Essays

Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado

Black Cowboys
November 12, 2003

Last month, as I passed through Colorado City on the way to a biological survey on the Native Prairies of Texas Association's Maddin Prairie, I spent ten minutes roaming around the east side of town looking for remnants of cattle pens built in the 1880s. Around the little park and fairgrounds area I found some old posts that might have dated back that far. I would like to think so, because my grandfather might have leaned against those same posts 95 years ago, loading up cattle from Bull Shannon's place down near San Angelo.

I have been learning what might be termed "underhistory." The official history of the Llano Estacado is written from the Anglo perspective. In old diaries, old army reports, and as casual mention in the more official histories, a researcher can find mention of the exploits and successes of black and Mexican pioneers of the area. O.W. Williams, John Cook, and Frank Collingsworth all wrote of their experiences on the Llano Estacado, and often commented on the services of these “minority” individuals. Until recently, historians have not paid much attention to the subject.

My grandfather is another source. Sitting on my bookshelf is his memoirs. In the late 1940s my father asked his father and mother to write down about their early years. In 1990, my father carefully transcribed and annotated their memoirs, then my mother had it professionally bound. I recently picked up the volume and reread it for the first time since then. As I read, I recognized the name Payne – Isaac Payne won a Medal of Honor fighting Indians in west Texas.

In the 1870s, Isaac Payne, a Seminole Negro, served with Captain John Bullis’ scouting troop in west Texas, northern Mexico, and eastern New Mexico. When the Seminoles were sent to Oklahoma from Florida along with them were several hundred black freedmen, who had escaped slavery, and lived with the Seminoles in the Everglades swamps. Some of the Seminoles and black Seminoles went on to Mexico not long after being brought to Oklahoma. Wanting to preserve their culture, they sought a place where they were not forced to go to church and school. (Like the church of my great-great-grandfather.) The United States Army asked these black Seminole residents of northern Mexico in the late 1860s to serves as scouts for the buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. The Mexican army had already used them in that capacity for almost twenty years. Seminole Draw (south of Seminole, Texas) was named for the scouts by Colonel John Shafter.

My great-grandmother on my grandmother’s side was born in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in 1846, and grew up speaking Creek and Seminole. She was often used as an interpreter during any dealings between those tribes and the federal government. The tribes had their own government and police force. My great-grandmother had been a classmate with many tribal members in her father’s school. In her adult years, affluent Indians and Seminole blacks had nice houses, drove fine surreys and buggies with matched teams, and dressed in suits. Before statehood changed things in Oklahoma (for the worst for many of my family’s friends), the chief of the Seminoles was Alice B. Davis, one of my great-grandmother’s best friends.

After the end of the civil war, and slavery was ended, many of the Seminoles and Seminole Negroes asked to come back to Oklahoma from Northern Mexico. My great-grandfather was one of the soldiers that escorted them on their return. He then ran a store in Wewoka, Oklahoma until 1905. By the turn of the century both he and my great-grandmother were officially adopted as members of the Seminole tribe in recognition of their lifelong honorable dealings with the people.

Thanks to marrying my grandmother with all of her connections to the Seminoles, my grandfather began leasing Seminole lands in Oklahoma in 1898. He looked after cattle of Texas ranchers who sent them to him to fatten up before selling them. West Texas ranchers learned of his operation from their cowboys – Seminole Negro cowboys who would visit family around Wewoka. Although many of the Seminole Negro scouts retired around Fort Clark near Brackettville, Texas, some had joined relatives in Oklahoma. Their sons got cowboy jobs because of the connections formed in the 1870s, after growing up trading with my great-grandfather.

Over the last 120 years, black cowboys have not been an uncommon sight in West Texas. For example, for years west Texas ranchers of the mid-to-late 1900s respected the work of Blas Payne, great grandson of Isaac Payne. Blas cowboyed for ranches all over Trans-Pecos Texas. In the 1980s I sat in the roadside park in Madera Canyon in the Davis Mountains and shot the bull with Mr. Payne, unaware of my grandfather’s connections with his family, as he told me a little about his family's history.

The segundo of the LFD ranch east of the Pecos River in Lea County area in the 1880s was Mr. Add, Addison Jones. Some of his crew were black Seminoles. When he married, all the cattlemen of the region bought him and his new wife things they thought Mr. and Mrs. Jones might need. (He got 19 cast iron cookstoves – they had neglected to confer.) A cowboy song was written about his knowledge of cattle brands. During roundups, when the pool wagons were out on the Querecho Plains west of Maljamar, his word was final about any questionable markings. He knew hundreds of horses, not only by name, but also by their individual character. He nicknamed every waddy (cowboy) that worked on the LFD.

In 1882, C.C. Slaughter held the largest roundup (over 100,000 head) ever along the headwaters of the Colorado River. I found a story in "The Trail Drivers of Texas" about a horse that could cut cattle out of the herd without his African-American rider touching the reins. The horse's name was Old Pompey, named for Pompey Factor, who also won a Medal of Honor at the same time as Isaac Payne.

On the east side of Colorado City, just south of the cemetery, is the Wallace School. It is named for 80 John Wallace, a black rancher whose heirs still own ranchland in Mitchell County that Joe and Dalton Maddox have leased for years. I have roamed that country with the Maddox family many times.

My grandfather fattened Texas cattle in Oklahoma for 15 years -- not only west Texas cattle from Bull Shannon and Ira Yates, but also stock from the King Ranch near Brownsville and the Waggoner Ranch near Wichita Falls. He then ranched in Canada for another 15 years. In the last decade of his life he and my grandmother lived with my parents here in Midland. During the late forties and early fifties he sometimes went down to the McElroy ranch to go around with Cliff Newland. Mr. Newland, although getting up in years, still put in a day's work for Buck Kelton, checking fence and waterings. The two men would talk about the early days, having known in common many of the first west Texas cowboys. I am glad that my father, upon hearing their "palavering," asked my grandfather to write down some of those stories.

Historians do not often pay attention to the stories of human connection between people that never were renown -- however, those unnoticed connections actually play a major role in determining what happens at any given time. Hollywood's depiction of shoot-em up cowboys has rarely hinted at the truth of history. There were over 6000 black cowboys in the late 1800s. My grandfather wrote in his memoirs, "it did not matter what color of skin a cowboy had, or how much education he had, or what country he was from -- if he could do the work, he was an equal on the early-day cattle ranges of the southwestern United States."