The Black Seminole Scouts and Their Cemetery Near Brackettville

The Black Seminole scouts were recruited beginning in 1870 from a community of people who had mixed Seminole and African ancestry. They had fled to Mexico from the U.S. to escape slave hunters, then returned to work as scouts for the Army. From 1873 to 1881 they conducted 26 campaigns under Lt. John Lapham Bullis. According to the Handbook of Texas, they never lost a man killed or wounded in those actions.

Four scouts received the Medal of Honor: Adam Paine, Pompey Factor, Isaac Payne, and John Ward. When the Army disbanded the scouts in 1914, their community moved into Brackettville. The Seminole Negro Indian Scout Cemetery, located west of Fort Clark, is where those four Medal of Honor recipients are buried. The National Park Service also documents this history as part of the Amistad National Recreation Area's broader context.