The first African American woman, a U.S. soldier, served disguised as a man in 1866.

Cathay Williams was an American soldier. An African-American woman, she enlisted in the United States Army under the pseudonym William Cathay. Williams became the first female to enlist and the only documented woman to serve in the U.S. Army while posing as a man during the Indian Wars. 

Cathay was not unfamiliar with military life. She was a slave in Jefferson City, Mo., until the Union Army liberated her, at which point she traveled with the troops, working as a cook and laundress. But when the Civil War ended, so did Williams’ job. Needing work, she enlisted in the Army as a man, William Cathay.

Cathay Williams defied her time to become the only known female Buffalo Soldier (Buffalo soldiers were African American soldiers who mainly served on the Western frontier following the American Civil War.)

Cathay was born in September 1844 to a free father and a slave mother.

Linked to April Blogging from A to Z Challenge

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