Year :  2014

Medium : Oil On Canvas

Dimensions : 21 x 33 in  ( 53.34  x 83.82 cm.)

Availability : Private Collection (limited edition reproductions available)

This painting is part of a collection of   works entitled “The Uncolored Series” Paintings about color without color. Each painting deals with a unique  issue in the stages of  African American life and culture.

A female buffalo soldier ( taking the bull by the horns)

To take the bull by the horns

Meaning : To do something difficult in a determined and confident way

Etymology: based on the idea that holding a bull (male cow) by its horns is a brave and direct action

The Perspective:

A Woman having to pose as a man to fight for a country she has accepted as her home, despite the circumstance of how it became her home. The possibility of  becoming a mother or nurturing a lost child as one . The on going conflict with the Indians ,the other minority, and then there is of course racism.

 Keypoints : 

A child possibly not hers, a horse probably not hers and two Indians and a kkk member on the horizon .(They kkk was founded in 1865)

 

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the government was fighting the Indians in the west. It withdrew most of its men and resources from the Indian wars, to concentrate on ending the rebellion. At the end of the Civil War, 186,000 black soldiers had participated in the war, with 38,000 killed in action. Southerners and eastern populations did not want to see armed Negro soldiers near or in their communities. They were also afraid of the labor market being flooded with a new source of labor. General employment opportunities in these communities was not available to blacks, so many African-Americans took a long hard look at military service which offered shelter, education, steady pay, medical attention and a pension. Some, such as Cathay Williams, the future female Buffalo Soldier, decided it was much better than frequent civilian unemployment. In a news paper article, she said “I wanted to make my own living and not be dependent of relations or friends.” Of course in some quarters, it was thought this is an good way of getting rid of two problems at the same time.

The army surgeon might have examined Cathay superficially, or not at all. The result was still historical. William Cathay, the new recruit, was declared “fit for duty”, thus giving assurance of her place in history as the only documented female Buffalo Soldier, and as the only documented African-American woman who served in the U.S. army prior to the 1948 law, which officially allowed women to join the army.

 The Buffalo Soldiers had the lowest desertion rate in the army, though their army posts were often in the worst country in the west. Official reports, show these soldiers were frequently subjected to the harshest of discipline, racist officers, poor food, equipment and shelter.