He was one of the scouts whose tracking contributed to the discovery of the encampment and whose work at the canyon contributed to the operation’s success.

The presence of Black Seminole Scouts — men whose own community had experienced forced removal and military campaigns aimed at controlling Indigenous and free Black populations in Florida and later Texas — in an operation that was itself a forced removal campaign, is one of the historical ironies of the Red River War.

The Long Arc Of The Decision

When Mackenzie ordered the horses driven south of the canyon and then shot, he was implementing a decision whose consequences would extend for generations.

The immediate consequence was the material.