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Even today it would be an arduous journey to travel to Eagle Pass on foot, hot sun, little water. Back in the days before four million 1880’s-1890’s South Texas sheep (another one of those things that escapes popular history ) transformed prairie into brush, there was little cover either.

This speaks of the desperation of those enslaved attempting to cross. Slave-catchers, Indians (one account relates a Comanche partially skinning a captured Black Seminole girl ‘to see what color she was’).
At Eagle Pass itself there was a mixed-blood free-Black family that would pretend to aid runaways who made it, only to sell them back into slavery.

Twenty years later (1870’s) the remoteness of Eagle Pass lent itself to becoming the headquarters of the notorious outlaw John “King” Fisher. Yet John Horse himself would regularly visit from the Mexican side to engage in business and get drunk.

From the book The Black Seminoles, and at least the second time Horse was shot…..

”Capt. Horse, as Gopher John terms himself… an impudent and troublesome negro, and from his own accounts….. made many white men bite the dust.”

Early in November 1852 a fiesta, culminating in the evening with a boisterous fandango, was held in the little Mexican border town [of Piedras Negras across from Eagle Pass]. During the party, John Horse fought with one of the [US] boundary survey party. The cause of the altercation is unclear.

Fortunately, for John‘s opponent, one of the celebrants was a man named Ed Stevens, the mail carrier between San Antonio, and Eagle Pass. As John horse, knife in hand, lunged at the surveyor, Stevens whipped out a revolver and shot him in mid rush. Before the man could fire again, angry Mexicans seized him. After he was disarmed, Stevens was….. cast into prison.

He escaped during the night, swimming the river to Eagle Pass and safety, but had to leave his clothes and six shooter behind……. John Horse eventually recovered from his wound.

John Horse reported to be bragging about killing White men. Given Horse’s successful diplomatic initiatives with American and Mexican Officialdom at different times in his life, apparently it wasn’t all the time but if he did, it ain’t difficult to imagine the cause of the fight.

Ed Stevens was employed carrying mail between San Antonio and Eagle Pass, in 1852 yet. Whatever they were paying that guy it probably wasn’t enough.

LIKE

Backing up a year to 1851, the same year that RIP Ford took thirty Texas Rangers into Mexico after runaways and fought the Seminoles, Warren Adams, a professional Slave Hunter, arrived in Eagle Pass.

I can find no information on Adams but he must have been a big deal at the time. The Seminole Subagent Marcellus Duval had contracted with him to undergo this major operation. Texas Governor Peter Bell even issued a proclamation in support of Adams.

At that time John Horse and a companion crossed over into Eagle Pass, got drunk, and were promptly captured by Adams, which one imagines was a major score. The surprising thing is Horse was not promptly shipped out in irons. Within three days Mexican authorities contacted Governor Bell requesting his release as a Citizen of Mexico.

Wildcat crossed over to Eagle Pass, negotiated with Adams, and secured the captives’ release for $500 in gold and a promise to deliver up the Black Seminoles. The gold, when delivered, was soaked in blood, this was interpreted as a threat and Adams withdrew.

He returned two months later from San Antonio with a force of more than 100 men. This time it was the US Army at Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass who intervened, warning Mexican authorities of Adam’s intent.

Obviously the Feds did not approve at that time of Texas’s assorted cross-Border incursions. Federal misgivings could have been the reason John Horse was not immediately sent into slavery and/or trial.

Any element of surprise lost, and facing armed opposition on the Mexican side, Adams succeeded in capturing only a single unfortunate Black family. His career was finally put to a halt by US Army Second Lieutenant Daniel Huston, Jr. On February 5, 1852, the officer and his soldiers destroyed Adams camp, scattering his force and confiscating whatever weapons they could find.

Mexican authorities praised the work of the blacks and tribespeople, stating that “the immigrant Indians from the United States…. the Mascogos [Black Seminoles] and the Seminole have justified the Republic’s hospitality, contributing faithful and useful assistance to such military operations as an expedition against the barbarians and the defense of…..” Mexico.

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.

The Callahan Expedition, as it came to be called, left Bandera Pass on September 18th 1855. According to a public announcement by then Governor Pease the purpose of the expedition was to go against Lipan Apaches raiding into Texas.

Callahan, age 41, was joined by a party of men led by the notoriously mercurial Ranger Captain William R Henry, age 34. (Henry was an actual grandson of the Rev War hero Patrick Henry, that war at the time being only as remote as WWII is today). Henry mayy have been one of the thirty rangers RIP Ford had recently led into Mexico himself, he wrote of Henry He had rather exalted notions and was difficult to control. He was brave and possessed merit, but had the credit of interfering with his superior officers. He was not always wrong.

Henry’s party brought the strength of the combined force up to around 130 men. For an expedition publicly aimed at the Lipans, the expedition crossed the river at Eagle Pass hand headed swiftly and directly for the Black Seminole settlement of El Nacimiento (some irony here, Apaches, including the Lipans, at that time were one of the principal targets of the Seminole patrols protecting Mexico).

Ford again: If there is any one thing which will fill an average Mexican full to the brim of intense wrath it is the sight of an American. Source differ, but the party, travelling fast, made it about twenty miles inland Captain Callahan…. suddenly found himself confronted by a force of Mexicans and Indians more than five times greater than his own… Indications were… of a general rising of the people and an attack from an overwhelming force, so he moved to the Rio Grande.

He occupied Piedras Negras, set the town on fire, and while it was burning, he crossed into Texas.

Still following along.

Tks 🙂

It is unfortunate that we don’t have a detailed account of just what transpired on the Callaghan Epedition. Upon falling back to Piedras Negras across from Eagle Pass either Callahan torched the place on purpose or it caught fire. Texas History Online out of UT states they also looted looted the town which may be possible given the criminal nature of some Rangers at that time.

Although most folks in Texas supported Callahan’s actions, By burning Piedras Negras, he stepped on his Johnson in a Political sense, removing plausible deniability and creating an international incident embarrassing to the Federal Government.

Callahan’s forthright personality would contribute to his death the following year. He became involved in a somewhat sordid dispute with a neighbor, Woodson Blasingame. Callahan and three companions went to the Blasingames’ cabin to deliver an ultimatum, leave the area or face the consequences. In the ensuing shoot out, Callahan and another man were killed and a third man wounded.

https://www.txgenwebcounties.org/blanco/blass.htm

Blasingame turned himself in to authorities, feeling confident he would be exonerated. This proved to be a mistake, the following week an armed mob 100 strong, chiefly from Callahan’s old rangering ground at Gonzales, broke into Blasingames’ place of confinement dragged him and his son out, and shot them.

The personality of William R Henry, the other Ranger Captain involved, would also contribute to his demise. May 15th, 1862, feeling he had been passed over for command of a forming Confederate unit, Henry provoked a gunfight with one William Adams and was subsequently shot dead on San Antonio’s main plaza.

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/henry-william-r

In both cases, it seems these men picked on the wrong individuals.

Still hangin' with you Mike'

During this time Wildcat and Horse’s band continued to actively intercept Apache, Comanche and Kiowa raiders. A economic incentive for this was they got to keep all recovered stock not identifiable as to ownership. Essentially, they were conducting raids against the raiders.

The Indian Seminoles were hammered by smallpox in 1857, which casualties included Wildcat. The Black Seminoles were also affected but for them the disease proved less fatal. Subsequent to the death of Wildcat, age 47, in this epidemic, most of his band returned to join the rest of the tribe in the Indian Territory.

A major scare from a potential Texan slave-catching expedition occurred as late as 1859. The Border remained unstable, the following year Governor Sam Houston and famed Ranger Ben McCullough would lobby hard for a war with Mexico hoping to unite the country behind that war and so avert the Secession Crisis.

1859 the Black Seminoles were ordered to remove 100 miles further south away from the Border, ostensibly to remove an incentive for Texan incursions. A major reason for this move however was the same as that behind the original land grant at Nacimiento; constant Indian raids had made the area uninhabitable so moving in people already traditional enemies of the raiders made sense.

A Texas Unionist en route to California gave this description of the Black Seminoles at this new location in 1861….

One evening, a dozen Negroes, once of the Seminole tribe, rode up to the Government house opposite our quarters; they had a scalp, and reported a fight they had with Indians, only a little distance from the town, right on our road. These Negroes are employed by the Mexicans to fight the Indians, and are very successful.

If the Black Seminoles hadn’t actually existed they would have been considered far-fetched fiction today.

With the Black Seminoles moved further south, the same Kickapoos that defeated a combined force of Confederate cavalry and Frontier Battalion men at Dove Creek in 1864 moved in to El Nacimiento onto lands formerly occupied by the Seminoles. Meanwhile, once the threat of Indian raids had subsided further south no land grants to the Black Seminoles were forthcoming.

Mexico was in a constant state of war and turmoil, with the slavery issue over in the US, there developed a contingent within the Black Seminoles that wanted to return to the Indian Territory.

At about this same time the US Army was reaching out to the Black Seminoles and Kickapoos in Mexico, trying to induce them to return to the US so as to remove the threat they posed to Texas from their present location.

US Army Inspector General Randolph B, Marcy wrote of the Border region this sector does not contain today so many white people as it did. When I visited it 18 years ago, if the Indian marauders are not punished, the whole country will become totally depopulated.

At that time the 25th Infantry Division, a Black unit grouped with the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ today, was stationed at Ft Duncan.The first Black Seminoles arrived at that post in July of 1870, agreeing to serve as Scouts for a Private’s wage while a land grant was arranged in the Indian Territory (this didn’t happen). The Kickapoos rebuffed the offer and continued to raid into Texas for many years.

The description of the Black Seminoles themselves by different observers was so constant it becomes monotonous. Major Zenas R Bliss (not the guy Ft Bliss is named after), then in command at Ft Duncan wrote of them as….

negroes having all the habits of the Indians. They were excellent hunters and trailers, and splendid fighters.

Their full potential in service to the US would not be realized until the arrival of John Lapham Bullis at Ft Clark in 1873.

The Black Seminoles weren’t the only Black people in South Texas of course, tho I have read different estimates of the number of Black cowboys.

Of interest tho was another group recruited as scouts…. presumably former slaves of Creek Indians…

By the fall of 1871, however, 20 more men were recruited. Nearly all were from the Elijah Daniels band of Black Creeks, who had been living and working at the Griffin Ranch on the Nueces River in Uvalde County. Daniels and Cesar Payne, his second in command, joined the unit, mostly because they had been working for people who did not pay them….

About this time, probably due to friction with the “pure Seminole” band, Daniels independent-minded, mixed Seminole and Creek group requested a transfer from Fort Duncan to Fort Clark, located about 40 miles to the north, and Brackettville, Texas.

So the Scouts arrived at Fort Clark, which became the location of their cemetery.

Could be that the difference between the two groups was largely semantic. Technically the Seminole Indians WERE Creeks, just a different band tho IIRC some Creeks had fought on the US side during the Seminole War.

I’ve generally regarded the reputation of the Buffalo Soldiers as a sort of historical hype. Not that they were bad, or worse than White cavalry troopers but they are generally described in glowing terms because they were Black, whereas we have no problem objectively assessing White troopers, Custer’s immigrant crew a prime example.

Well, some of the Buffalo Soldiers must have been good, good enough that a 2nd Lt Bullis would lead four of them into a fire fight against five to one odds.

on September 1, 1871, [two years before he would command the Scouts at Ft. Clark] Bullis and four black troopers of the Ninth Cavalry’s M Company encountered a group of 25 or so Indians driving several herds of cattle near Fort McKavett, Texas.

After a fierce fire fight with the hostiles who held the high ground, Bullis found it impossible to dislodge them with the number of men he had with him. Nevertheless, they recovered 200 of the stolen livestock. He ended his report of the action by saying “my men done well.”

Bullis himself would trend to clean-shaven and heavier during his later years, but in the 1870’s was described as Thin and spare…. a small wiry man with a black mustache…. his face burned red as an Indian.”

Black Seminole Scout Joe Phillips later said of Bullis He was a good man…. he look after his men…. he didn’t stand back and say, go yonder; he would say, Come on boys let’s go get ‘em

As to the Black Seminoles, photos taken in the 1880’s show the in regular US Cavalry uniforms, short hair. Upon arrival at Fort Duncan they presented a different appearance. The men usually dressed as they had while living in Florida and Mexico…. clothes good enough for an Indian…. Ebony faces, flat noses, full lips, but with the characteristic high cheekbones of the Indian……. long black crinkly hair…. There was a considerable range of physical strains in the group, from full blooded blacks to those with strong Native American strains.

During their time at Fort Clark, other non-Seminole individuals were added to the Scoutd…. Trinidad Mariscal, a Mexican, married to a Black Seminole…. William Miller, son of a German father and a mulatto mother “looked like a white man and acted like an Indian”…. Joe Remo, a black Cherokee…. had been a slave and was a Union Army veteran.

1878, the former Comanchero trader Jose Tafoya, the same guy who had been hung from a wagon tree in ‘74 by Ranald MacKenzie to convince him to guide them to Palo Duro Canyon, enlisted in the Scouts.

In 1873 the combat era of the “Detachment of Seminole Negro Indian Scouts” began… they would participate in nearly a decade of savage border warfare….

Adam Payne’s best quality was his aggressiveness, the other Black Seminoles admiringly called him a “bad man”. He carried a Colt pistol, a double barreled shotgun, and a large hunting knife. He also wore headgear adorned with buffalo horns, stood almost six feet tall, and weighed nearly two hundred pounds. He was so impressive-looking that one of the [4th Cavalry] troopers, J.A. Magruder, later said: “I shall never forget… a big black…. wearing horns.”

Colonel [Ranald] MacKenzie [who recommended Payne for a Medal of Honor] wrote that he deserved such recognition for his “habitual courage. This man has, I believe, more cool daring than any scout I have known”.

In those years the 4th US Cavalry (a White unit) was the chief instrument Ranald MacKenzie used to hammer the Comanches and Kiowas into submission.

A detachment of Black Seminoles…. Adam Payne, and [five] others saw action….

On December 10, 1873, forty-one men of the Fourth Cavalry, under Lt. Charles J. Hudson, and the six scouts… encountered a raiding party of nine Kiowas and twenty one Comanches near Kickapoo Springs. [in present day Tom Green County].

The warriors, who lived on a reservation near Fort Sill, Indian Territory, had been marauding on both sides of the border. In the ensuing battle, nine hostiles, including the favorite son of Kiowa chief Lone Wolf, were killed. The dead also included one of his nephews. Eighty-one horses were captured, and only one soldier was slightly wounded.

Good stuff Mike !!!

I just finished a couple books about the Seminole Wars because of interest in the battle and skirmish locations that are nearby. So this is very interesting as well. Can you name a book or two on the subject?

I’m mostly quoting from Porter’s book “The Black Seminoles”

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Seminoles-History-Freedom-Seeking-People/dp/081304488X

From Ranald MacKenzie again, 1874, likely referring to Adam Payne…

”Three parties of spies were sent out… one, consisting of two Mexicans, and three seminole negroes, to look about certain hiding places in the Staked plains…. These men, of course, take great risks… The Mexicans in one case before, I feel sure, laid up and came back and reported nothing, but they have with them now a Seminole negro, who is a very determined man on a scout, and they will be afraid not to go.”

The single action more than anything else that won Payne his MoH occurred in September of that year. Three Black Seminoles-James Bruner, George Washington (John Horse’s nephew), and Adam Payne-were dispatched to locate hostiles. Two Tonkawa scouts…. accompanied them…. they were only to find the enemy and not engage them unless absolutely necessary. Therefore, the group travelled light

Washington and, especially Bruner, were considered excellent trackers….

The five men left their base camp, each leading a spare mount. After riding for several hours, the scouts stopped around midnight.

They apparently made a cold camp in the dark, unaware that they were in close proximity to a large camp of Kiowas, who were likewise unaware of their presence. At first light things hit the fan….

…they found themselves surrounded by about forty Kiowas…with their families…. a hot fight ensued. Payne apparently positioned himself between the warriors and his companions…. Then the five scouts, all but Payne riding bareback, quirted their animals through the ring of attackers. They galloped southwest in the general direction of MacKenzie’s command and were obliged to run for their lives…. a running fight followed.

Adam Payne lagged behind… Immediately in front of him was George Washington…. to protect Washington, Payne turned around… Payne’s horse was shot from under him. He… crouched behind it as the Indians charged…

When they drew nearer, Payne killed the closest attacker…. he grabbed the slain man’s riderless pony, which had continued to head towards him… he leaped on its back and spurred after his comrades…

It is stunning how completely the Black Seminoles were written out of the script of Pop Texas history. As this thread progresses their significant role and successes, along with accolades from their commanding officers, will continue clear into the early 20th Century. They weren’t the only guys out there to be sure, but the Black Seminoles played a significant role, at first against and then for Texas, on the Texas Frontier for about sixty years beginning in the 1850’s upon their flight from slaver’s raids.

Case in point about them being written out of the script: Palo Duro Canyon, the famous culmination of MacKenzie’s Red River campaign. The 4th Cavalry was led into Palo Duro Canyon by six White scouts, twelve Tonkawas…. and thirteen Black Seminoles.

I will say that, had these guys not actually existed, they would be wildly improbable fiction. From the names of some of the Florida-era Black Seminoles, they had some Akan-speaking West African roots, the same people I lived among in Ghana. They were originally settled agricultural people, nothing like a Plains Indian lifestyle.

We know how our Indians were carefully schooled growing up in tracking and fighting skills, what we don’t get accounts of unfortunately is how Black Seminole youths likewise honed these skills over more’n half a century.

Neither Adam Payne nor George Washington served long in the Scouts, tho Washington was singled out as being an especially skilled tracker, even among that company.

How lawless things commonly were across much of Texas during the period of settlement is typified by the career of John King Fisher. Born in Texas in 1853, first arrested for horse theft at age 16, sometimes he rode against Mexican bandits, other times raided into Mexico with a mixed crew of White and Mexican thieves. A cowboy prodigy, he had his own ranch near Eagle Pass by age 19 (1872). Said ranch serving as a base camp for raids for a number of years.

Fisher dressed flamboyantly and carried two pearl-handled revolvers. He was good at killing and at some point before his own death by gunfire at age 30 was reported as claiming to have killed thirty-seven men “not including Mexicans”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Fisher

About Christmastime 1874 [Corporal Washington was] injured in an altercation with the notorious King Fisher gang in an Eagle Pass saloon. Fisher himself was creased in the scalp by a bullet, while Washington suffered a stomach wound that eventually killed him. Although the outlaw was indicted for the attack, he was cleared of the charges. Fisher reportedly hated the Black Seminoles thereafter.

That might have been the only time Fisher was hit in a gunfight. Until some years later Fisher met his own demise, in part because of the company he kept. Here in San Antonio he was caught in the crossfire during the 1883 assassination of his friend, the fellow gunman and professional gambler Ben Thompson.

King Fisher Grave at Uvalde Tx.

Adam Payne was born in 1843, meaning he was in his early 30’s at the time of his of his service in the Scouts. It is said that he did not take well to Military discipline, which may be why he is listed as a Private, the lowest ranking of the three Black Seminoles in the aforementioned Kiowa incident (the other two were Sergeant and Corporal) despite Payne’s leadership in actual combat situations.

By 1876 Payne had left the Scouts and was employed as a Teamster along the Border (or possibly as armed Security in that role). So it was Christmas Eve 1876 he was in Brownsville TX where he knifed and killed a White Cavalry Trooper in a Brownsville saloon. Doesn’t seem hard to guess what the fight might have been about.

Payne escaped custody, the following year as a wanted fugitive he joined company with a Border bandit named Frank Enoch (I can find no reference to Enoch’s race). Apparently Payne was apparently quite mobile during that time, so it was that at one point he was drinking in a saloon in Brackettville adjacent to Ft Clark and the Black Seminole community when the Sheriff of Uvalde County and a deputy attempted an arrest.

No explanation of how it was the adjacent Military personnel from Ft Clark did not attempt to apprehend Payne themselves. It could be they were unaware of his presence, the encounter with Payne by the Sheriff and deputy may have been accidental, the two men also looking to retrieve a fine horse stolen from the deputy at the time, allegedly by a Black Seminole.

… The former scout [Payne] reportedly was drinking in a Brackettville saloon. Sheriff LC Crowell appeared at one door, his deputy, Claron Windus at the other. Payne, glass in hand, elbows on the bar, coolly sized up the situation, and announced; “If you want a drink, come up to the bar and have one with me, if you don’t, give me one of the doors.” According to reports they gave him both doors.

Neither the Sheriff nor his deputy were strangers to gunfire, in fact Deputy Windus himself had been awarded a Medal of Honor during his service as a Trooper against the Kiowas (and had also been arrested for horse theft after leaving the service). An Adam Payne forewarned however, was apparently too dangerous a man to take on, even against two to one odds.

Payne’s public humiliation of Crowell and Windus likely sealed his fate.

…the next time the two lawmen met Payne, they gave him no chance to defend himself. Late on December 31, 1876, Crowell, Deputy Windus, a man named James Thomas, and teamster Jonathan May rode to the Black Seminole camp to arrest Adam Payne and Frank Enoch on felony warrants…..

Shortly after midnight, Adam Payne was dancing at a New Year’s Eve party in the Bowlegs’ yard at the Black Seminole settlement. Suddenly someone called out his name. As Payne turned towards the man, he was gunned down with a shotgun at such close range that his clothes caught on fire. He died instantly.

Ironically, the man who blasted him was Claron Windus, who himself had received a Medal of Honor in 1870. This is the only known incident in which one Medal of Honor recipient killed another.

In the Black Seminole cemetery Adam Payne’s grave is located some distance from the rest from those years, perhaps because of his criminal status. In life Payne had apparently been a role model and mentor of sorts to his eight years younger cousin Isaac Payne. Isaac was one of the three Scouts awarded a MoH for the rescue of Bullis at the Pecos River crossing.

The bond between the two was such that when Isaac himself died twenty-five years later, at his own request he was buried next to his cousin Adam.




Adam Payne, Isaac Payne, Claron Windus. While it’s true the MoH was handed out more freely back then, they didn’t give them away for nothing.