Descendants of the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts gather in the arid canyonlands west of Del Rio to hike down a steep and rocky path into Seminole Canyon, the namesake of Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site.
On this breezy September morning, the 20 hikers—ranging in age from 20 to 70-plus—catch up with old friends while navigating tricky boulders, slick algae, and the persistent spines of blackbrush acacia. Reaching the dry canyon floor, they turn upstream toward their destination—the Watering Hole, a small pool beneath a limestone overhang where a little-known band of U.S. soldiers found refuge on the Texas-Mexico border 150 years ago.
Seminole Indian Scouts Museum
Open Sat 1-4 p.m. 506 Beaumont St.,
Brackettville.
seminolecemetery
association.com
Descended from runaway slaves and Seminole Indians, the scouts were contracted by the U.S. government in the 1870s to protect Anglo settlers and trade routes in Southwest Texas. Their tour of service in this no-man’s-land is a remarkable story of self-emancipation; and it’s a story best remembered by their families in Seminole Canyon at the Watering Hole.
“Coming to Seminole Canyon makes that history come alive in a way that you really can’t do in a classroom or a book,” says Windy Goodloe, secretary of the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association, which organizes the annual Seminole Days gathering. “To me, this is the perfect way to start off our weekend: walking in the same steps our forefathers did.”
About 200 descendants of the scouts head to Brackettville annually for Seminole Days from as far away as Alaska, Ohio, and California. They gather for a parade, history seminars, food, a dance, and a ceremony at the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery.
“Getting involved with this culture brings some personal significance to who you are and helps establish your roots,” says Steve Warrior, a descendant from Arizona. “Just understanding how they struggled to get us where we are now, I think that gives you more drive in your own life, that same perseverance and spirit of determination.”
The group traces its roots to 17th-century Spanish Florida, where runaway slaves and freedmen allied with the Seminoles, a confederation of Native American bands. The groups intermarried, formed their own farming villages, and flourished with their mix of African, Indigenous, and Christian cultures.
After Spain ceded Florida to the U.S. in 1819, the American government turned its attention to expelling the Seminoles, leading to decades of war. In 1838—eight years after the U.S. passed the Indian Removal Act—the Seminoles and Black Seminoles agreed to move to Oklahoma’s Indian Territory, part of the forced displacement known as the Trail of Tears.
In Indian Territory, the Black Seminoles were assigned to share a reservation with members of the Creek Nation, slave traders who they regarded as enemies. After several turbulent years, the Black Seminoles and Seminoles left Indian Territory in 1849 and made a yearlong trek to Mexico. They settled in Nacimiento, Coahuila, about 150 miles southwest of Del Rio. Some descendants remain there and hold an annual Juneteenth celebration.
Corina Torralba, a Black Seminole descendant from Nacimiento who moved to San Antonio as a child, relishes educating others about Black Seminoles as the cemetery association’s treasurer. “It’s United States history and Texas history, as well as Mexico, but I never learned it in school here in the U.S.,” Torralba says. “I just thought, why is it that I never heard this history?”
Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829 and welcomed both the Seminoles and Black Seminoles—the latter known as “Mascogos” in Mexico—on the condition they join the Mexican army in protecting the area from raiding Indigenous tribes. While the Seminoles were granted their own reservation in Indian Territory in 1856 and headed back north, the Black Seminoles remained in Mexico for over a decade.
Political upheavals and tribal raids made life in Mexico difficult, so in 1870, the Black Seminoles made an agreement with the U.S. Army to move to Texas and serve as scouts in return for eventual land grants in Indian Territory.
The scouts were stationed at Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass before being moved to Fort Clark in 1872. There they protected American settlers in the borderlands of West Texas, quickly earning a reputation as expert trackers and capable warriors. But their assignment was short-lived; the scouts fought their last battle in 1881 and were demoted to grunt work.
The scouts’ families and other Black Seminoles—a total population of more than 200 people—built jacales along Las Moras Creek on Fort Clark and scratched out a living. In 1914, the U.S. Army disbanded the scouts and evicted the Black Seminoles from the military grounds.
Some of the scouts joined the Buffalo Soldiers, but none were granted the land they’d been promised as part of their relocation from Mexico.
The Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery is carved out of mesquite brush and pastureland about 3 miles away from Fort Clark Springs, the housing community that now occupies defunct Fort Clark. The cemetery’s hundreds of headstones vary from ornately decorated marble to unmarked blocks. The oldest burials are the people who endured the uncertain migration from Florida to Oklahoma, Mexico, and then Texas. This is also the resting place of four Seminole Negro Indian Scouts who were awarded the Medal of Honor in the 1870s.
Augusta Pines, a lifelong Brackettville resident and president of the cemetery association, says the cemetery makes plots available to all Black Seminole descendants, free of charge. “My dream is to get this cemetery up to par—pave the road, plant some grass,” she says. “It’s hard, but it can happen.”
The total number of Seminole Negro Indian Scout descendants is hard to pinpoint, but the cemetery association has about 200 members. Goodloe says Seminole Days and Juneteenth events are crucial to passing on their history.
“All these events are really just to get that one young kid interested in history, to come back and hear the stories from the mouths of their grandmothers, or their great-uncle or -aunt,” Goodloe says. “As long as there’s breath in our body, we’ll make sure we always gather every year.”
