Henry A. Doerr, San Antonio, Texas. Circa 1870s.

Stereoview of a thatched dwelling at the Black Seminole camp near Fort Clark. Upright wooden poles form the front wall beneath a broad roof, with low stone walls enclosing the adjoining ground. A smaller roofed structure stands beside the house, and a line hung with cloth extends toward a tree. The open yard occupies much of the foreground.

The yellow mount bears Doerr’s ornate backmark, with two cherubs and a camera above “Henry A. Doerr, Photographic Artist, New Masonic Building, San Antonio, Texas.” A pencil inscription identifies the scene as “Seminole-Negro Camp / Fort Clark Texas.”

The Black Seminole community at Fort Clark emerged from a long struggle to secure freedom and a permanent home. Its origins lay among people of African descent who escaped slavery and established communities alongside the Seminoles in Spanish Florida. Forced west during Indian Removal, many remained vulnerable to kidnapping and reenslavement in Indian Territory. In 1850, a group led by John Horse and the Seminole chief Coacoochee, or Wild Cat, sought refuge in Mexico, where they served as frontier defenders. Beginning in 1870, some returned to the United States to enlist in the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts; scouts and their families began transferring from Fort Duncan to Fort Clark in 1872.

At Fort Clark, the families built thatched jacal houses and constructed dams and irrigation works along Las Moras Creek. This view documents the domestic community that sustained the scouts’ military service. Under Lieutenant John L. Bullis, the men became valued trackers, guides, and combatants in the Army’s campaigns along the border. Four—Adam Paine, Isaac Payne, John Ward, and Pompey Factor—received the Medal of Honor. Yet military distinction brought little lasting security: efforts to obtain title to their land failed, and the unit’s dissolution in 1914 displaced the remaining community from the post. Many settled nearby in Brackettville, where their descendants have preserved Black Seminole traditions.