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His name was Joseph Lewis.

Unless it was Joseph Lewes.

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Or Levy Johnston.

Whatever his name, he has a heck of a story as the first known African-American to arrive in Edmonton more than 200 years ago.

When you think of the earliest days of Edmonton House or Fort Edmonton, you probably don’t think about black fur traders. But they were here — even if they’ve been literally whitewashed out of our popular history.

Bertrand Bickersteth is a poet, a professor of communications at Olds College and the editor of a forthcoming anthology of black Alberta writers to be published by the University of Alberta Press.

“Usually, when I tell people about this, they say, ‘Wow, I had no idea,’ ” he said. “It just seems natural to exclude the black experience from this prairie space. But history says otherwise. Because they were here.”

Photo by Bloom, David / Postmedia

Lewis — the name he used most often — was born in Manchester, N.H., in 1772, just as the American Revolution was beginning.