Speaker: Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer
John Ware was among Alberta’s first non-white settlers and a well known name in the province today. The Black cowboy, born sometime between 1845 and 1850 in the southern United States, followed fortune and cattle herds north from Texas to Canada in 1882. He remained on the Alberta Prairies, eventually establishing his own ranch near Millarville where he and his family resided ca. 1888-1902. In 2025, a team from UCalgary conducted a four-week excavation of the site, which uncovered a well-dated layer of belongings associated with the Ware’s and intact structural remains of their home. This talk will examine how these belongings help us piece together the everyday life of the Ware family, which is not well-understood from historic record, including their place in Alberta’s ranching community and how Mildred Ware, an individual less well known than her husband John, may have adapted to life on the prairies. Finally, we discuss how continued archaeological excavation at the Ware homestead can help counter narratives that there was no historical Black presence on the prairies.