The Black Seminoles weren’t going away and just as they had been in Florida and again in the Indian Territory, remained a thorn in the side of slaveholding interests. That and the considerable profit motive involved in sending 200+ people back into slavery.
(Just as an aside, James W Fannin, nominal commander of the Texian Army at Goliad in 1836, had in 1835 taken receipt of an illegal boatload of 200 Africans on behalf of his employer, McKinney & Williams of Galveston Island, which front company also funded the Texian Army at Goliad).
Three years after the failure of Warren Adams, the same Marcellus Duval, by this time (1855) former Subagent to the Seminoles tried again. Different Texas Governor, prob’ly different US Army Officers in command at Eagle Pass.
This time an offer of a share of any profits was made to Texas Ranger Captain James H. Callahan.
James Callahan was an original Texian having arrived in Texas twenty years earlier with the Georgia contingent of the Texian Army at Goliad. Callahan had narrowly missed the capture and subsequent slaughter of his companions by the Mexican Army in ‘36 on account of having been assigned to a work detail 40 miles away in Victoria.
After that war he had Captained a Ranger Company out of Gonzales and developed a reputation for ruthlessness in border warfare. In 1842 Callahan had been active in repelling that second invasion of the Mexican army.
He also had participated in and sometimes led a number of lengthy expeditions against the Comanches with varying levels of success.
Callahan was noted for his strong feelings against Mexicans and Indians (not unusual in Texas at that time) and a propensity for merely shooting captured horse thieves of any race, rather than the usual formalities of a hanging.
By 1855 Callahan had moved his wife and four children north of Bandera where they farmed, ranched and operated a store. He had quit active rangering some years earlier and, as events would transpire, was a popular man in the area.
If this was a TV mini-series from the 80’s he coulda been played by Tommy Lee Jones.
