“We go to war with Spain in 1898 to conquer Cuba and Puerto Rico, and eventually, that culminates in one of the most famous battles of American military history, the Battle at San Juan Hill,” Millner said.īlack soldiers made up about 3,000 men, or 13 percent of the U.S. intervened in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. The explosion of an American battleship, the U.S.S. Maine, in Havana’s harbor roused public support for war. Perhaps the best example of this crossing-out of Black stories comes from the Spanish-American War, the documentary points out, when the U.S. “And so, as a consequence, when we tell our stories, we leave the Black stories out, and the Buffalo Soldiers were a perfect example of that,” he said. The first part of the Buffalo Soldiers’ story takes place in the West, as the United States expanded into Indigenous lands. In the narrative of American history, the West has always been this mythical and symbolic place in which heroic deeds were done, and being capable of great deeds was not something that society was willing to admit that Black people were capable of doing, said Darrell Millner, emeritus professor of Black Studies at Portland State University. “They all came to the conclusion that if you fight for the country, you should be a full-fledged citizen. That’s what drove Buffalo Soldiers to fight even knowing that the United States might not honor that promise.” The nickname soon became synonymous with all African-American regiments formed in 1866.īut the Native population didn’t necessarily see the Buffalo Soldiers as heroes, said Professor Quintard Taylor, Ph.D., University of Washington. The indigenous populations who fought against these soldiers referred to the Black cavalry troops as “buffalo soldiers” because of their dark curly hair, which they felt resembled a buffalo’s coat, and fierce fighting nature. The now little-known history of the Buffalo Soldiers stretches from what came to be known as the Indian Wars in the late 19th century through the end of racial segregation in the U.S.
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