Prologue

From 1776 to the closing of the Texas frontier in the 1880s, the Black Seminoles played a fascinating, at times paradoxical role in American history. As quasi-free African Americans, they often found themselves in armed conflict with a country that was the cradle of world liberty. From the Revolutionary War through the age of Andrew Jackson, they opposed the United States through violence, rebellion, and sometimes terror. In the 1840s they became allies of the U.S. Army in Oklahoma and Florida, but the partnership could not protect them. Ultimately, the twin tides of "Manifest Destiny" and slavery forced the black rebels to seek freedom in Mexico.