Beckwourth, Jim

Beckwourth, Jim

 orig. James Pierson Beckwith

(born April 26, 1798, Virginia, U.S.—died 1867?, Denver, Colo.) U.S. mountain man. Born a slave, the son of a white man and a slave woman, he was taken by his father to St. Louis and set free. In 1823–24 he was hired by trading expeditions in the Rocky Mountains. He married a series of Indian women and lived among the Crow for about six years. During the California gold rush (1848) he established a route through the Sierra Nevada. In California he met Thomas D. Bonner, who in 1856 published many of Beckwourth's stories and recollections.

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Beckwourth, (James Pierson) Jim (1798–1867) pioneer, mountain man; born in Fredericksburg, Va. Born a slave but raised free in St. Louis, Mo., by his mulatto mother and white father, Beckwourth participated in the Ashley–Henry fur-trading expeditions into the Rocky Mountains (1823–26) and lived with the Crow Indians (1826–37). Serving as guide, trapper, trader, army scout, and hunter (1837–50), he discovered the pass—later named after him—in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that opened a route to California's Sacramento Valley (1850) and started a ranch nearby. His Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth (1856) describes the life of the frontiersmen known as mountain men.