5-Black Seminole Texans - Institute of Texan Cultures

5-Black Seminole Texans
Leaving Home
During the 1600s tribal people from the
Creek Confederacy of Georgia raided Florida
and settled there. These Indian frontiersmen
were called Seminoles, a Creek word meaning
"runaway" or "people who live at a distance."
They kept their way of life with little European
contact into the early 19th century.
The Florida homeland of the Seminoles became a safe place for many African slaves who
had run away from their owners in Georgia
and the Carolinas. Although many worked
as slaves of the Seminoles, the black people
found a better life. They lived and farmed
near the Seminole villages, paying them taxes. The two peoples intermarried and fought
together against the U.S. Army, which was
trying to gain control over Florida. From the
marriages of Seminole and African couples
came the people known as Black Seminoles.
In 1842 all the Seminole and African people
were forced to leave Florida and move to
Indian Territory in the area that became Oklahoma. Some went to the West Indies.
Coming to Texas
In the Indian Territory, the stronger Creek
tribes controlled the Seminoles. The slave
codes of the Creeks made the blacks in the
tribe their slaves. Slavery was outlawed in
Mexico, so several groups of Black Seminoles
left Indian Territory for Mexico. They first
settled in El Moral and then in Nacimiento,
Mexico.
Following the Civil War, the U.S. Army
needed scouts to hunt and to stop the Indian
Where might William Bowlegs have
gotten his bigfeathers?
raids, so groups of Black Seminole men
moved with their families to Fort Duncan
and Fort Clark in Texas. Their knowledge of
English, Spanish, and numerous Indian dialects made them valuable soldiers and scouts
in the wars against the Indian tribes raiding
settlers in Texas.
Black Seminole
Cultural Folkways
Through their various moves, the Black
Seminoles had adapted to the land and the
different cultures they encountered. They
took on aspects in their daily lives from the
Seminoles, the Mricans, the Spanish, and
the Mexicans. Their Florida homes made
from palmetto leaves and wood planks
were replaced with log cabins in the Indian
Territory of Oklahoma, followed by mesquite
and chink houses in Mexico, and later adobe
dwellings.
Without giving up old ways and customs,
they adapted to a new place. When the first
150 families moved to Fort Clark on Las
Moras Creek in Brackettville, they built an
18-by-30-foot church of adobe blocks with
a cedar and thatched roof Their religion
combined the beliefs and rituals honoring
the spirits in the natural world, the Indian
spirits, and Christianity. During Lent and 30
days before Christmas, the church was locked
to clean out "undesirables." At such times
the Black Seminoles gave up food, or fasted,
and studied their dreams. Men and women
deacons of the church were appointed to hear
church members' dreams to prove they were
again worthy to enter the House of God.
Their fasting ended with a big celebration
and the reopening of the church.
Funeral rituals reflected their heritage. The
individual who had died was placed in a box
on a table at the front of the house, and an
all-night wake was held. The men chanted
prayers while circling the coffin in a shuffiing
dance. Tables of food prepared by community members would be placed outside for
those taking part in the wake.
The old cemetery of the Seminole Indian
Scouts in Brackettville, started in 1872, is the
site of an annual pilgrimage. Each September
relatives of the original scouts and others
gather to honor their ancestors.
Amazing Black Seminoles
As the Seminoles moved, their names changed.
They had a Seminole name, an American or
English name, a Spanish one, and possibly a
nickname. Juan Caballo (l812?-1882) was
also known as John Horse, Juan Coheia, and
Gopher John. At age 14 he sold land turtles
called gophers in Florida and earned his nickname, Gopher John. John, born of an Indian
and an Mrican parent, was a slave of the
Seminoles in Florida, where he was a popular
hunting guide. In his twenties he had 90 head
of cattle and a successful farm. Speaking at
least four languages, he served as a negotiator
for the Seminoles. Following the Seminole
Wars with the U.S. Army, he helped move the
Seminoles and their African friends to Indian
Territory, where he was freed.
In 1849, along with his second-in-command,
John Kibbetts, he moved a group of his people
to Mexico, where slavery was outlawed. With
promises of payment in land, many of the
men patrolled the area against the Comanche
and Apache Indians. Juan died on a trip to
Mexico City in 1882, trying to get the land
grants promised his people from the Mexican
government.
Johanna July was a horse breaker. Johanna
learned the job of breaking horses when her
father died and her brother ran off. She didn't
like saddles, so she rode bareback or sideways.
She didn't use a bridle, just a rope around the
neck that looped over the horse's nose. She
would lead a wild horse into the Rio Grande
and keep it there until it tired. Then she led it
into deeper water and slid onto its back. She
kept the horse in the water until it was very
tired, and then she rode out of the water.
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