The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer

by Oscar Micheaux

Unlike his younger brother, Frank, the eldest son, could easily have passed for a white, that is, so long as no one looked for the streak. But when the fellow whose timely information had kept me from embarrassing myself, and perhaps from insulting the young man, a few minutes later called out, "Hello, Frank!" to a tall man, one look disclosed to my scrutiny the negro in his features. I was not mistaken. It was Frank Woodring.

In view of the fact, that in some chapters of this story I dwell on the negro, and on account of the insistence of many of them who declare they are deprived of opportunities on account of their color, I take the privilege of putting down here a sketch of this Frank Woodring's life. And although these people deny a relation to the negro race, it was well known by the public in that part of the country, that they were mixed, for it had been told to me by every one who knew them, therefore the instance cannot be regarded altogether as an exception.

Shortly after coming to Pencer, he went to work for an Iowa man on a ranch near by, and later a prosperous squaw-man, who owned a bank, took him in, where in time he became book-keeper and all round handy man, later assistant cashier. The ranchman whom Woodring had worked for previous to entering the bank, bought the squaw-man out, made Woodring cashier, and sold to him a block of stock and took his note for the amount. In time Woodring proved a good banker and his efficient management of the institution, which had been a State bank with a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, had been incorporated into a National bank and the capital increased to fifty thousand dollars, and later on to one hundred thousand dollars. He dealt in buying and selling land as well as feeding cattle, on the side, and had prospered until he was soon well-to-do. Coincident with this prosperity he had been made president of not only that bank—whose footing was near a half-million dollars—but of some other three or four local banks in Nebraska, also a Megory county bank at Fairview—which is the county depository—and a large bank and trust company at the town of Megory, with a capital stock of sixty thousand dollars. Today Frank Woodring is one of the wealthiest men in northwest Nebraska.

The local ball team of their town was playing Megory that day, and a few hours later out at the ball park, I was shouting for the home team with all my breath, the batter struck a foul, and when I turned to look where the ball went, there, standing on the bench above me, between two white girls, and looking down at me with a look that betrayed his mind, was Len Woodring. Our eyes met for only the fraction of a minute but I read his thoughts. He looked away quickly, but I shall not soon forget that moment of racial recognition.

Everything grew so rank, thick and green.

And now when I found my affections in jeopardy regarding the love of the Scotch girl, I thought long and seriously over the matter, and pictured myself in the place of the Woodring family, successful, respected, and efficient business men, but still members of the down-trodden race. I pondered as to whether I could make the sacrifice. Maybe they were happy, the boys had never known or associated with the race they denied, and maybe were not so conscientious as myself, although the look of Len's had betrayed what was on his mind.

I had learned that throughout these Dakotas and Nebraska, that other lone colored men who had drifted from the haunts and homes of the race, as I had—maybe discontented, as I had been—and had with time and natural development, through the increase in the valuation of their homesteads or other lands they had acquired, grown prosperous and had finally, with hardly an exception, married into the white race. Even the daughter of the only colored farmer between the Little Crow and Omaha was only prevented from marrying a white man, at the altar, when it was found the law of the state forbids it.

I could diagnose their condition by my own. Life in a new country is always rough in the beginning. In the past it had taken ten and fifteen years for a newly opened country to develop into a state of cultivation and prosperity, that the Little Crow had in the four years.