The Black Seminole Indian Scouts

A detachment of Black Seminole Indian Scouts, about 1885. Public domain.

A group of Black Seminole scouts from Mexico helped the Buffalo Soldiers track other American Indian groups during the Plains Wars, using their deep knowledge of the land. Four won the Medal of Honor. Who were they, and how did they become part of the Army on the frontier?

From Florida to Indian Territory

• Escape: before the Civil War, enslaved people in Georgia and South Carolina freed themselves by fleeing to Spanish Florida, where the Spanish refused to return them.
• Welcome: in Florida's interior they met the Seminole people, who took them in. They lived in their own towns, fought beside the Seminoles as equals, adopted some Seminole ways and sometimes intermarried.
• Removal: during Indian Removal, many Seminoles — Black Seminoles among them — were forced west to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). They suffered starvation and disenfranchisement like other Native peoples, and were at constant risk of kidnapping and re-enslavement.

To Mexico

In 1850, a group led by John Horse and Coacoochee ("Wild Cat") left for Mexico, to live without fear of slavery. Mexico welcomed them and their help against Apache and Comanche raids, bandits, and slave raiders trying to seize Mexican land for a pro-slavery state.

Back to the United States

After 20 years, the Black Seminoles wanted to return and reclaim land promised in their removal treaties. Major Zenas R. Bliss of the Twenty-fifth Infantry encouraged them and offered work as scouts.

• July 4, 1870: the first group reached Fort Duncan, Texas.
• August 1870, six weeks later: the Army created the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts.
• The first scouts: John Kibbetts, appointed sergeant, and 10 other men, with their families — 11 men on six-month enlistments.

Many officers expected scouts who looked like the Seminoles of Oklahoma and were surprised to find they were Black. The scouts adapted quickly; Bliss called them "excellent hunters, and trailers, and brave scouts…splendid fighters," and officers gladly gave their families a place to live.

Never a man lost

More Black Seminoles came north through the 1870s, settling at Fort Duncan and later Fort Clark, Texas. The unit never had more than 50 enlisted men at once.

• 1873–1881: under Lieutenant John Lapham Bullis, the scouts fought in 26 campaigns, often heavily outnumbered — and never lost a man killed or wounded in action.
• Medal of Honor: Private Adam Paine, Private Pompey Factor, Trumpeter Isaac Payne and Sergeant John Ward, all buried in the Seminole Negro Indian Scout Cemetery west of Fort Clark.

Disbanded

As the Plains Wars ended, the Army no longer needed them, and many scouts joined the segregated Buffalo Soldier regiments. In 1914, the Army disbanded the scouts, and the Black Seminoles were moved from Fort Clark to nearby Brackettville, Texas, where some of their descendants still keep their culture and heritage alive.

Sources

Based on "Black Seminole Indian Scouts," Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.