The account of the Black Seminoles in Texas begins in Florida. Slavery had been abolished in Spanish Florida since the late 1600s and the area became a refuge for freed as well as fugitive slaves. Though some were taken as slaves by the Native tribes that resided there, those of African descent are generally believed to have interacted peacefully with the native tribes, with some amount of intermarriage and more significantly, the adoption of the tribal ways and customs. The people known as Seminoles are sometimes referred to as being a conglomeration of a number of tribes living in the area, including the Creek Tribe, although the Creek Tribe is also usually referred to separately. Tribes included the Lower Creeks, Mikusukis and Apalachicola, among others and they are believed to have migrated there from the areas now represented by the states of Georgia and Alabama.
Category: medal of honor
Jack Lummus, Medal of Honor Recipient
Jack Lummus was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. According to a May, 1945 newspaper report based upon an interview with a fellow Marine, 1st Lt. Lummus was killed while leading an infantry and tank attack on the island on March 8, 1945.
Major Horace S. Carswell
The former Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth was named for Horace Seaver Carswell, a Medal of Honor winner from North Texas.
(Image credit: Findagrave)
Audie Murphy, a Texas Hero
Audie Leon Murphy was born in the village of Kingston, Hunt County, Texas (north of Greenville) in 1925 to Emmett Berry and Josie Bell Killian Murphy, a family of sharecroppers. Audie was the sixth of twelve children. His father abandoned the family when Audie was eight and his mother died when he was a teenager. Audie dropped out of school at the elementary level, in order to help support his family. Looking at this humble resume, not much would have been expected of him.
TEXAS HISTORY NOTEBOOK 