Ware respect is deserved

I came upon an interesting piece of Black History, although American History, it apparently only applies to Canadian American History. John Ware was an African American male, who most in the USA have never ever EVER heard of, but how is only known and celebrated in Canada. That’s a big FAIL to USA history to not recognize such an exception to a rule, in a very tough time in the USA. A gentleman by the name of John Ware was born in the United States of America, during the United States Civil War time, in 1845. He was born in either Tennessee or South Carolina, USA (much wasn’t accurate back then) which means he born into slavery, and Black people didn’t get freedom until 20 years later, in 1865. At that point, John was able to freely move away freely, and move to Texas, where he became emersed in Cowboy culture, as he worked professionally as a rancher, where he acquired farming, homesteading and horsemanship skills to be self-sustainable for that time period. The most interesting things about US Slavery was that many of the men who were former slaves had the skills to homestead, but Lincoln never gave the freed slaves what Lincoln promised, 40 acles and a mule.  Giving former slaves like John Ware his properly 40 acres and a mule, rather than stealing all the land from Indigenous American and giving it to European Settlers for nothing, this could have changed the fate for most African Americans in the USA TODAY! You have to think of the mentality of someone like a John Ware, nobody was going to give you anything as a Black person, and just because Slavery was over, that didn’t mean people just suddenly will stop their racism. This is 2022, how has that racism been abolished so far?

John Ware, like many former slaves, was more technically able to sustain himself that Whites counterparts of the time, because they were forced into Slavery and to do all of the work where the average White person didn’t have a job to do so, or didn’t have his own means to do it properly, himself. To ensure that African Americans would never outpace White citizens, this is why Blacks were never given 40 acles and mule, or today, many would be ridiculously rich because they would have all the land and all of the skills necessary to be rich today as owning something is wealth that can be passed down generationally. As I said in this previous piece, rich people who migrated west used their slaves to do so as well, not every person who moved went all by themselves, as many slave owners did not have strong skills of the day, but their slaves did. So, John Ware came highly skilled, post-Slavery, which helped him obtain and perform jobs post-Slavery and allowed him to move west initially, where he refined his skills even more in being an efficient rancher. Work moved West because the cattle industry had moved west, most notably in Texas, where the practice still stands today! Later, John participated in a job to move a huge herd of cattle property up north, into Montana, USA, which at that time required a Cowboy to do- thus the name “COW”-boy. Seriously, Cow-BOY.. the use of “BOY” used to be an offensive term that White people addressed Black men by, as a force of power and oppression, as you’re not a man or person. The origin of Cowboy was not a little boy who worked with cows, COWBOY has a racist origin and it was giving to Black slaves, and also women, who were the assistants to White ranchers. White ranchers were called “COW HANDS” and then referred to Blacks are COW BOYS.

Because there was no Internet, it later became cool for Whites to call themselves Cowboys, and they completely took over the term, to a point where when I started to write this, I was thinking “nobody knows that Cowboy had racial overtones and was NOT the name for a White person who worked with cattle and had good horsemanship. These skills were not to be slept on, as they are key to video games like “Red Dead Redemption 2”, which are annoying on a video game to do, to drive home the point that these were real skills of real Cowboys that had to be acquired. Here are his unique skills for the time:

• stop a steer head-on and wrestle it to the ground
• train any of the wildest broncos
• hold a horse on its back to be shod with horseshoes
• easily lift an 18-month-old steer and throw it on its back for branding.

John Ware was hired to move thousands of cattle up into Alberta, no easy feat, and he was part of the very first wave of Black people who migrated to Canada, freely. He was part of the first efforts to make Alberta a force in terms of commercial agriculture and farming with this effort, which kicked off industry there. One had to be a strong horseman and gunman because there are many opportunities for theft and conflict with such huge prizes at stake.  This is HUGE because this Black man is part of Calgary history, yet he has no major trace in any texts in USA Black History because he was not able to make a name in USA, which is likely what lead him to keep moving to where he could finally be comfortable. However, he was met in Canada with the same kinds of racism and systematic oppression, and could not escape it because people from the USA, whom were not so friendly to Black people, also migrated to Canada. Today, this path that these Settlers took is referred to as the “Cowboy Trail” in Canada. Even current day Canada is not that different from middle and south USA mentalities. This is why people cannot understand Fox News’ obsession for their currently SLANT when talking about that Ottawa Trucker protest aka the “FREEDOM CONVOY” in CANADA, when FOX does not care about CANADA ever. So, what is their angle? Who do they think is very similar to their consumers? Well not, they have people in the USA mimicking the same nonsense in Canada, but largely, most of the protesting truckers were already vaccinated, actually over 90% were already fully vaccinated. so wtf are they really up to? Well there are people like PAT KING who is one of the leaders of the Trucker Convoy pretending to protest Covid restrictions, but really are demonstrating force for the Nationalist movements in disguise. Click on the link for Pat King, listen to his racist ideology he clearly outlines for you very clearly, white supremacy ideology from his mouth directly in that video. Another leader in this FREEDOM CONVOY, in addition to many other convoys PRIOR TO THE PANDEMIC with “White Exit” aka WEXIT, is racist leader TARA LICH, who is promoting “WEXIT“, a “separatist” movement steeped in racist ideology. Yeah, I actually learned that South Alberta is not that different from many places in the US Mid-West and South and where you see a Canadian flag, it is kind of like seeing the Confederate Flag, in some areas going silly with Pro-Nationalism divisiveness that skyrocketed after the Pandemic- one of which was setup up at the road leading right in the path leading to John Ware’s memorial site is. OUCH! Yeah, if you thought Canada was all utopia, you don’t know anyone on the ground there because even fair skinned Europeans who live there now, will say that anti-immigrant vibes are big. I looked into that too, from Asians and others who said it, and ewww Calgary had signs being placed to promote that hate. SERIOUS! You saw that. Now USA people who have the same ideology at the Canadian Truckers are doing it all over the USA yet Covid restrictions are relaxed. Nationalism is BUILT into Canada just like the USA and it’s getting uglier by the day. So much for that “so polite” Canadian stereotype, because it’s false and it’s just as bad as the USA. It’s always been like this so you’ll later understand the complicated issue of being an efficient, respected Black man, especially back in 1800s. 😒

If he was not recognized as the NEWER term of Cowboy, officially before, he clearly was one by the time he settled in Montana and then moved on to Canada, he was too skilled to be denied at this point. He could easily get jobs and was part of many of the huge ranches of the time, one of which I visited the historic site of, Bar U Ranch. His skills impressed everyone who existed, and he was highly sought after and beloved by the local people in Alberta. Now, something that we should think about is that many people who ended up in Alberta, Canada came out of those northern states in the USA, but many came from the South to those northern states, just like John Ware – and with that, some of the negative attitudes about non-White people, which John Ware had to struggle with for real, all of his existence. Clearly, he knew that economic empowerment was the way to real freedom, not being released from Slavery. He knew he needed to be his own man and set out to do so. John Ware eventually created his own ranch in Millarville, Alberta and, in 1898, owned his owned brand he put on his cattle, “999”. Again, John Ware was a bad man and he is exactly why White people didn’t not want to empower former Black slaves whom had all the skills that most Whites did not have. He was one of the very first people to bring the science of an irrigation system to Alberta, Canada, and everyone else did not come with the skills to do so because they did not have the skills former slaves had, due to experience. So he was the only ranch with an irrigation system, thus had superior crops, in his area, which ultimately made him a target, due to jealousy by less capable other people.

John Ware married and later had 6 children on that ranch, but interesting enough, he suddenly moved, despite homesteading and setting up roots there. It doesn’t make sense that he would suddenly leave, but when he left, there were many different people coming into the area, many jealous and hateful people. It makes no sense that a man who worked so hard, proofed excellent land, set up his business, cattle, superior farming system with better crops, and who created his whole family in a treasured location, would suddenly leave all of that behind when he had many more people to sell to due to the influx of people to the area. It is speculated, racist chased him off of his own land. He moved to his entire family and operations to Red Deer River, which is over 125 miles (200km) away, mind you this is before clear roads and without cars! Who would do that willingly? Despite this great adversity, he was able to triumph and become a legend known to all of Alberta, Canada. He was loved by many in the areas, despite the racism of the time, and is held in high regard in Canadian Black History. There are many figures like John Ware, in the USA, but they never got the notoriety because they remained in the USA and Black History, which is American History, is only a new concept. He highlights that if you want to get somewhere, despite racial adversity, when it was actually REAL adversity and racism you could see and feel, just keep your head down, stay on your purpose, build yourself up to strengthen yourself to be greater than your haters, and certainly, don’t let adversaries dictate your future just because they controlled your past – and certainly don’t be loyal to any political party because government welfare destroys your purpose and pride. So, there you have it, an African American legend, who had to go all the way to Canada to finally have his own property, business, family and people to give him just a modicum of respect- also known as “Freedom”.

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.