Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C14433
Notes:
Published for the World Bank, Washington, D.C., Chapter 12 in Michael M. Cernea (ed.), Putting people first: sociological variables in rural development. Oxford University Press, New York/London. 430 pages.
Provides information on the significance of the Underground Railroad, which carried slaves to freedom across the Rio Grande from Mexico. Overview of slavery in Mexico and Texas; Slave ownership in the United States; Demographic information on Texas; Informal network of transportation for the Black Seminoles and other Indians;
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
246 p., Under the brilliant leadership of the charismatic John Horse, a band of black runaways, in alliance with Seminole Indians under Wild Cat, migrated from the Indian Territory to northern Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century to escape from slavery. These maroons subsequently provided soldiers for Mexico's frontier defense and later served the United States Army as the renowned Seminole Negro Indian Scouts. This is the story of the maroons' ethnogenesis in Florida, their removal to the West, their role in the Texas Indian Wars, and the fate of their long quest for freedom and self-determination along both sides of the Rio Grande. Their tale is a rich and colorful one, and one of epic proportions, stretching from the swamps of the Southeast to the desert Southwest. The maroons' history of African origins, plantation slavery, European and Indian associations, Florida wars, and forced removal culminated in a Mexican borderlands mosaic incorporating slave hunters, corrupt Indian agents, Texas filibusters, Mexican revolutionaries, French invaders, Apache and Comanche raiders, frontier outlaws and lawmen, and Buffalo Soldiers.