The Buffalo Soldiers
by Herman J. Viola, indiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas (p.53-55).
(Unidentified buffalo soldier, between 1860-1870).
Plains Indians coined the nickname “buffalo soldiers” to identify the Black troopers who manned several of the military garrisons in the American West after the Civil War. It is believed the term originated with the Cheyenne Indians—others say it was the Comanche—who saw a similarity between the curly, black hair and dark skin of the soldiers and the shoulder hair and coloration of the bison, the cultural heart of the Plains people. Since tribes admired the stamina, strength, and courage of the bison, identifying the Black troopers as “buffalo soldiers was in no way meant to be derogatory.
A bison is the dominant feature of the regimental crest of the 10th Cavalry, one of the six all-Black regiments formed in the regular U.S Army after the Civil War. The others were the 9th Cavalry and the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st regiments—each containing about 1,000 soldiers, most of them Civil War veterans. In 1869, the Army reorganized the four Black infantry regiments into two: the 24th and 25th infantries. The term “buffalo soldiers” eventually came to identity all African American soldiers, who continued to serve in segregated units until the Korean War.
The original Black regiments—usually commanded by white officers—served at variety of posts across the American West and earned an exemplary record for bravery and devotion to duty. Whereas desertion was endemic in the peacetime army, it was almost unknown in the Black units, despite their serving in some of the most inhospitable parts of the country and enduring discrimination and racism both within the military and in nearby white communities.
Often divided into small detachments stationed at isolated posts, including Fort Sill (Oklahoma), Fort Leavenworth (Kansas), and Fort Clark (Texas), the lives of the buffalo soldiers were far from romantic. They performed routine garrison chores, patrolled empty wastelands, built roads, mapped vast areas of the Southwest, strung hundreds of miles of telegraph lines, escorted mail coaches, and handled a variety of other often mundane and thankless civil and military tasks. One such little-known was to serve as the nation’s first “park rangers.” At the turn of the twentieth century buffalo soldiers stationed in California patrolled and protected the newly established Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. But they also participated in most of the major frontier military campaigns of the period and distinguished themselves in battle against the Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, and Lakota Indians. Thirteen enlisted men and six officers from these four regiments earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for their actions during these bitter engagements.
The irony, of course, is that one abused minority helped crush another, and both were victims of racism in America. Romantic legend prefers that the Black soldiers sympathized with their dark-skinned adversaries and exercised restraint in combat, but little evidence supports the reality. The buffalo soldiers wore their uniforms with pride. As veterans of the Civil War, they were soldiers first and showed little mercy to their enemies of the battlefield. On the other hand, many of the Black soldiers remained in the West after completing their tours of duty. Given that both groups were racially excluded from socializing with their predominately white neighbors, intermarriage between buffalo soldiers and their former Indian adversaries became commonplace. Many of the Black soldiers—some of whom were descendants of slaves owned by members of the Five Civilized Tribes—already shared Indian blood and so were often welcomed into nearby tribal communities. Today, in fact, many Native Americans boast of having a “buffalo soldier” in their ancestry.
Source: loc.gov
Scull Shoals (vicinity), Greene County, Georgia. Farmer Frank Barnett and his son with their team of oxen. They are part Black and part Cherokee Indian.
From the Library of Congress
Source: loc.gov
In the century following Columbus’s landing, millions of Native Americans died from a combination of European diseases, harsh treatment, and murder. Africans took their places in the mines and fields of the New World. The 80 million Native Americans alive in 1492 became only 10 million alive a century later. But the 10,000 Africans working in the Americas in 1527 had, by the end of the century, become 90,000 people.
These figures are even more striking within local areas. In 1519 when Spaniards arrived, Mexico had a population of 25 million Indians. By the end of the century only a million were still alive. The invader calculated that more profit would be made if laborers were worked to death and replaced. In their plans, pain and suffering did not count, and no cruelty was considered excessive.
Out of the shifting labor forces, a new population emerged of mixed Africans and Native Americans. By 1650, Mexico alone had an African-Indian population (some with white ancestry) of one hundred thousand. A new race was being born.
… The two peoples began to discover they shared some vital views of life. Family was of basic importance to both, with children and the elderly treasured. Religion was a daily part of cultural life, not merely practiced on Sundays. Both Africans and Native Americans found they shared a belief of economic cooperation rather than competition and rivalry. Each race was proud, but neither was weighed down by prejudice. Skill, friendship, and trust, not skin color or race were important. Since Indians willingly adopted people into their villages, Africans found they were welcome. — William Loren Katz, excerpt from Black Indians
Source: sunra
Cedric Sunray: Racist tendencies common in too many tribes
Last month’s racially motivated killings in Oklahoma, perpetrated by Cherokee Indian Jake England and his white roommate against members of North Tulsa’s Black community, once again bring to light the prejudicial tendencies held by many in our Indian communities.
This reality is the literal “Negro Elephant in the Room,” which many tribal communities attempt to pass off as issues of sovereignty, enrollment decision making, “and, well we had it as bad as them” rhetoric. However, the real effect is that our children grow up in environments where tribal governments and tribal members broadcast their racist ideologies — such as in the more recent case of the Cherokee Freedmen — to an audience of young people who are not provided with the full histories and realities of their historical connections to the Black community. I have seen one too many times where the half-Black grandchildren of Indian people are even marginalized by their own Indian families or are viewed as the “lone exception” to their prejudicial leanings due to their blood connection. In 1978, Terry Anderson and Kirke Kickingbird were hired by the National Congress of American Indians to research the issue of federal recognition and present a paper on their findings to the National Conference on Federal Recognition which was being held in Nashville, Tennessee. Their paper, “An Historical Perspective on the Issue of Federal Recognition and Non-recognition” closed with the following statement,
“The reasons that are usually presented to withhold recognition from tribes are 1) that they are racially tainted with the blood of African tribes-men or 2) greed, for newly recognized tribes will share in the appropriations for services given to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The names of justice, mercy, sanity, common sense, fiscal responsibility, and rationality can be presented just as easily on the side of those advocating recognition.”
Source: 64.38.12.138
rip don littlecloud.
The man in this picture, taken at a powwow a few years ago, is Seminole indian Don Littlecloud. He passed away this weekend after a battle with cancer.
(via karnythia)
Source: deluxvivens
Source: jalwhite
Afro-Cherokee
This is Mr. Frank Barnett, an African-American and part Cherokee in Scull Shoals, Georgia. He would still qualify for membership as a Cherokee today, given his DNA.
Source: Library of Congress, public domain, photo by Frank Delano, 1941.
Source: anthrocivitas.net
