11/10/2021
The United States encompasses a vast land populated by people deeply connected Native cultures. November is Native American Heritage Month, and the Network to Freedom Program is eager to share connections between the Underground Railroad movement and Native Americans.
The Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery, recognized as a site in the Network to Freedom Program, is located outside the small town of Brackettville, Texas. Black Seminoles, including freedom seekers who had joined the community traveled on the Trail of Tears from Florida to Oklahoma in the early 1840s. Pressure from the Creek to enslave the Black Seminoles when they arrived in Indian Territory led them to seek freedom in Mexico, where the settled in Coahuila in the early 1850s. Subsequently, the Black Seminoles played a major role in US Army campaigns in the Texas borderlands between 1870 and 1914. Generations of Black Seminole families, including several freedom seekers and four Medal of Honor recipients, are buried in the cemetery and it has become a pilgrimage site for descendants. Today, descendants still actively take care of this cemetery, share the histories of their ancestors, and honor their heritage.
In our fifth episode of the Ranger Roadshow, Windy Goodloe and other Black Seminole descendants of the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts share the story of their ancestors: from the ethnogenesis of the Black Seminole people to how descendants commemorate their ancestors today.
To view this Ranger Roadshow episode, please follow this link: https://go.nps.gov/rr5
Photo Credit: Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association
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