ResearcherHighlights Black communities in Western Montana, 1870–1940

Sophia Natier, a doctoral student in anthropology at the University of Montana, told a For History Buffs audience in May that African American communities in Western Montana—particularly in Missoula and Hamilton—left a larger mark on local life between about 1870 and 1940 than the standard narrative has recorded.

Natier said new demographic analysis, archival records and oral histories show population shifts linked to the arrival of federal Buffalo Soldier units, the use of the 1862 and 1909 Homestead Acts by Black families, and later out-migration during the Jim Crow era. "When we change the narrative, the remembered are not the forgotten," Natier said at the conclusion of her talk.

Her presentation summarized statewide census figures she cited: the Black population in Montana rose from about 0.9% in 1870 to 1.1% by 1890 (roughly 83 to 1,490 people in the presenter’s slides), then declined to 0.8% in 1900 and to about 0.2% by 1920 as communities relocated to larger cities. Natier attributed the early growth in part to the stationing and retirement of Buffalo Soldier units—the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalries—at posts that included Fort Missoula, Fort Harrison (Helena), Fort Keogh (Miles City) and Fort Shaw (Great Falls).

Natier described how Fort Missoula’s garrison helped form enduring local institutions: veterans and their families settled on Missoula’s North Side, helped found congregations and civic clubs,…