Stagecoach Mary: Black Woman Hero of the Old West

In the movies all of the heroes of the West are male. All cowboys are white males. What if we told you that 20-25% of cowboys of the old west were African Americans. Some were women and a small number were Black women. Like Mary Fields (1832 –1914)...
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Also known as Stagecoach Mary and Black Mary, Mary Fields was an American mail carrier who was the first Black woman to work for the US Postal Service (She did contract work as a star route mail carrier). Born in the antebellum south, Fields was enslaved on a plantation in Hickman County, Tennessee until the age of 33. In 1865 she was emancipated upon the end of the American Civil War. After being free she began working on a Mississippi steamboat called the Robert E. Lee as a chambermaid… 
Fields’ rough demeanor, short temper, gun toting, heavy drinking and excessive use of profanity caused her to have frequent clashes with the religious community within the convent. She even got into a quarrel with a male employee at St. Peter’s Mission that involved firearms. As a result, In 1894, after several complaints from the nuns, the bishop asked her to leave the convent. Fields left St. Peter’s and opened a tavern in Cascade, Montana. However, the business struggled financially and closed in less than a year…

See more in this article entitled Mary Fields (StageCoach Mary): Hero of the West with Lesson Plans and Resources.