Michael W. Rodriguez
Copyright 1990-1998
The Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts made the Texas western region safe from outlaw bands and marauding Indians, but they could not protect themselves from the racist and hostile attitudes that surrounded them.
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One of the longest unwritten chapters in the history of the United States is that treating of the relations of the Negroes and the Indians. The Indians were already here when the white men came and the Negroes brought in soon after to serve as a subject race found among the Indians one of their means of escape.
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IT WAS A RARE DAYLIGHT AMBUSH. The lieutenant and three men moved carefully through the bush to within yards of the enemy. Confident of their numbers, the four American soldiers opened fire, killing three men. Immediately, they found themselves outnumbered. Deciding to withdraw, the three enlisted men had almost reached safety when suddenly they realized their lieutenant was not with them.
Turning, Sergeant Ward hollered, "We can't leave the lieutenant, boys!" The sergeant dashed back with his comrades close behind him. A bullet cut the sling of Ward's weapon as he reached his officer. Another bullet shattered his rifle stock. Now firing left and right, the lieutenant and his three men fought their way back through the enemy's ranks. All escaped without injury.
This inspiring feat of bravery earned the three enlisted men the Medal of Honor, perhaps the only time in the history of the United States Army that multiple Medals of Honor have been awarded.
The year was 1875. The date was 25 April.
The men were Sergeant John Ward, Trumpeter Isaac Payne, and Trooper Pompey Factor, and they were members of the Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts of the United States Cavalry. Their officer was Lieutenant John Lapham Bullis, for whom Camp Bullis, situated just northwest of San Antonio, is named.
Serving in one of the most effective fighting forces ever fielded in the State of Texas, these Seminole-Negro Scouts of the U.S. Cavalry fought the Apaches and Comanches from the 1870s until the early 1900s. Led by the very able Lieutenant Bullis, both officer and men could stay in the field for months at a time. (While Indians could be legally hired as scouts, Blacks could not, and so developed the unit's name official name: Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts.)
During and after the War Between the States, the Indians who rode the Texas Frontier had become so adept at stealing and raiding that the U.S. Cavalry became desperate. They convinced the Seminole-Negroes to return from Mexico, to where they had fled rather than live on a reservation, and take up arms against the raiders.
Under terms of the agreement, each scout would receive pay and a land grant for their service. They were expected to furnish their own horses and they wore a modified uniform, more Indian than army, but they were each issued a Spencer carbine.
In one instance, a band of Lipans stole some Scout horses. Bullis and twenty scouts with Negro cavalrymen trailed the raiding party 110 miles in twenty four hours. At daybreak the scouts charged the quiet camp. In the fighting, most of it hand to hand, carbines were used as clubs against the long lances of the Indians. In fifteen minutes four Lipans were dead and the Scouts had their ponies back.
By 1882, Western Texas -- a terrifying No-Man's Land of 3,662 square miles and marauding Indians, white outlaws gangs and unbeaten rebels -- was pacified. In eleven years of service, twenty-six expeditions, twelve major engagements, and dozens of firefights, Lt. Bullis and his desert fighters lost not a man or even had one seriously wounded.
Bullis was not the first lieutenant to lead these men, but with him, the scouts at last found a man worthy of their respect. Bullis led his men, traveling with them for days, weeks, and months at a time in pursuit of their duties. He ate what they ate, drank what they drank. They shared the same risks, the same hardships. Lieutenant Bullis, they agreed, was a good man. He took care of his men.
They were not so fortunate in their dealings with the local citizens. This was, after all, unreconstructed Texas, just after the end of the Civil War. This was Texas, where Bill Longley, Cullen Baker and John Wesley Hardin rode, pistols strapped to their belts and saddles. The Moderator and Regulator Wars were just getting started. The Taylor-Sutton Feud was at fever pitch.
And in West Texas, things were no better.
King Fisher was a feared gunman and rancher. Cattle rustling was big business. The Comanche and Apache had raided Texas and Mexico with impunity for years. The U.S. Army had tried, without success, to bring order to the area.
Nothing seemed to work.
Finally, the army sent Captain Frank Perry to Mexico to recruit the Negro Nation's return to Texas.
The history of the Seminoles is long and complicated, too long to discuss in this article. The Seminole Nation was actually comprised of several Indian nations: the Creek and the Choctaw were members of the Seminole Nation that waged guerilla warfare against the United States Army in the Florida Everglades almost 200 years ago. The term "Seminole" is derived from the Spanish for "runaway."
Indians, to the white man then living in Texas, were bad enough. Indian-Negroes were something else altogether.
Bad blood was bound to explode into outright violence.
Several scouts were killed in a conflict over some land near Fort Clark, and another, Medal of Honor recipient Titus Payne, either perhaps through fear or knowledge of his adversary, was ambushed and killed by a sheriff who suspected the scout of murder.
Some of the scouts became disgusted with their treatment and decided to return to Mexico.
I walk, one afternoon, through the cemetery where the Seminole-Negro scouts and their descendents are buried and pause at the grave of Scout Pompey Factor. A Medal of Honor recipient, Factor only recently received a plot worthy of him.
Four men buried in this small cemetery just west of Brackettville were awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism against marauding Indians in the 1870s and '80s.
The cemetery is hot and arid, like the countryside around it. The sun is bright and harsh and causes my eyes to squint, and I find it difficult to imagine waging war on horseback in such country.
Another gravestone reveals a man who fought in Vietnam, and I find the gravestones of two other Vietnam Veterans buried here. Men are buried here who fought in the Spanish-American War, World War One, World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam. I pause to straighten a bouquet of flowers on yet another plot. Curiously, those men with military service engraved on their headstones are all soldiers; I find no sailors, airmen, or Marines buried in this small cemetery.
The men buried here -- and probably some of the women -- were warriors; they were first-class fighting men, and I realize that it didn't matter what the cause was; the country called, and they went. It was what they did. Looking around the small graveyard, I see perhaps four or five men buried here who don't show some kind of military service on their headstone.
At the Whitehead Museum on a Saturday morning in Del Rio, Lee Lincoln and William "Willie" Warrior explain the history of the Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts to whoever cares enough to listen. Ms. Lincoln is the director/curator of the museum; Mr. Warrior is the historian of the Black Seminole Indian Scouts Association (BSISA).
Warrior, who is said to be 67 years old and looks 47, explains, "My name is Guerrero, or Warrior. I speak Spanish, just like my people do in Mexico. We have a little village there, called Nacimiento de Los Negros. Most of the people there only speak Spanish.
"We left Florida after fighting the Seven Years War against the Army. We got sent to Oklahoma; didn't like it there. My people decided to go to Mexico. It took them over a year of fighting their way through Texas -- against the Apaches and Comanches, and the Comancheros, who wanted them for slaves -- to get to Mexico. This was in 1854; they stayed there until 1871, fighting Indians for the Mexican government, when the Army sent Captain Perry to negotiate their return, to come back to Texas and fight other Indians.
"Why'd they go back?" Pride is obvious in his voice as he stares at the two Medals of Honor displayed prominently on the wall in the small building set aside for Negro-Texans on the grounds of the Whitehead. "Because they were warriors. It's what they did."
Lincoln interjects. "Few people in the state know what these men did for Texas. For nothing more than promises --which they had little reason to believe -- and a chance to serve as scouts for the Army, they left their homes in Mexico and came back to Texas." She glances at the maps and pictures of the Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts on permanent exhibit at the Whitehead Museum and her voice, already filled with pride for her museum, takes on a new reverence. "They were very brave men."
When the Seminoles arrived in Mexico, the Mexican government agreed to provide land and supplies to the men and their families if the battle-hardened Seminoles would protect Mexico's northern states from Indian attacks. They did, and the "Moscogos," as they became known, were so successful that the Indians moved their operations further north, into the United States.
The Texas Department of the United States Army, in 1870, after letters initiated by U.S. Consul Agent William Schuchardt, promised the scouts their pay and a land grant. Return to Texas, they were told, and help us fight Indians and we will provide you with land to raise your families.
When Fort Clark closed in 1947, however, most of the Seminoles still living there were required to leave. The Army was no more able to help them than the local law had been able to protect the scouts and their families from the 'civilized' white men like Fisher who plotted against them. The Scouts were simply too good at what they did.
The day has grown hotter in the little cemetery where all this history is buried, so we decide to visit what is now Fort Clark Springs. Once there, Director-Curator Don Swanson of the Old Fort Clark Guard House Museum, upon learning of our mission, opens his archives of documents and memorabilia. He points to the section of his exhibit that depicts the scouts as they were then. "They are a part of this fort," he explains. "They served here; they belong here."Swanson's research has been extensive, and his collection of documents is a great help. "Use what you need," he said. "If you need more information, come back anytime. Always happy to help."
The Sutler's Store at Fort Clark is a kind of rustic 'stop-n-shop,' where soft drinks and T-shirts are sold at reasonable prices. Among the items for sale are computer-printed histories of Fort Clark and the Seminole Scouts. After buying two of these manuscripts, we leave the store and step outside.
The air of the fort is thick with the heavy odor of the horses kept in the corrals across the street from the store. Standing on the porch of the store, I can easily imagine armed and belted men 'saddling up' for the day's most dangerous work: tracking down marauding Indians and outlaw white men.
In the stillness of the afternoon, I can almost hear Lieutenant Bullis quietly order his scouts to mount up. The creak of saddle leather and the soft 'clink' of bridle bits become clear in the heat of the day, as it might have been then, over a hundred years ago, when others of America's Fighting Men moved out to keep their date with destiny.
In the stillness of that Saturday afternoon in West Texas, my imagination takes flight: the sounds of my war, of C-130s and Huey gunships and automatic weapons fire, fade into the heat and distance of the West Texas sky and I can almost see Sergeant Ward as he turns to shout, "We can't leave the lieutenant, boys!"
Author's note: Ms. Lee Lincoln provided much assistance in the preparation of this article. The next time you're in Del Rio, stop and visit the Whitehead Museum. You'll be glad you did. The Whitehead: 1308 South Main Street, Del Rio, Texas, 78840-5998; (210) 774-7568. Tue-Sat: 0900- 1630. $2.00 for adults, $.50 for children. The best two bucks you'll ever spend.William (Dub) Warrior can be reached at (210) 7750-7097 in Del Rio, or write to him for more information on the Black Seminole Indian Scouts Association at 228 Linda Vista, Del Rio, 78840. I should look this good at his age.
I especially want to thank Don Swanson, Director-Curator, Fort Clark Historical Society, for allowing me access to his archives. For more information on Fort Clark or the Seminole Scouts, contact him at Fort Clark Springs, Box 1061, Brackettville, Texas, 78832; or call him at (210) 563-9150.
Ms. Lincoln, Messrs Williams and Swanson: I enjoyed observing professionals at work.
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