Advert from the Glasgow Evening News, 1st February 1892

Mexican Joe, otherwise 'Colonel' Joe Shelley, was a rival of Buffalo Bill's whose publicity materials generally sought to create the impression that his Wild West show was actually better than Cody's. Whether anyone who had enjoyed the opportunity to draw a comparison ever agreed with this optimistic assessment is not known. Objective accounts of Mexican Joe's outfit routinely stress the fact that it was on a considerably smaller scale than Buffalo Bill's.

Black Elk was one of a party of six Lakota Indian men 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 hoped to raise the money for their fares home. There they found salvation in the improbable form of Mexican Joe, 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 he first brought his show to Great Britain in August 1887, hot on the heels of Buffalo Bill, and was one of the leading attractions at the Liverpool Exhibition of that year. He continued to tour on a more or less continuous basis for the next seven years, and undertook tours of the European continent during the summers of 1888 and 1889.

Mexican Joe actually made it to Scotland before Buffalo Bill, with a season in Edinburgh during the spring of 1889. He is also known to have made an appearance at the time of the annual Fair holidays in Paisley during the summer of 1891. Unlike Buffalo Bill, Mexican Joe made it to Ireland, appearing in both Belfast and Dublin in the autumn and winter of 1892 - 1893. He had also undertaken a season on the Isle of Man during the summer of 1892. Somewhat oddly however, I have thus far been unable to identify any Welsh venues.

I am unaware of any record of Mexican Joe's show ever having appeared in any part of the Americas. There appears to be no serious suggestion that he was actually Mexican; according to census information, he was a native of Georgia, in the USA. It has even been claimed that he was really an Englishman named Marsh.

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. This was just one of a number of occasions on which Jefferson was brought before the courts on charges involving petty assault. On each occasion, the motive for his violent outbursts remained unclear.

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 and irrefutable 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, and apparently also in 1893 as well. 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

Review of Mexican Joe's opening night in Edinburgh, taken from the Edinburgh Evening News, Tuesday, 21st of May 1889

Interview with Mexican Joe, taken from the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch, Tuesday, 4th of June 1889