The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer by Oscar Micheaux

Memoir of an industrious Black homesteader

Oscar Micheaux is best known as a pioneering Black filmmaker. He produced, wrote, and directed at least 40 films—some silent, some talkies—from 1919 to 1948. Prior to embarking on his film career, however, Micheaux first expressed himself through literature, publishing three books in the decade of the 1910s. His first published volume, 1913’s The Conquest, is sometimes referred to as a novel, but it reads more like an autobiography of the first 30 years of Micheaux’s life. Micheaux published the book anonymously, and the narrator’s name has been changed to Oscar Devereaux, but the events depicted in the book closely parallel those of Micheaux’s life. The names of other persons in the book have been likewise slightly altered, and the names of towns and cities are sometimes changed or abbreviated (for example, M—pls equals Micheaux’s hometown of Metropolis, Illinois).

Micheaux/Devereaux was born on a farm in Illinois, where his parents eked out a poor living. His grandparents were slaves; his father illiterate. Oscar, however, believed that through hard work and education he could better himself. He refuses to accept that his race should disqualify him from success comparable to his White counterparts, and he sets his sights on being a landowning farmer. He works for a few years as a porter on Pullman railroad cars, bouncing all over the country and even through Mexico and as far as Argentina. Through his travels, he discovers an attractive land opportunity in South Dakota and files for a homestead claim. For a few years, Devereaux is the only Black farmer in this region of South Dakota. Through his hard work, he earns the respect of his neighbors and adds more parcels of land to his holdings.

Along with Micheaux’s ambition and success comes an arrogance that’s evident in his writing. He expresses contempt for many of his own race—rich and poor alike—for being, as he sees it, lazy, short-sighted, and frivolous. He declares himself a progressive in the mode of Booker T. Washington and considers the vast majority of Blacks to be reactionaries. Micheaux also seems to think he’s God’s gift to women. When he finally does settle down with a partner, he talks about the relationship as if it were a business deal and has some rather unfavorable things to say about his significant other. At one point in the book, Micheaux/Devereaux falls in love with a White woman of Scottish extraction. The relationship itself is not surprising, but the fact that he wrote about it so candidly, in 1913, is quite surprising. He discusses some instances of interracial marriage on the South Dakota prairie, but chooses not to go that route himself.

The Conquest may be a valuable document of the African American experience, but much of what Micheaux relates could apply to the experience of farmers and homesteaders of any race or ethnicity. If you’re expecting stories of racism or discrimination, there’s almost nothing of that here. Much of the book concerns the homesteading process and Westward expansion. Micheaux goes into great detail about land laws, the claims process, and financial dealings. He also chronicles at length how several small towns in South Dakota competed for a railroad line and economic dominance in the region. As a document of this era, this will likely prove a treasure trove of information for historians, but sometimes such real estate business can become boring to the general reader. In addition, a great deal of The Conquest is about Devereaux’s love life, through which we get realistic glimpses into different classes of Black Society, both rural and urban, during this time period. The conclusion of The Conquest makes you wonder if the only reason Micheaux wrote this book was to get the last word in a quarrel with his in-laws.

When Americans think about African American literature, we generally think about critically acclaimed modernist writers from the Harlem Renaissance or afterwards—Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright. Often forgotten, however, are the African American authors of the earlier realist, naturalist, and muckraking eras who documented Black life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though film may be Micheaux’s claim to fame, The Conquest proves he deserves to be mentioned alongside pioneering African American literary luminaries like Charles W. Chesnutt and Paul Laurence Dunbar.