There were black slave owners and plantation owners in the south, blacks sold other blacks into slavery in Africa and other places and blacks killed Indians here in the USA, there were even black units fighting for the confederacy.

Stop acting innocent, they play victim a lot, when in reality they had a part in ALL of it, or nearly so..truncated, posted this stuff repeatedly but as everyone is so dainty little innocent things....yeah right..

Buffalo Soldiers in The Guadalupe Mountains

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Living history demonstration recreating scenes of Buffalo Soldiers camped at the Guadalupe Mountains in the late 1870s

NPS Photo

While the story of the Buffalo Soldiers is one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the Guadalupe Mountains, it is also the most tragic. Immediately following the Civil War, the Guadalupe Mountains witnessed a clash of cultures as recently freed African Americans serving in the U.S. Army engaged the Mescalero Apaches in an effort to bring about settlement of the West. It was a fight for freedom on both sides. The African American soldiers known as the "Buffalo Soldiers" were fighting to obtain a freedom they had never known, while the Apaches were fighting to hold on to a freedom they had always had.

African Americans fought and died with Washington's troops in the American Revolution, and again to repel British invasion in the war of 1812. During the Civil War nearly 180,000 African Americans served in the Union Army, with over 33,000 giving their lives for the Union and their freedom.

On July 28, 1866, after the conclusion of the Civil War, Congress provided legislation for African Americans to serve in the regular peacetime military. Six segregated units were created, two cavalry (the Ninth and Tenth), and four infantry (the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-first). The infantry regiments were later consolidated into two units, the Twenty-forth and Twenty-fifth. These black regiments were all commanded by white officers, who often resented their duty.

Although the war against slavery was over, African Americans were far from free. Post Civil War America offered few opportunities and little acceptance. The military provided $13 a month and a chance at building a new life in the aftermath of the war. Many young African American men enlisted in the U.S. Army searching for freedom and an opportunity to make a decent living. What they found was more discrimination and persecution. Ironically, these men were put into service helping the Army to oppress a race of people who had always known freedom.

African American regiments in the U.S. Army consistently received some of the worst duties the Army had to offer. For over two decades the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry campaigned on the Great Plains, along the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, West Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and the Dakotas. The Plains Indians described these dark-skinned, curly-haired warriors as the "Buffalo Soldiers," also referring to the fierce fighting spirit of the buffalo. The black soldiers accepted this title as a badge of honor, even incorporating it into the regimental crest of the Tenth Cavalry.

The Buffalo Soldiers endured unimaginable hardships from the overwhelming heat of the desert to the subfreezing temperatures of winter on the plains. Disease resulting from unsanitary conditions and inadequate provisions claimed the lives of many black soldiers. They fought fierce Indian tribes, Mexican revolutionaries, cattle thieves, and outlaws while constantly receiving inferior horses, supplies, and equipment. They endured long, arduous expeditions over some of the roughest terrain in the country, searching for water sources, and mapping unknown terrain. The only obstacles the Buffalo Soldiers could not overcome were those of prejudice and discrimination.

While black soldiers were fighting Native Americans in the West, African American men, women, and children were still being lynched, segregated, and persecuted in the East. In the West, the Buffalo Soldiers were often viewed with hostility, even by the people of the frontier settlements that their regiments were protecting. This hostility often erupted in violence. Efforts at protecting settlements in hostile territory often went unrewarded and unappreciated.