The Seminole Freedmen, A History by Kevin Mulroy (review)

Phillips have, among others, contributed outstanding monographs about various aspects of the black military experience in the West. Edited by Bruce A. Glasrud and Michael N. Searles, Buffalo Soldiers in the West stands alongside these influential books by making some of the best scholarly articles on the subject more accessible to modern readers. In selecting and organizing these seventeen essays, all published between 1972 and 1999, the editors have done well. They have elected to limit each author to only a single article , a reflection of the overall vitality of the field. Particularly important is Glasrud’s thorough review of the literature, first published in 1999 and now completely updated to reflect more recent trends. The remaining essays are evenly grouped into four categories: officers and troops, the soldiers, discrimination and violence, and community. A brief introduction accompanies each group. The categories themselves are further indication of how far the scholarship has come. As was the case with the more general fields of African American and Latino histories, initial writers focused largely on documenting the rich histories and contributions of the black regulars, with ample discussion given to the problems caused by racial discrimination. From these necessary foundations, subsequent historians began linking African American soldiers to larger themes, most particularly the relations between white officers and black enlisted men, the dynamic interplay between the regulars and Indians, Hispanics, and whites in the West, and the roles of these soldiers in building and shaping the larger western communities in which they lived. Moreover, many works have demonstrated that neither the West—nor the nation-building army—ceased with the much vaunted “close” of the frontier in 1890. Happily, all of these themes are represented in the present anthology. Many of the essays reprinted here are of special value to historians of Texas and the greater Southwest. Thus Paul Carlson’s pioneering work on black soldiers and the opening of the Llano Estacado is joined by another early essay by Bruce Dinges on the court-martial of Lt. Henry O. Flipper. Garna L. Christian and C. Calvin Smith assess civil-military relations in Rio Grande City and Houston, respectively. Horace Daniel Nash examines the activities of black garrisons in shaping Columbus, New Mexico, and Thomas A. Britten discusses the Seminole-Negro scouts in the Big Bend. Citations accompanying each of the original articles have also been incorporated. An excellent bibliography of secondary materials on the black military experience in the American West rounds out this most fitting tribute to the soldiers themselves, as well as to the historians who have sought to better understand their roles in shaping our nation. Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi Robert Wooster The Seminole Freedmen, A History. By Kevin Mulroy. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. Pp. 478. Illustrations, maps, charts, notes, bibliography , index. ISBN 978-0-80613-865-7. $36.95, cloth.) In this detailed, exhaustively researched study, Kevin Mulroy, associate executive director for Research Collections and Services at the University of Southern 2009 Book Reviews 333 *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 333 California Libraries, examines African American people associated with the Seminole tribe of Oklahoma. He traces their history from the time when their forbears , having run away from slavery in Georgia, South Carolina, or elsewhere in the Old South, joined Seminole groups in Florida, sometimes as slaves to Seminoles, but in a slave-master relationship that allowed plenty of independence, and sometimes as neighbors and associates of the Seminoles, themselves a unique group, to the present day. The major emphasis, however, is on the nineteenth century , and nearly a quarter of the book is given over to notes and bibliography. The Seminole freedmen, or maroons, Mulroy argues, were not black Indians. They were descendants of fugitive slaves, and, although closely associated with the Florida Indians, they developed cultures, societies, languages, and community organizations different from the Seminoles. They fought in each of the three Seminole Wars, went to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) during the period of Indian Removal, and established several small agricultural communities in their new homeland. Seminole freedmen participated in the Civil War, mainly on the Union side, and suffered at the hands of some Indian Territory groups that fought...