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Who:
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John Ware
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What:
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The first Black Canadian Cowboy.
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Where:
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Calgary, Alberta
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When:
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1845- 1905
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Why:
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A legend, had a great impact on Canadian ranching industry.
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John Ware was born on a South Carolina cotton plantation in 1845. By eight years of age, he
was picking cotton along with the adult slaves. Even during these horrific times, his immense
strength and personality shone through. The slave owners, for their amusement, would have
slaves partake in fighting bouts with each other to win a meager prize (although not meager
to the slaves), such as a pair of shoes. Ware, always the gracious gentleman, lost a fight
intentionally to let a fellow slave take the prize.
At the end of the American Civil War John was a free man. He moved to Texas, came across a
farmhouse, and asked if work could be done in exchange for food. Impressed by John’s great
strength and even greater personality, he was invited to work for the family for many years.
Here is where John’s love for horses began. Horses became John’s claim to fame; he had
an amazing ability to break in horses. It was said there was not an unruly horse that he
could not tame.
John wanted to travel, and joined cowboys on their journeys herding cows across the U.S. and
to Canada. He encountered racism along the way, but quickly altered peoples’ perspectives about
him and Black men. John also made numerous friends.
When John stopped in Calgary, however, he encountered the most racism of his journeys. It
bothered him so much, he decided not to stay. He moved on, collecting money and respect along
the way. He saved all his spare money in the hopes of owning his own farm one day. This dream
would come true.
Eventually, John felt the felt the urge to go back to Calgary, refusing to be beaten by the
racist views of some of its residents. After he took residence in his very own log house, he
met a loving family and immediately was taken with their daughter, Mildred Lewis. The feeling
was mutual, and the two were married shortly after by the minister of Calgary’s New Baptist
church.
In addition to tending his own cattle, John gained employment with the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police because of his mesmerizing ability to tame horses. Even if a horse seemed impossible to
tame, John would hold on with his tremendous strength while the horse bucked and tried in vain
to throw him off. Even as he grew older, there still was not a horse that could throw him.
With the Canadian ranchland in an unsettled state, John moved again, this time with his wife
and children. The journey to their new home was not without its troubles, including an
encounter with the Calgary Police and their cabin being swept away by the flooding of Red
Deer River. They eventually built a new home beside a small stream, later called Ware’s
Creek.
However, things took a turn for the worse. A bad storm took place in the spring of 1903,
and many of John’s cattle died in the storm. John’s wife Mildred fell ill after their last
baby was born, and early in 1905 she died of pneumonia. That September John and his son Bob
were riding together when John’s horse stepped in a badger hole and fell, with John
underneath. He was killed instantly.
The Immortality of John Ware
Thirty-five years after John Ware’s death, during Calgary’s stampede week, a dozen men
gathered together to create a society to preserve the traditions of the Old West. The name
they decided upon was “The John Ware Society”. Unfortunately, the organization didn’t last
long, but John Ware’s name did. This name symbolizes the spirit of the old range, where courage,
friendliness and honesty are the real weight of a man. John Ware prospered in spite of
prejudices and hardships, and was a truly inspiring man. His name lives on with the John
Ware Junior High School in Calgary, Alberta.
Reference:
MacEwan, Grant. John Ware’s Cow Country. Western Producer Prairie Books: Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, 1973. 1-185.
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