New Horizon

The day after the crossing, the Black Seminoles and their Indian allies headed for Piedras Negras, to present themselves to the Mexican commander. As they rode across the plains that morning, freedom was in their grasp. It had been a long journey. In the group that day were refugees from the plantations of Georgia and South Carolina, free-born "Seminole Negroes" from Florida, women who had sheltered families through two wars, veterans who had killed U.S. soldiers in battle and befriended them in peace. There were youths who could dimly recall Florida, and younger children who knew only the turmoil of the Indian Territory. 

That morning, a new horizon opened before them all, a land of deserts, mountains, unknown friends and unforeseen enemies. Would this new land be a cradle of freedom, or merely another place-of-exile?