Buffalo Soldier National Museum in Houston
Near Rice University and Hermann Park, with luxury Houston hotels nearby, travelers will find the Houston Museum District , containing at least 18 museums — a veritable cornucopia of art, photography, memorials and history. There’s even a museum about the Buffalo Soldiers, a museum that has a goal of explaining, collecting, and preserving historical artifacts and documents which chronicle the history of African Americans as soldiers in the Civil War.
A visit to the Buffalo Soldier National Museum will provide history buffs and tourists information about the men and women who began serving in six all African American Army units, following an act of Congress in 1866. These units were known as the 9th and 10th cavalry, as well as the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st infantry regiments. These were the first professional African American soldiers in a peacetime army in the United States; the recruits came from various places; largely, they were former slaves and veterans who served in the Civil War.
Five thousand African Americans fought in these regiments, making up about ten percent of the total troops who fought in the Indian Wars from 1866 to 1891. Cheyenne warriors gave them the nickname Buffalo Soldiers in 1867; the Cheyenne translation was actually “Wild Buffalo,” a name bestowed upon those the Cheyenne fought as a measure of respect for their fighting abilities, specifically of the 10th cavalry. Eventually, this nickname spread, becoming a generic term for all African American soldiers.
Into the 20th Century, service continued as the four regular regiments fought in 1898 in the Spanish American war in Cuba, as 12 percent of the total fighting force, and also in the Philippines war from 1899 to 1902. The 10th Cavalry, which fought the Cheyenne, also fought in the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916, where they again made up 12 percent of the total fighting forces that were hunting down Pancho Villa; their regiment endured half the casualties of that trip, with ten men killed.
The Buffalo Soldier National Museum was established at the turn of this century, in 2000, by a Vietnam veteran and African American military historian named Paul J. Matthews. Exhibiting hours at the museum are from ten in the morning to five in the afternoon on Mondays through Friday, and ten to four on Saturdays. The cost of learning the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers is five dollars per person.