| On
August 16, 1870, Maj. Zenas R. Bliss enlisted a special detachment
of thirteen Black Seminole scouts from a group of approximately 100
who had recently arrived at Fort Duncan, Texas, from three main
camps in northern Mexico. These people represented part of the
mixed-blood Seminole and black population that had migrated to
northeastern Mexico during 1849 and 1850 to escape American slave
hunters. Originally, they had been well treated by the Mexican
government, which employed them as militiamen against Comanche and
Lipan Apache raiders, but they had subsequently been neglected by
federal officials. In direct response to Capt. Frank W. Perry's
offers of scouting jobs and protection, the Black Seminoles under
subchief John Kibbetts resettled at Fort Duncan. During the
following three years other kinsmen who had lived at Matamoros,
Tamaulipas, and Laguna de Parras, Coahuila, also crossed the border
into Texas and raised the total Black Seminole population to
approximately 180. The first complement of scouts carried out their
tracking duties so well that Bliss raised the number of enlistees to
thirty-one by the end of 1871. He also elevated them to permanent
military status by supplying them with arms, ammunition, and
rations, as well as paying them the standard salary of privates in
the regular army. Kibbetts served as company sergeant and received
slightly higher pay. Successful operations along the Rio Grande
attracted the attention of other officers, and in July 1872 Lt. Col.
Wesley Merritt prevailed upon Bliss to transfer some of the scouts
and their families north to Fort Clark.
At Fort
Clark the scouts finally gained a permanent officer to command their
unique group. Lt. John Lapham Bullies eagerly accepted the
assignment in 1873, and despite his inexperience in dealing with
Indians, the thirty-two year old officer quickly proved his mastery
of the situation. Bullis succeeded because he gained the respect of
his men by undergoing privations in the field with them and looking
out for the needs of their families. Within a few months after
Bullis took command of the scouts, they were playing a key role in
Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie's May raid against a hostile Kickapoo camp
near El Remolino, Coahuila. Because this village lay forty miles
inside Mexico, the expedition relied heavily on the Black Seminoles
and other scouts to prevent contact with Mexican soldiers and to
assure a speedy withdrawal once the mission was accomplished. In
performing this duty the scouts gained Mackenzie's respect, and he
employed them a year later in his campaign against Comanche and
Kiowa camps in Palo Duro Canyon. As trackers, couriers, and
combatants, they demonstrated their value even beyond the familiar
terrain of South Texas and northeastern Mexico. After these events
of the Red River War, Indian threats to West Texas were greatly
reduced, but small raiding parties still occasionally left the
reservation near Fort Sill, Indian Territory, or crossed the border
from their mountain refuges in Mexico. Between 1875 and 1881 the
Black Seminole scouts spent much time on the trail of these small
raiding parties. One fight at Eagle's Nest Crossing on the Pecos
River earned the Medal of Honor for scouts John Ward, Isaac Payne,
and Pompey Factor. The same award had previously gone to Pvt. Adam
Payne for his gallantry in the Red River War. Despite their
celebrated service record, the scouts suffered several major
setbacks during this six-year period. Confrontations with members of
John King Fisher's gang around Brackettville, Texas, resulted in
some later killings of scouts. Furthermore, white citizens around
Brackettville and Fort Clark began to agitate for the scouts'
removal so that the land upon which their families were settled
could be opened to public sale. The 1882 transfer of Bullis to
Indian Territory likewise weakened the position of the black Indians
by causing a large reduction in the complement of fifty scouts and a
slashing of the ration issues to their families. Indirect
congressional lobbying efforts by Bullis, Mackenzie, Col. Edward
Hatch, and even Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the Military
Division of the Missouri, failed to secure what the Black Seminoles
needed most-title to their land near Fort Clark. In August 1912 the
last sixteen Black Seminole scouts were mustered out of service, but
by this time many of their destitute families had already moved to
Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and other border towns to seek employment as
ranchhands, laborers, and domestic servants. Their long years of
service went virtually unnoticed by the progressive population of
the new West. |
