The success of Tarantino’s Django Unchained has brought back to light a side of american history that was often hidden : the black cowboys. Some slaves were able to avoid the plantations prefering to live with the Indian tribes, like the Cherokee and Dakota, others opted for life in the prairies with a hat on a horse back. They were numerous, but the collective memory forgot them. This is why movies redrawing this part of the history are rare: Harlem one the Prairie (1937), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), Bill Cosby and Yaphet Kotto in Man and Boy (1971), Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte in Buck and the Preacher (1972), without forgetting Danny Glover in Silverado (1985) and Morgan Freeman in Unforgiven (1992). But more than Hollywood, LP covers were here to remind us about this lesser known chapter of american history.
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Going further with black cowboys:
Check Moustapha Alassane’s movie: http://www.africanfilmny.org/2012/return-of-an-adventurer-le-retour-d’un-aventurier/
First african movie in the Western genre, featuring black cowboys in Niger (!)
great !