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EDITORIAL FULD COPY
by
Mrs. Florenae Aagermiller, P.N.
Indians Tribal remnants 223
KINICY COUNTYt DISTRICT /15
:01:ANNA JULY kN WOW HORSKHRE
One of tbs most interesting characters of the so -sailed
smainole tribe to over cross the border from Mexico was Johanna
July, a horsebreaker. She same across to Eagle Paso with her
family as members of the be who signed a contract in '71 with
Major Perry of the U. 9. Arny to help clear the Texas side of the
Rio Grande of depredating Indigos.
This tribe of Seminole Indians was a mixture of the semlnols
Indians with the Negro. Fleeing from Florida after the seminole
a number of Negro slaves same with the Indians into Mexico.
fl‘ter crossing into mexioo they become so thorough in clearing
their territory of the marauders, their fame spread into the U.S.
which prompted the invitation from the army. They were first
brought across the Rio Grande to Fort Duncan at Lagle Pass, then
to Port Clark at Braokettville, where a treat of land was assigned
them to live on adjoining the post.
iohonna was a colorful girl, whose Indian blood was dominant.
Her love of horses, her wily and daring ways, her bright dresses
and ornaments were that of an Indian. Her quick, darting eyes,
aquiline nose, thin lips and high cheek bones showed more Indian
blood than Negro.
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Her horsemanShip was her Pride. Being practically forced
into the job of breaking horses after her father died and her
brother "runned away," Zohanna lived the life of a carefree Indian
boy. 3he scorned saddle, preferring to rid* bareback and side-'
ways.
"I couldn't ride a hoes like dey do dese days," she said. "I
couldn't straddle 'en. I didn't use no bridle either, Just a rope
around deir nooks and looped over de nose. We called it a 'noun.'
•D% e as a half-hitch. Old men hdam Wilson learnea as how to ride.
He was an old scout. Hight today I don't like a saddle an' I
don't like shoes. I Can sure get over de ground barefooted."
As a girl, Johann* wee not required to do a roman's work about
the place. Her meals were always reedy for her end her clothes
were washed. Her Job was to break horses, take them to water, out
grass for them, look after the other stock and ride, ride, rids.
Dressed in a bright homespun dress, ropes of beads around her
slender neck, long gold earrings nearly touching her shoulders,
her hair in thick, bleak braids and her feet bare, she fleshed
among her horses like a bright bird, soothing them with a masterful
hand and soft words. A shuck cigarette of Black Horse tobnceo
between her tips, Zohenne rods as well as a boy, her eye always
quisk and her senses alert.
The horses were there to break and Johanna, being dextrous
and nimble, W'S quite able to acaomplish the task, though she
devised her own means of doing so.
"1 could break a hoes myself, me and ay Land," she declared
Indian ?rib*]. remnants 333 Page 3
soberly. "many a narrow scroll* I've been through rid horns and
mules. I'll tell you how I broke my hosses. I would pull off my
clothse and get into de clothes I intended to baths in and I would
lend 'ea right into de io Grande and Keep tem in dere till dey
got pretty well worried. Chen dey was wild, wild, I would lead
elm down to de river and get 'in out in water where he couLdn't
stem' up and I would swim up mod get 'in by de mono an' ease up on
'i.e. He couldn't pitch and when I did let 'in out of det deep water
he didn't wont to pitch.. Sometimes dey wasn't a, wore out an'
would toke a running spree old me when dey not out in shallow water
where dey could get deir feet on de ground, end dey would run clear
up into de corral. But I was young and I was havin, a good time.
"I was used to hard ridint. I've been shooed by de Indiana.
On. day it wogs cloudy and I went out to out hay for de hoaxes, and
as de Laud should have it, I got so sleepy I said, '9upiose I lay
down here an' take myself a nap ma* don finish outtin* my hay,'
but I thought 'No, 1 better go on and out my hay,' an' about den,
I seen de flosses gettint nervous an* dey had deir sera up lookin0
at somet'ing on' actin' scored. I had a big bay an' I could wall
'be up to me so I hollered to 'La, 'Come Bill, eons BIM' An*
all de houses coma running. I jumped on a little grey hose named
Charley, ant when I out my *ye arount here oons a Indian in full
gallop, leanino over on his hoes, en' I started runnin* an' run
elsar by do army post, me and all dem houses. Ms post sent the
scout out and dey took up de trail. Doy was two Indians ant day
followed *em clear into Mexieo and brought ess bock. But det didn't
break me. I was always out wid dem bosses."
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Johanna knee nothing of housekeeping, sewing or cooking,
when, at eighteen, she married a Seminole scout named Lesley. Her
life had been es free and untamed as e bird's. The could Judge
a horse's age, endurance end speed, she knew where the eagles nested
and the coyote kept her whelps and she mould point out the dark
pools where the yellowy set fed in the Rio Grande.
Put that ',Isn't the knowledge she neeed when she married the
scout who brought her to live et Fort Clerk away from the Rio Grande
and her homes. However, she tried herd to be a dutiful wife.
There were dnys when she ntteepted to sew and the thread knotted,
the meterial wee cut mane end the whole gerrent wouldn't fit. She
scorched her beans and rice, fmt the stew too dry and forgot to
pt the corn to soak. The hushend oeme in with herah words, and
e hart net. Instead of the kindness she had known, she was in-
troduced to a lire that seemed more like a prisoner's. At length,
her tears dried and her ounning brain began to deliberete on escape.
The WPP not empricious for life in the open had ;vetoers° her to
face frets with an open mind, and her grief was genuine.
Thus, her fearlessness and endurance wercl, to be nut to the
test. particulerly stormy eneounter with her husbend one
day, in whloh sha felt that hie oruelty had pesaed the limit of
her endurance, she slipped quietly fro4 tne house and stole into
a neighbor's field where a work horse was kept. Hewing no rope,
she Vok a snail, worn pocketknife she carried and out strips of
/Os. (Spanish dagger) into strings and mode a rope. As she rode
out from the post toward lingle Pass where her mother wee living,
Indian Tribal remnants 22. Page 5
she hemrd the onion fire pt sunset.
"I couldn't get dnt old oony out of n trot," she remembers,
"nnd I rods dPt forty-five miles tint night. As I got to Fort Duiv.
*en I hemrd Is sentry enll out, 'our o'clock an' all is well!'
know I s id to myself, 'All mpy be well, but don't feel so well
eftr dis ride!' I met two botches .of men an' I guess day tole I
wPs n Aomon "esuw dey horrd me tPlk. Dey tole me, ':ho comes
dore, end L said, 'Frion:' yen de y said, 'Iher you handed for?'
end T tolo Irort Dunopn," en' day let me naafi en' didn't offer
hurt me. I guess dey r,q4 rnngers. :,)(1 next bunch I iot ens
n vAlle rrosa ue 9urt. Ofici didn't wreak en' didn't either.
"7 TIOV-P A.0 6,o beet; t4 '11. Re comm town dere three or four
ZiA041 tu t MO but I wouldn't eo. de oLot oit um two diffrent
1-.11es out he eied as, den he tried to rove me, but de Lewd rtxed
it so my writs too 1,Av tad de rope went over. I flot to Ce brush
r,n1 he rievr COUit. find me. fle would hpvo kiLled me, Fin' 1'knowed
It:
"'fter he died I merried twice mo'. I helped my last husband
briar% houses an' mules. 1 'member one bpd mule. Ho wns the mean-
est one ever hod auy dealin'a old. He wns 'hip-shotten.' I had
to tie his gcod iront leg to his good back leg en', don't you know,
he'd oK.teh me by uu clothes and toss me cud ehpke me if he could
get, hold of me. I never did break Imo I got efraid of olm. I've
had some nvful serapes. L hunted and trapped wid my lms' husband
Pnd sold mpny a hide. I could f --et out end out a cord and a half of
wood, easy. Down hire on de Fedillas rani& I've had mules run away
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'id me en' sometimes tenr de wegon to pies...
"EgT 1-st husband we been deed eight years now. My first
husbend was wo mann to me I ?appose ant wee why de Lewd fixed it
so I didn't divogce vim ant he didn't diva's. me, en' now whet lit-
tle breed I'm letting, I'm f!etting it right off of him."
Johanna lives on s hill in the northerst 'mart of Brackett-
vale. The, like the others who were moved from tho post, resents
the government's hewing moved them from kart Clerk. With only two
of the orIginel se,nuts who signed the contrnct still livin7, end
only three or the oldest women who were wives or sisters of the
ftret leouts, it would seem %het the government had folfilled its
controst with them long end well.
,cettve and rutthl t Sohe no moves 1011nt hnr smell
piece on tho hill, tenting s gerden, keeping house, glidinc ovcr
to roes berefiotoo ant rollisr her cigarettes with n steady
hand.
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