The Forged Note: A Romance of the Darker Races

It is sometimes asked what inspires people to begin to write. Many reasons may be given, but in this particular instance, a brief statement of the author's experiences might be of interest.

At the age of twenty-one he was a homesteader on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota, where he was about the only Negro settler. At twenty-six he was prosperous; and when another strip of the famous reservation was thrown open to settlement, he helped some of his relatives to secure land by furnishing money with which to purchase relinquishments on homesteads and other expenses. He also secured for a young lady another homestead, upon which she made filings. Six months later they were married and then went to live on her homestead.

She was the daughter of a minister in one of the leading Negro churches and was well educated, loved her husband devotedly—to all appearances—and they were happy.

Her father and husband represented beings with different points of view, and on this account an enmity grew up between them. The husband had often publicly criticised some of the leaders in his race as not being sincere, particularly many of the preachers. A year after the marriage, the preacher paid his second visit and when the husband was away, to indicate his dislike for the pioneer, he had his daughter, who was sick in bed, forge her husband's name to a check for a large sum, secured the money and took his daughter to his home in Chicago.

The homestead had been contested previous to this, and the minister had denounced the white man (a banker), who filed the contest, scathingly for trying to beat his daughter out of her homestead. Left alone after her departure, with only his ninety-year-old grandmother, who had raised a family in the days of slavery, for company, Mr. Micheaux wrote his first book. In the meantime, the case dragged through all the land courts at Washington, being finally settled by Secretary of the Interior Lane in her favor. About this time, the book appeared, and was called "THE CONQUEST".

In this was told anonymously the story of a base intrigue on the part of the preacher to vent his spite. The white banker, whose bank in the meantime had failed, read the book, and understood.... He went to Chicago and sent the preacher money to Cairo to come to Chicago, which the preacher did. Although unsuccessful in his effort before the government to beat Mr. Micheaux's wife out of her homestead, which had cost Mr. Micheaux thirty-five hundred dollars and which at that time was worth six thousand dollars, the banker succeeded in having the preacher persuade his daughter to sell him the homestead, giving her in consideration, only three hundred dollars.[A]

[A] Note—Until a homestead is commuted—proved up on—it may be relinquished by the holder without any person's or persons' consent. The woman, therefore, in this case could sell the homestead without her husband's consent.