Last month, I wrote a post about the first women
jurors chosen to serve on a jury in 1870 Wyoming Territory. It all came about when The territory legislature
granted women full voting rights on December 10, 1869. You may find that post
by CLICKING HERE
The first opportunity for Wyoming
Territory women to vote came on September 6. 1870. Although Utah Territory
granted women the right to vote shortly after Wyoming Territory, and women
there had opportunities to vote in both February and August of 1870, there is
no record of Black women there voting.
In South Carolina, many suffragists, both white and
Black argued that the recently enacted Fourteenth Amendment granted women
voting rights, Black women voted in some regions of South Carolina in October
and November of 1870. The Supreme Court later ruled that the Amendment did not
guarantee voting rights to women, so women there were not granted that right
until August 1920.
However, in Wyoming Territory, suffrage
was granted by the legislature without reliance on the Fourteenth Amendment.
Among women voters in the September 9, 1870 election were Black women—quite a
step forward for many who were likely enslaved less than a decade earlier.
Unfortunately, since Native American tribes were treated like separate nations,
women suffrage in Wyoming Territory did not extend to Native women.
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| Nancy Phillips, probable 1870 voter |
Despite the racism that did exist, there
were those in Wyoming Territory who worked to protect Black women’s suffrage
alongside that granted to the white women. The following quote is from
territorial secretary, Edward
Lee:
 |
| Edward M. Lee |
Partisan strife to secure votes
among the male adherents of rival candidates culminated in the afternoon, when
a brace of colored sisters, hanging gracefully on the arms of a deputy United
States marshal of Irish birth, were escorted by him to the polls, and indulged
in the right of suffrage. Was not this remarkable coalition a precursor of more
harmonious relations between these heretofore bitterly antagonistic elements?
The descendants of Ham and St. Patrick hobnobbing in political communion?
Verily, ‘the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and a little child
shall lead them.’
Another account of the 1870 election
comes from Justice John Kingman, also an ardent supporter of woman suffrage. In
testimony before the 1876 Massachusetts Legislature, Kingman noted:
I remember a case in point, which,
at the time, caused me much uneasiness. We had, at first, a large proportion of
Southern men and Northern Copperheads. By that I mean men who advocated
secession, and came to Wyoming to escape being drafted. Carriages were employed
by the candidates to bring ladies to the polls. At the hotel were a number of
colored girls employed as servants. After a while a carriage drove up with four
of these colored girls in it. They were helped out, and as they went to the
polls the crowd quietly parted; they voted and returned to the carriage without
a word said. Then I breathed freely; I knew all was safe.
Both accounts make note of
partisanship in the shadow of the recent Civil War. Lee and Kingman were
Radical Republicans who had served in the Union Army as brigadier generals, as
had Governor Campbell. All three men were committed to equal rights, but they
knew that there were many people in Wyoming who were not.
At South Pass City, several drunken
and armed white men proclaimed they would not allow any Negros to vote. They
attacked a fellow voter who made the statement that they should be allowed the
same privilege, as granted by law. A U.S marshal broke up the riot and saw to
it the Black men were allowed to vote. When it came to the Black women, the
U.S. marshals decided on a more pro-active approach to insure their safety.
The names of the Black women who
voted are unknown. Like the numbers of white female voters, the number of Black women who voted are not
known. However, it is known through census records that thirty Black or “mulatto”
women above the age of twenty-one lived in Wyoming Territory. Most of them
arrived in Wyoming Territory as part of a family unit, many of them who owned
property. About twenty-five percent lived with their employers and seventeen percent
lived independently. The largest Black population lived in Cheyenne. Three
lived at nearby Fort D.A. Russell, and resided with their employers.
Women’s right to vote in 1870
started a long tradition of political activism for Wyoming’s Black community.
In spite of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protected Black male
suffrage, a great deal of opposition to this right existed.
For the rest of the nation, states
and territories granted women suffrage in a piecemeal fashion until finally,
fifty years after Wyoming women were granted the right to vote, all women in
the United States were granted this right in 1920. Universal suffrage was a
tradition in which Wyoming Territory led the rest of the nation.
The setting for most of my latest
release, The Bride Who Step Dances, takes place in 1874 Laramie City,
Wyoming Territory, just four years after Wyoming Territory women voted for the first
time. This book is now available as an ebook and at no additional cost with a
Kindle Unlimited subscription. To find the book description and purchase
options, please CLICK HERE
Sources:
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/black-women-vote-in-wyoming/
https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/then-i-breathed-freely-black-women-vote-wyoming-1870
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