Freedom on the border
Subtitle: the Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas
By: Kevin Mulroy.
Publisher: Texas Tech University Press; Brand: Texas Tech University Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Lubbock, Tex
Language: eng
Number of pages: 246
Subjects: Black Seminoles -- History.; Seminole Indians -- African influences.; African Americans -- Relations with Indians.; Seminole Indians -- History.
Description: Under the brilliant leadership of the charismatic John Horse, a band of black runaways, in alliance with Seminole Indians under Wild Cat, migrated from the Indian Territory to northern Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century to escape from slavery. These maroons subsequently provided soldiers for Mexico's frontier defense and later served the United States Army as the renowned Seminole Negro Indian Scouts. This is the story of the maroons' ethnogenesis in Florida, their removal to the West, their role in the Texas Indian Wars, and the fate of their long quest for freedom and self-determination along both sides of the Rio Grande. Their tale is a rich and colorful one, and one of epic proportions, stretching from the swamps of the Southeast to the desert Southwest. The maroons' history of African origins, plantation slavery, European and Indian associations, Florida wars, and forced removal culminated in a Mexican borderlands mosaic incorporating slave hunters, corrupt Indian agents, Texas filibusters, Mexican revolutionaries, French invaders, Apache and Comanche raiders, frontier outlaws and lawmen, and Buffalo Soldiers. What emerges is a saga of enslavement, flight, exile, and ultimately freedom.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 218-237) and index.