Mexican Joe Shelley 

Advert from the Glasgow Evening News,
1st February 1892

Mexican Joe, otherwise ‘Colonel’ Joe Shelley, generally placed emphasis in his publicity materials upon the assertion that his Wild West show was actually better than Buffalo Bill’s. Whether anyone who had enjoyed the opportunity to draw a comparison ever agreed with this optimistic assessment is not known.

The name of Mexican Joe is most frequently encountered in connection with an often-repeated story, first recounted in the seminal autobiography, Black Elk Speaks.

Black Elk was one of a party of six Lakota Indians who unwisely allowed themselves to become detached from the rest of Buffalo Bill’s entourage just before it was scheduled to sail back to the States at the end of the 1887-88 season in England. As a consequence, they found themselves stranded in Manchester. They resolved their predicament by travelling to London, where they had heard that Mexican Joe had a rival Wild West show, and enlisted as performers.

Professor Paul Reddin, in relating this episode at p. 37 of The Wild West, refers to Mexican Joe’s outfit as ‘a show that left little other trace’, but, personally, I have to take that as a challenge.

While the compilation of a comprehensive list of Mexican Joe’s engagements is likely to remain an unattainable goal, it is known that his show first came to Great Britain in the summer of 1887, hot on the heels of Buffalo Bill. He continued to tour for several years more or less continuously thereafter, with at least one venture upon the European continent.

Mexican Joe actually arrived in Scotland before Buffalo Bill, with a season in Edinburgh during the spring of 1890. He is also known to have made an appearance at the time of the annual Fair holidays in Paisley during the summer of 1891.

Mexican Joe’s Wild West appeared in Glasgow at the same time as Buffalo Bill, fulfilling an engagement at the New Olympia, on the New City Road, Cowcaddens, from the 19th of December 1891 until the 27th of February 1892.

By this time, foreshadowing the general direction that would shortly be followed by Buffalo Bill, Mexican Joe’s show had ceased to be a Wild West pure and simple, and had now assumed a number of extraneous elements. (See advert, supra.)

On the 12th of January 1892, one of Mexican Joe's Indians, Charles Jefferson, otherwise known as Running Wolf, was convicted in Glasgow's Northern Police Court of having perpetrated an assault upon a shop girl in commercial premises on the New City Road, to the effusion of blood.
Fifteen days later, on the 27th, Running Wolf’s wife presented him with a daughter, whose birth was registered in Glasgow under the name of Hasonega Olympia Jefferson.

The child was promptly placed on public exhibition, and this fact was advertised in the local press. (See supra.)

Mexican Joe billed ‘Running Wolf’ and his family as Apaches, but clear evidence exists that this tribal identification was fraudulent.

Mexican Joe is known to have returned to Glasgow on at least one occasion, in the spring of 1892.

Montana Bill stated in his manuscript that Mexican Joe continued to tour until overtaken by commercial failure at Barnsley, Yorkshire, during March 1894. While the precise circumstances have yet to be established, there is clear supporting evidence that Mexican Joe did indeed go bust at or around this time.

Part of the line drawing
from the Quiz Supplement,
19th February 1892

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