people are demonized, and disappear without a trace. Here, the city is alive, and malevolent. Here, monsters and saints beyond comprehension, indistinguishable from the other, roam freely through this world. But they don't call it that.

They say they're keeping their country safe. They say they're saving their system, keeping things running smoothly. They say it's for the best, that difference is dangerous! They say it's not real, that this is safe, normal, that this is okay! That this is just how things work!

they're not so different from us after all, are they. So, when David recounts yet another of his adventures, it's no wonder he's able to keep his monotone tone. he's not too distressed about the monsters, or the warping architecture, or the looming threat of death and/or disappearance, or mutilation and disfigurement. Because for him this is how it's supposed to be! This is how it's always been! This is the life he knows, and he sees little reason to challenge it until it affects him.

But to us the readers, it's horrifying. For despite our worlds flaws, the lives we lead are still so much better than theirs. They don't know what they could have. They've never known our definition of normal. And that's what scares us, as much as the monsters and lovely body horror that Jon, Muna Hussen, and Sammy Holden, as well as the rest of their incredible team, provide us with. At least, that's what scares me. Because it's not all that far off, given the direction America is moving as of 2025.

black cowboys

john ware (1845-1905)

bass reeves (1838-1910)

bose ikard (1843-1929)

nat love (1854-1921)

bill pickett (1870-1932)

Howdy, followers. Today, I’m going to show you these old pictures of African Americans in the American Old West, also featuring photos of famous and legendary Black figures that I considered them as legends of the American western history.

I’m going to be honest with you all as I’m going to give prosperous facts; African American were and still are cowboys and cowgirls. We already had these skills of saddling, cattle ranching, farming, agriculture, and riding horses, back in the ancient times in Northern/Western Africa before Christ, Islam, and colonization. It was an golden age back than.

Bill Pickett (1871-1932), rodeo performer.

Nat Love, aka Deadwood Dick (1854-1921), cowboy and saddler.

Jesse Stahl (1879-1935), cowboy and rodeo star.

John Ware (1845?-1905), rancher, saddler, and cowboy.  

James Pierson Beckwourth (1805-1866), mountain man, fur trader, scout, and explorer. 

Isom Dart (Ned Huddleston) (1849-1900), cowboy, criminal, and outlaw.  

Bass Reeves (1838-1910), lawman and deputy U.S. marshal

George Fletcher (1890-1973), rodeo star and cowboy. 

George Glenn  (1850–1931), cowboy.   

Dangerfield Newby (1815-1859), freedom fighter and rebellion.    

Mary Fields (1832-1914), mail courier. 

Harriet Tubman (1820-1913), freedom fighter, slave rebellion, scout, spy, nurse, and guerrilla soldier. 

John Horse (1812–1882), slave rebellion and freedom fighter. 

Now, here are old pictures of black people in the old American west. 

This is John Ware and his wife and kids. 

That’s Bass Reeves. 

Bill Pickett’s family members. 

This is Harriet Tubman in her previous age. 

 Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), abolitionist and human right activist. 

“A lot of people in LA’s music community knew Mike [Nesmith] was a seriously good songwriter. But there were still some who thought he was a joke. There was definitely that tribe. One of the first times I noticed that was when [First National Band] played a date with the Flying Burrito Brothers. They were brand new and they laughed at us as we were playing. I knew those guys. Bernie Leadon had been in Linda Ronstadt’s band with me. It was obvious they thought it was funny Mike was who he was: ‘a Monkee.’ They just weren’t paying attention to the music. I think they dismissed it because we weren’t, you know, espousing drugs and swagger. We were just playing. I like those guys, but it pissed me off.”

John Ware was more than a solitary Black rancher riding the southern Alberta plains in the late 1800s.

It’s one of several myths Calgary filmmaker Cheryl Foggo tries to destabilize in her 2020 documentary John Ware Reclaimed.

The film opens with Foggo listing the oft-used tropes associated with Ware — he was supposedly “singular; a big, amiable, Black cowboy all alone in his Blackness in southern Alberta.”

Speaking with the Leader-Post, Foggo said he doesn’t embody all of Western Canada’s Black history, let alone Alberta’s.

“John Ware was not the only Black person here, even in his time,” she said. “His children became very interconnected with the community of Black people who came to this part of the world starting in about 1905, because those connections tell us a much fuller story.”

Her film opens Thursday at the Calgary International Film Festival, which is hosting online and in-cinema screenings; the film is also to screen on the festival’s final day, Oct. 4.

Continue Reading.