By Athanasius U.P. Ohaya, M.A

Once in a while there emerges a personality who challenges all odds and proves that what matters is one’s character, not skin color. Clara Brown remains one of the few great women recognized for challenging and changing history that was based on old, ignorant beliefs.
Born into slavery in Virginia in 1803, Brown faced challenge after challenge, brought about by the wrought of human imperfection and bigotry. Her original owner sold her and her mother to another slave owner when she was only 3 years of age.
Brown was married at 18 and had three children. When she was 35, her owner died and his estate was sold at auction. Her husband, two daughters and son were sold to different slave owners, and her entire family was separated. Following this transaction, Brown’s new owner moved her to Kentucky.
She served her owner in Kentucky for 20 years before he passed away. Then, she gained her freedom when her late master’s three daughters helped purchase her liberty, with Brown contributing $100 in savings to help pay for her release from bondage.
As a free woman, Brown moved west to St. Louis, Mo. because Kentucky law required all liberated slaves to leave the state or face re-enslavement.
Though seemingly destined for greater things to come, at 45, she became a cook. After overhearing a discussion about the gold rush in Colorado, she offered to cook for the mountain men she encountered, only if they could transport her to Colorado. The men agreed to take her and her laundry equipment in exchange for cooking and washing for them.  Story has it that she made the 6,800-mile trip in the back seat of a covered wagon in a caravan of 30.
Brown served and assisted the sick during the eight days of the trip. She proved brave during encounters and battles with Native Americans, and when epidemics and other dangers hit the trail, she responded by rendering her clinical and nursing skills.
As if she had looked into the future and saw the greatness awaiting her, Brown set goals for herself before she landed in Denver. She made two great resolutions: to gain independence and prosperity, and to use the resulting savings to locate relatives separated from her by the injustice of slavery.
She arrived in Denver in 1859, when the area was still called Cherry Creek. Stories have it that while others were digging for gold or spending lavishly in saloons, “She was busy trying to bring law and order to the frontier. During that time she helped to start the Union Sunday School that had been opened by two white Methodist ministers. The Sunday school building gave solace to the settlers and their children who wanted spiritual comfort.”
Brown left Denver to seek employment in Central City, where she set up her stove, tubs and wash boilers and established a laundromat in the mining camp. Her charge for washing peoples’ red flannel shirts and clothing was considered exorbitant at 50 cents, but the miners were glad to have a laundry and they paid the price anyway. They considered her laundry only one of many contributions she made to their welfare; therefore, there was no obvious resentment and her business prospered.
More than a cook and laundry owner, Brown was a nurse and used her skills to help the community when illnesses struck. Known for her compassionate, “as her resources expanded, she turned her home into a refuge for many pouring into the camp. It served as a hospital, church, and hotel as well. Those who could afford nothing were not turned away. Under her direction, the camp’s first Sunday school began operating. Far and wide, fifty-niners talked of ‘Aunt’ Clara and her many helping ways.”
She exemplified selflessness towards everyone, and “rarely did she mention her own problems, her melancholy background, for she felt rescued from a terrible fate and thrust into a joyous new one.”
As an astute businesswoman, Brown did not take long to realize her first objective of being prosperous. She had accumulated a wealth of $10,000 as of 1866; some of which was invested in Colorado property. At a time when most African Americans were languishing in a dire state of poverty, she succeeded as a woman accumulating a unique fortune.
Her unselfish motives and actions created an enduring legacy, because “She had come to Colorado not of instant wealth, but for a happy life. In time she accomplished what she wanted for herself and for others she considered less fortunate than herself.”
“Clara Brown…helped people of all races, but she worked especially hard to bring Black people out of poverty and enslavement.”
Brown opened doors for both men and women of African-American background to come to the western frontier. When she set out to find her relatives in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War, she returned to Colorado with 34 of them, but could not locate her husband and her children.
Many years passed, as Brown continued to help many other Blacks migrate and settle in the west. She was not able to find her husband, son or either daughter, but luckily, four years before her death, her neighbor located her daughter named Eliza. Brown lived in Denver until her death at the age of 82, and the Colorado Pioneers Association, of which she was a member, buried her with honors.
By all indications, based on her accomplishments and success as a businesswoman of color, despite racial discrimination and segregation, Brown was said to have left more than legend and warm feelings in the hearts of those who knew her.  To honor her, many promised to pass her memory on to future generations.
They did this by raising a plaque in the St. James Methodist Church in Central City, telling how her house was the church’s first home. In addition, an Opera House was named in her honor.
Brown’s legendary accomplishments challenge everyone, perhaps especially those people of color who still live in self-pity and only complain about the “horrible and discriminatory American social system,” without caring to do something to change it. The question for every African American who wants a change in America is: “If Brown was able to overcome the racial barriers and prejudice against women during the period she lived, why couldn’t I do better during this modern time?”
Brown’s life remains a lesson in success and hope. As such, she has been nicknamed “The Angel of the Rockies.”

References:
Baker, Roger, Clara: an ex-slave in gold rush Colorado. Black Hawk Publishing, Central City, Colo.
Ravage, John W., BLACK PIONEERS: Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier, The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Katz, William Loren, Black Women of the West, Atheneum Books For Young Readers.
Unseld, Theresa S., Portfolios: African Americans of the Old West, Dale Seymour Publications.
Katz, Williams Loren, The Black West: A Documentary and Pictorial History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States, A Touchtone Books, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore.
Yount, Lisa, Frontier of Freedom: African Americans in the West, Library of African-American History, Facts on File, Inc.

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