Joi is Black, but she told me her great-great-grandmother was Seminole.
“I’m interested in learning more about their culture because it’s a part of our culture, too,” she said.
Some who were attending the event had no previous knowledge of Black Seminoles or their history.
“This is my first time hearing about the Black Seminoles,” says one father of four. “I figured it would be a really good cultural lesson for our kids to learn.”
Windy Goodloe. Manoo Sirivelu/KUT News
So who are the Black Seminoles?
“Black Seminoles were Africans who held onto their Africanness, but also were culturally Native American in a lot of ways,” says Windy Goodloe.
Goodloe is the secretary of the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association (SISCA) in Brackettville, TX. She’s in Austin with Corina Torralba, SISCA treasurer, to celebrate Juneteenth with Tacos of Texas host Mando Rayo. The three of them first met in 2023 when Rayo traveled to Brackettville and Nacimiento, Coahuila, Mexico when he traced the foodways of Black Seminoles in Texas.
Goodloe and Torralba – both Black Seminole – aren’t strangers to sharing information about their heritage. The two met fifteen years ago, when Torralba traveled to Brackettville to the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery to find her grandfather’s grave. Only then was Torralba formerly introduced to a name for her heritage.
Corina Torralba Harrington. Manoo Sirivelu/KUT News
“My grandfathers on both my mom and dad’s side were both Black Seminole,” she explains. “But we didn’t know ‘Seminole’, we just knew we were part Black.”
In northern Mexico, one of the locations Black Seminoles fled to escape slavery, Torralba’s family would be referred to as mascogos. “Mascogo” is the Spanish word for a descendant of Black Seminoles.
Mascogos celebrate Juneteenth, better known as Día de los Negros or Diecenueve, just like Black Seminoles in the United States. Black Seminoles are predominantly located in Oklahoma, Florida, the Bahamas, and, of course, Texas.
Though their population stretches across the country and transcends borders, the ethnic group is held together by their distinct subculture, celebrations, and even their own language: Afro-Seminole Creole.
