Dru Holley’s hourlong documentary film about the complicated history and undersung legacy of Buffalo Soldiers in the Pacific Northwest got off to a simple start.
Holley was at a Juneteenth celebration in Seattle with his wife and young daughters when one of the little girls squealed, “Ooh, look! Horseys!”
Holley, a filmmaker, was hungry for bigger, better projects than shooting commercials. He remembers the moment of inspiration vividly: “I turned and saw these brothers galloping up the hill, costumed in these Union outfits, like they were riding straight out of history.”
That’s exactly what they were doing. The Juneteenth celebration was honoring the date (June 19, 1865) when emancipation reached Texas and black slavery ended across America. The riders were re-enacting black soldiers in the U.S. Army in the late 19th century, when all-black regiments were formed and sent to the American West to protect settlers and fight American Indians.
Legend has it that Comanche or Cheyenne warriors started calling those fighters “Buffalo Soldiers” because of their kinky hair — or maybe because of their bison coats, or their fierceness in battle.
Holley found himself fascinated by the subject, and dove right in. He’d recently moved from Colorado to Ridgefield in order to jump-start his film career on the Portland scene, and he was glad to recruit a plugged-in local collaborator in Portland director, producer and actor Jerry Bell Jr. (Bell, who is best known as the “Swiffer dad” in those popular TV commercials, recently finished his own documentary film about Oregon minority winemakers called “Red, White and Black: The Oregon Wine Story.”)
Both men were excited to uncover a little-known slice of black history, and let black voices do the storytelling.
“How cool is it to work with another brother?” Bell said. “There are not a lot of opportunities like that.”
Bell and Holley wound up working on the yearlong project with a crew of about 15 film professionals, plus many more expert interviewees and historical re-enactors. They visited sites all around the West, from Vancouver to Fort Stevens, Ore., to Yosemite National Park where some of the Buffalo Soldiers served as the first National Park rangers.
“Everywhere we went, everybody has been very supportive,” Holley said. Bringing to life an under-told story connecting black people to Pacific Northwest history is a golden opportunity for parks and educators, as well as for this pair of black filmmakers and their community, he said.
“Everybody wants this history to get out,” Bell said.
Invisible
After the Civil War, many freedmen looked to the U.S. Army for steady income, literacy and a whole new way of life. They were sent to the Southwest and Great Plains to help with everything from building roads and protecting westbound settlers to guarding the U.S. Mail.
“The daily work would have ranged from the mundane to the terrifying,” Greg Shine, the former chief ranger and historian for Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, explains in the film. “They were almost like a police force.”
Despite their service, Buffalo Soldiers were still segregated and oppressed by white society.
“Buffalo soldiers were called ‘invisible men of honor,'” Jackie Jones Hook, executive director of the Buffalo Soldiers Museum in Tacoma, says in the film.
There’s no better example of that invisibility than Cathay Williams — and she wasn’t even a man. The former slave, captured early in the Civil War by Union forces in Missouri, was put to work as an Army cook and washerwoman. After the war ended, she enlisted in the Army under the assumed name “William Cathay.”
But within two years of enlisting, the woman masquerading as a man suffered a bout of smallpox, and started faltering in the New Mexico heat. Frequent hospitalizations eventually led to the secret getting revealed, and Williams was discharged — honorably — but then denied a military pension and disability payments. She died in poverty, and her final resting place is unknown.
Black women have had even more barriers to break than black men, members of the nonprofit Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle and Tacoma organization note in the film.
Complicated
The film’s central storyline follows Moses Williams, whose bravery during the late 19th century campaign to force American Indian nations onto reservations underscores how complicated history can be, the filmmakers acknowledged. Williams is portrayed in the film by Geordan Newbill, president of the Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle.
When 21-year-old Williams, the illiterate son of slaves, joined the an all-black Army regiment in Louisiana in 1866, he signed the enlistment form with an “X.” But when Williams re-upped after five years, he signed his full signature on that form.
“Despite … arduous duties and long days in the field, Williams learned the reading, writing, and mathematics skills needed to later become an Ordnance Sergeant,” Williams’ Army service record says.
He was sent to Texas, promoted to sergeant of the 9th Cavalry and then to New Mexico. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, he participated in the war against Warm Springs Apache Chief Victorio and his lieutenant, Nana. On Aug. 16, 1881, Williams rallied his outnumbered troops, bravely led “flanking attacks” against the Apaches and eventually helped rescue several cut-off soldiers by personally drawing enemy fire.
Years later, in 1896, Williams was cited for his “coolness, bravery, and unflinching devotion” when he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
While that’s a celebrated story and beloved of today’s Buffalo Soldier re-enactors and descendants, today’s view of Western settlement has evolved far beyond cowboys and Indians.
“Native Americans don’t necessarily see the Buffalo Soldiers as heroes,” Quintard Taylor, a history professor at the University of Washington, says in the film.
“We’re trying to be as unbiased and transparent as possible,” Bell said. Blacks and Native Americans were both “trying to survive” in a world they didn’t control, he said.
“How far are we going to go down that road?” Holley said. “Far enough to generate dialogue about the reasons why that happened.”
In 1895, Williams became the caretaker and ordnance sergeant at Fort Stevens — likely the first black ordinance sergeant in American history, according to the Army — when dozens of big cannons there guarded the Oregon and mouth of the Columbia River.
But he didn’t last long at Fort Stevens. Williams retired from military service in 1898 and died in 1899. He’s buried at the Vancouver Barracks Cemetery. It’s not known whether his retirement was driven by ill health, and one veteran in the film’s raw footage speculates that Williams wouldn’t have simply opted to retire after an “illustrious” 32-year career, unless he was discouraged or forced out.
When The Columbian visited the filmmakers in their editing room at Open Signal Labs in Northeast Portland, they were debating whether or not to include that comment.
“It’s his opinion,” Bell said.
Legacy
The raw footage The Columbian previewed recently featured quite the lineup of expertise — everyone from university scholars and National Park Service rangers to costumed re-enactors on horseback and even the leather-jacketed members of today’s Seattle-Tacoma Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club, continuing the legacy of service by biking food donations to needy people.
Exploring the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers has been part of the joy of making this film, Holley said. But there are major challenges, too. Holley said he’s still fundraising to meet a projected total budget of $125,000. He’s a little overwhelmed by the million details that go into a film that’s far longer than a TV commercial, he said, including giving interviews to the press.
When his completed, 55-minute film starts making the round of film festivals and public TV venues — and a likely screening at the Kiggins in November, he said — he’ll let the outgoing Bell do most of the talking. Holley, who’s more introverted, said he just wants to get back to making more films.
“I’m just blown away, I’ve been learning so much,” he said.
