“Then I breathed freely:” Black Women Vote in Wyoming, 1870

On the morning of September 6, 1870, Wyoming women prepared themselves for a momentous day. This would be the first election since the Territorial Legislature had passed the world’s first woman suffrage bill–the first time Wyoming’s women had the opportunity to exercise their rights. 

Among those who voted that day were women from Wyoming’s Black communities. They were the first Black women in U.S. history to vote. 

The First Black Women to Vote

Wyoming’s suffrage law was signed on December 10, 1869. Wyoming was the first territory to recognize full woman suffrage, followed by Utah in February 1870. Women in Utah voted first, however. Elections were held in Utah in February and again in August of 1870. As far as is known, no Black women voted in those Utah elections.

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Historian Benjamin Quarles noted that Black women voted in some regions of South Carolina in 1870. South Carolina had not passed a woman suffrage bill, but many suffragists, both white and Black, argued that the recently enacted Fourteenth Amendment granted women voting rights. South Carolina’s Black women voters likely took this view when they voted. The Supreme Court later ruled that the Amendment did not guarantee voting rights to women. 

But since the South Carolina elections of that year were held in October and November, it seems that the Black women who voted in Wyoming on September 6, 1870 were likely the first in the nation to do so.  

Race and Wyoming’s Suffrage Bill

The idea of Black women voting generated controversy, both in Wyoming and across the country. Indeed, one common argument against woman suffrage was that it would enfranchise women of color as well as white women. During the debate around women’s rights in the 1869 Wyoming territorial legislative session, Representative Benjamin Sheeks tried to derail the suffrage bill by proposing an amendment to enfranchise “all colored women and squaws.”

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Sheeks apparently believed that the mere thought of women of color voting would be sufficient to kill the bill. But he was mistaken. His amendment was rejected, and a bill that unambiguously enfranchised all women citizens, regardless of race, passed the legislature on December 4. It was signed a few days later by Governor John Campbell. 

It is important to note that while this law did enfranchise Black women, it did not enfranchise Wyoming’s Indigenous women. For the most part, Indigenous women were not considered American citizens until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

Black Women in the First Election

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Despite the racism of men like Sheeks, many people in the territory supported Black women’s right to vote and worked to protect it. Two accounts from territorial officials who were present show this commitment. The first comes from the territorial secretary, Edward Lee. A longtime supporter of woman and Black suffrage, Lee noted that in the 1870 election, “All classes voted, without distinction of race or social status.” He described the scene that first election day thus: 

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. 

Many people opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, which promised equal protection and due process of the law to all American citizens, regardless of race, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which protected the voting rights of Black men. This opposition sometimes turned to violence. In Wyoming’s first election, held in 1869, Kingman described the racist violence that took place on election day: 

At South Pass City, some drunken fellows with large knives and loaded revolvers swaggered around the polls, and swore that no negro should vote. One man remarked quietly that he thought the negroes had as good a right to vote as any of them had. He was immediately knocked down, jumped on, kicked and pounded without mercy, and would have been killed, had not his friends rushed into the brutal crowed and dragged him out, bloody and insensible . . . There were quite a number of colored men who wanted to vote but did not dare approach the polls until the United States Marshal placed himself at their head and with revolver in hand escorted them through the crowd, saying he would shoot the first man that interfered with them. There was much quarreling and tumult, but the negroes voted.

As Kingman noted, in 1869, it had been necessary for federal officials to intervene to protect the voting rights of Black men. So, in 1870, when it was time for Black women to vote, officials proactively provided protection to ensure that the women would be able to exercise their rights. 

Who were the Black women of 1870?

In the wake of the Civil War and Emancipation, thousands of Black Americans headed west looking for a fresh start and new opportunities. “The West,” historian Tricia Martineau Wagner notes, “offered economic independence and professional opportunities for upwardly mobile Black women.” Black women like Biddy Mason, a famed midwife and landowner in Los Angeles, Mary Ellen Pleasant, a self-made millionaire in San Francisco, and Clara Brown, a philanthropist in Colorado, were integral to the growth of their communities. Like other Americans and immigrants from around the world, Black women came West to support their families, find new opportunities, and live their lives according to their own standards. 

Unfortunately, no primary sources from the Black women who voted in 1870 have yet been found. We do not have voter records from this election, so it is impossible to know for certain which Black women voted that year. Even the Lee and Kingman accounts, which confirm the existence of Black voters, do not clarify which towns they are referring to. However, the 1870 census gives us some clues about who these women might have been. 

In total, 30 Black or “mulatto” women above the age of 21 were living in Wyoming Territory at the time of the 1870 census, which was taken in June of 1870. “Mulatto” was a term officially employed by the Census Bureau; today we would use a term such as “mixed race.” In the nineteenth century, a mulatto person was considered a person of color and was subject to race-based laws, which is why the category was included in the census. 

In addition, three Black or mixed-race women were aged 20 during June when the census was taken; some or all of these women may have turned 21 by September. Thus, it is possible that as many as 33 Black women or mixed-race women voted that fall. In addition to these adults, 11 teens and girls were living in the territory. 

Of the women above age 21, 23 were born in states in which slavery was legal before the Civil War; most of these women were probably born into slavery. In addition, six women were born in Pennsylvania and one in Indiana; slavery was banned in both states. These women were probably born free, though they may have had family members who had been enslaved. 

Despite having been born at a time when it was challenging (and in much of the South, illegal) for a Black person to obtain an education, most of Wyoming’s Black women were literate. Only 10 women reported being unable to read and write. They also valued education for their children. Ten women lived with children, and all of the children of appropriate age were attending school. Access to education for their children was no doubt a top priority for these families and may even have been part of their motivation for leaving the South, where opportunities were so often limited.  

Most of Wyoming’s Black women arrived as part of family units and lived with their families, which included spouses, children and elders. However, about 25% of the women lived with their employers, and about 17% lived independently.

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Most of the women sought paid employment, while others stayed home to care for their families. Of the adult women in the community, about 25% stayed home to “keep house” for their families. The rest worked outside of the home, mostly as housekeepers, domestic servants, and laundresses. 

Several of Wyoming’s Black families in the 1870 census owned property and operated successful businesses. Two women, Anna Ares of Cheyenne and Susan Waters of South Pass City, owned property in their own right. Other women were members of families that owned substantial assets. Among these was Hannah Graham of Laramie, whose husband Jeremiah later became a well-known and somewhat notorious saloonkeeper. In Fort Halleck, Amanda Foote was married to Robert Foote, a Scottish immigrant who was the wealthiest man in the Fort. The Footes operated a number of businesses together.

In Cheyenne, 12-year-old Sarah Ford lived with her family, hotelier Barney Ford, his Irish-born wife, Julia, and her brother, Lewis. Barney Ford was born into slavery in Virgina in 1822 but escaped to Chicago via the Underground Railroad. Over the course of an eventful life, Ford established a number of businesses, including the Inter-Ocean Hotel in Cheyenne. The examples of the Foote and Ford families demonstrate that despite the fact that Wyoming’s Territorial legislature had passed a law in 1869 prohibiting interracial marriage, some families in Wyoming paid little heed to this law. 

Voters in Cheyenne

In Cheyenne, which had the largest Black population in the territory, 16 Black women were eligible to vote as of June 1870. In addition, three Black women worked at nearby Fort D.A. Russell; these women worked and lived in the homes of army officers.

Black Women Living In Laramie County, 1870
Location	Name	Age as of June, 1870
Cheyenne	Ellen White	14
Cheyenne	Josephine Smith	9
Cheyenne	Celia Goodrich	24
Cheyenne	Anna Ares	28
Cheyenne	Susan Meahoney	24
Cheyenne	Mary Winters	33
Cheyenne	Gracie West	37
Cheyenne	Nancy Seals	41
Cheyenne	Alice Seals	19
Cheyenne	Eutta Seals	17
Cheyenne	Arena Aires	22
Cheyenne	Sarah Ford	12
Cheyenne	Frances Jones	18
Cheyenne	Grace Thomas	49
Cheyenne	Elizabeth Jackson	26
Cheyenne	Elisa Basey	40
Cheyenne	Mary Forner	19
Cheyenne	Nettie Graves	17
Cheyenne	Mary Bossette	29
Cheyenne	Celia Goodridge	21
Cheyenne	Jane Smith	28
Cheyenne	Lucy Phillips	48
Cheyenne	Susan Miller	26
Cheyenne	Susan Urgan	27
Ft. DA Russell	Millie Jordan	20
Ft. DA Russell	Eliza Sonyeter	30
Ft. DA Russell	Ann Pulman	20

One Cheyenne woman who may have voted is Lucy Phillips, who in 1870 was listed as working as a laundress. Phillips was one of the earliest settlers of the territory, having arrived on the first train to come in to Cheyenne in 1867. She had been born into slavery in Woodford County, Kentucky, where she married Legrand Philips in 1842. Since marriages between slaves were often not recognized as legal, the couple remarried in 1868, after slavery was abolished. She became a pillar of the community in Cheyenne, and in 1878, helped to establish the Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopalian Church, the first Black Church in Wyoming.  

We do not know for certain that Phillips voted in 1870, but in later years she demonstrated that she was unafraid to exercise the power of the franchise. In 1885, a white resident of Granite Canyon, a railroad stop west of Cheyenne, petitioned the school board, requesting that white and Black children be segregated and a separate school for “colored” children be built. Philips and other Black women wrote to the Cheyenne Sun, “taking very decided exception” to this proposal. 

Philips and her colleagues demanded to know who the petitioners supporting segregation were, stating that their community would “take good care that to see that if any of the signers, if they ever want office, the vote of the colored people will be [their] political death-warrant.” The Sun recommended that the segregation proposal be tossed in the waste-basket, which it was. When Philips died in 1910 at the age of 106, her obituary was printed in newspapers across the state.

Voters in Laramie and Fort Sanders

In Laramie and nearby Fort Sanders, six women were 21 or older at the time of the census. Laramie’s Louisa Swain is credited with being the first Wyoming woman to vote in the 1870 election; we do not know which of Laramie’s Black women may have joined her at the polls. 

Black Women Living Laramie and Fort Sanders, 1870
Location	Name	Age as of June 1870
Fort Sanders	Martha Taylor	18
Fort Sanders Vicinity	Laura Robinson	24
Laramie	Ann Lee	50
Laramie	Hannah Graham	38
Laramie	Matilda Clayton	24
Laramie	Susan Fisher	20
Laramie	Hariet Turner	22
Laramie	Mary Jackson	38
Laramie	Cecilia Jackson	17

Voters in South Pass

In South Pass, white suffragist Esther Morris was serving as the first woman justice of the peace in U.S. history, having been appointed to the office in February of 1870. Her son Robert Morris reported that eight women voted in South Pass in the first election. Morris did not comment on who the women were, but four Black women of voting age lived in South Pass at the time. Given that we know Black men had voted in 1869 in the community, it is possible that Black women voted there in 1870. 

Black Women Living in South Pass City, 1870
Name	Age in June, 1870
Sarah Terrell	34
Nancy Phillips	34
Elizabeth Neels	25
Margaret Neels	6
Susan C. Waters	34

 

Nancy Phillips, who lived in South Pass with her husband Wilson, may have been among the South Pass voters. Mrs. Phillips was born in Baltimore in the 1830s, probably into slavery. The Phillipses came to Wyoming after the Civil War. They settled first in South Pass, moved later to Bryan and then, in 1872, to Green River. There Nancy Phillips worked as a midwife and seamstress. As some of the earliest settlers in the town, the Phillips family was well known in the community. When she died in 1904, the Wyoming Star reported that many “looked upon her advice as they would that of their family physician.”

Voters in Other Wyoming Communities

Black women also lived, and potentially voted, in the smaller communities in the state. Robert Morris reported that “a number” of women in voted in the small mining community of Atlantic City near South Pass. Only 12 women lived in this town, including the sole Black woman, Eliza Harris. Born in Pennsylvania, Harris was 35 and listed as a “housekeeper.” We do not know for certain whether or not she voted, but she surely must have possessed a spirit of adventure to have landed independently in this remote mining community. 

Like Eliza Harris, Mrs. Willis (her first name is illegible in the census) was the only Black woman living in Bryan, an end-of-tracks town west of Green River that would later become a ghost town. Willis, who was born in Virginia, lived with her husband, William H. Willis, a barber born in Washington D.C. No records exist to show whether or not the Willises voted. 

Another possible voter was Amanda Foote, of Fort Halleck. Foote, whose maiden name was Norris, was born in Missouri. Her father owned a large plantation. Her mixed race status in the census suggests that her mother was Black – whether enslaved or free, we do not know. As a child, she was not allowed to attend school, but nevertheless she somehow learned to read and write. 

She struck out West with a party of immigrants during the Civil War, probably to escape the chaos in Missouri during the conflict. The journey was difficult, but as historian Cora Beach noted, “Her nerve was steeled until she was perfectly able to face all circumstances.”  She settled in Fort Halleck in 1862, taking up domestic work. But there was no escaping the violence of the era. In 1863, a Black man was lynched at Fort Halleck.  At the Fort, she met and married an immigrant from Scotland, Robert Foote. Together, the couple  operated several businesses, including a saloon, a mercantile, a freighting outfit and the local post office. We do not know if Mrs. Foote voted in 1870 or not, but given her strong character and numerous business interests, it seems likely she would have. 

The Legacy of 1870 

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Though the historical record on Wyoming’s early Black women voters is unclear, what we can say for certain is that they showed tremendous courage. The women who stepped into those carriages, who accepted the U.S. Deputy Marshal’s offer to escort them to the polls, knew that they faced the possibility of ridicule, racism, and violence. Nevertheless, with dignity and with bravery, they stepped forward, taking up their unalienable rights in the belief that they were created equal.  

Throughout the territorial period, Black women continued to exercise their franchise, using the power of the vote to build communities and lives for their families. Nevertheless, they still faced racial discrimination. Though Wyoming did not develop the extensive anti-Black institutionalized segregation common in the Southern states, Black people in Wyoming still faced negative stereotyping, discriminatory laws, and sometimes violence, including lynching. 

Black women in Wyoming, as they have throughout American history, responded to discrimination with resilience and determination. Though we cannot be sure of their names, we can and should honor their courage and contributions to the history of Wyoming and our democracy. 

Bibliography

Primary Sources

• Cheyenne State Leader, Volume 47, Number 184, May 6, 1910, 2.  Accessed January 6, 2023.  https://wyomingnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=WYCST19100506-01&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0------
• Cheyenne Sun, Vol. 10 No. 21, March 31, 1885, 3.  Accessed January 5, 2023.  https://wyomingnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=WYCDS18850331-01.1.3&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0------
• Kingman, John. “Woman Suffrage in Wyoming.” The Woman’s Journal. January 29, 1876. 36-37.  Accessed December 10, 2022.  https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:48859470$42i
• Lee, Edward. “The Woman Movement in Wyoming,: Galaxy, Volume 13, Issue 6, June 1872. 758
• Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Susan Brownell Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, 1876-1885, Volume 3, (Susan B. Anthony, Rochester NY), 729
• U.S. Census Bureau. 1870 Census of the Territory of Wyoming. Accessed via ancestry.com.  https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1870
• Wyoming Tribune (Cheyenne), Volume 16, Number 96, April 22, 1910, 5. Accessed January 6, 2023.  https://wyomingnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=WYWTB19100422-01.1.5&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0------
• The Wyoming Star, Volume 14, Number 24, February 19, 1904, 1.  Accessed December 12, 2024 https://wyomingnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=WYWYS19040219-01.1.1&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0------
• Wyoming Newspapers accessed using the Wyoming Digital Newspaper Project, wyomingnewspapers.org between January 5, 2023 and February 11, 2025.
• Secondary Sources
• Alliance for Historic Wyoming. “Allen Chapel, Cheyenne.” August 31, 2016. https://historicwyoming.org/profiles/allen-chapel/
• Arata, Laura J. Race and the Wild West: Sarah Bickford, the Montana Vigilantes, and the Tourism of Decline, 1870-1930. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2020.
• Beach, Cora. Women of Wyoming.Vol.2 Casper: S.E. Boyer & Company.
• Blasi, Brigida R. “By All Who Knew Them: The Collins Family and the Making of a Black Community in Wyoming Coal Camps” Annals of Wyoming 94 no. 1 (Winter 2022) 10-41.
• Carroll, Murray L. “Robert Foote: A Forgotten Wyoming Pioneer.” Annals of Wyoming 74 no. 1 (Winter 2002) 9-23.
• Colorado Encyclopedia, “Barney Ford.”  Accessed January 25, 2025.   https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/barney-ford
• Garceau-Hagen, Dee, ed. Portraits of Women in the American West. New York: Routledge, 2005.
• Guenther, Todd. “’The List of Good Negroes,’: African American Lynchings in the Equality State.” Annals of Wyoming 81 no. 2 (Spring 2009) 2-33.
• Helton, Jennifer. “So Great an Innovation: Woman Suffrage in Wyoming.” In Equality at the Ballot Box, edited by Lori Ann Lahlum and Molly P. Rozum, 33-70. Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2019.
• History Colorado, “Barney Ford: African American Pioneer,” February 8, 2017. Accessed January 25, 2025.  https://www.historycolorado.org/story/collections-library/2017/02/08/barney-ford-african-american-pioneer
• Jones, Martha. Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. New York: Basic Books, 2020.
• Kaufman, Reagan Joy. “Discrimination in the ‘Equality State:’ Black-White Relations in Wyoming History. Annals of Wyoming 77 no. 1 (Winter 2005) 13-27.
• Quarles, Benjamin. “Frederick Douglass and the Woman's Rights Movement.” The Journal of Negro History 25 no. 1 (1940) 35-44.
• Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
• Viner, Kim. “Carrie Burton Overton.” Annals of Wyoming 89 no. 4 (Autumn 2017) 2-15.
• Wagner, Tricia Martineau. African American Women of the Old West. Guilford, Connecticut: TwoDot Press, 2007.
• Williams, Christine Althea and Brigida R. Blasi. Sweetwater Women. Sweetwater County Historical Museum Foundation. 2019.

Illustrations

• Credit info here, with hyperlinks to sources when possible
• Nancy Phillips Photo:  Wyoming State Archives (can’t get link because Luna is down)
• Lucy Phillips Photo:  Wyoming Semi-Weekly Tribune, Volume 14, Number 34, April 27, 1909, p. 4.  Accessed Februrary 14, 2025.  https://wyomingnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=WYWWJ19090427-01&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0------
• Colored Women in Federation:  July 6, 1904 Salt Lake Tribune. Accessed February 14, 2025.   https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=13663618