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Nicholas Gonzalez
American Studies
Baumgardner
4/18/2016
Fort Davis: The History Revealed
The National Park Service is comprised of 411 units, each of which designated for its

historical importance or natural significance. These parks tell a story about the landscape and

ultimately they reveal a narrative about the nation as whole. Fort Davis is one of these national

parks. Located in West Texas, Fort Davis is an example of a frontier fort as used by the army

during the Indian Wars of the 1800s to protect the road from El-Paso to San Antonio. However,

despite the efforts of the National Park Service to paint the fort as the protector of the Postal

Service and travelers of the El Paso-San Antonio Road from Native attacks, the fort was actually

part of the governments larger agenda to exterminate and quarantine the Native Americans and

was considered a hot bed of racial tension between the enlisted Buffalo Soldiers and the white

officers who were stationed there.

According to Robert Wooster in Fort Davis: Outpost on the Texas Frontier, the original

name for the encampment prior to its official incorporation was Painted Comanche Camp

(Wooster 4). This name was chosen for the pictograms the Comanche had painted on the trees in

the area. In 1854 General Persifor Smith led troops into Painted Comanche Camp and established

a military outpost. Smith named the outpost Fort Davis after future president of the Confederacy

Jefferson Davis. The surrounding Trans-Pecos region was proliferate with Native American

insurgency as a nearby major road from El Paso to San Antonio provided many chances for

attack on travelers. In fact Indian attack threatened any small party traveling the Trans-Pecos,

or the parts of New Mexico and Texas surrounding Fort Davis (Wooster, History 85). Therefore,
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after its inception, soldiers stationed at Fort Davis were primarily concerned with protecting

travelers from attacks by Native Americans.

However, the soldiers of Fort Davis were not solely guardians of civilians. Military

expeditions were led to quell Native American insurgency before it even reached the roads. And

during 1880 a campaign was mounted to hunt down and kill Victorio, a Mescalero Apache who

led raids in Texas and Mexico. Many army outfits had been tracking the Mescalero leader but it

was Gen. Benjamin Grierson, head commander at Fort Davis, who tracked Victorio to Tinaja de

las Palmas where a battle ensued (Greene 45). There Victorio finally abandoned the fight

[and he and] his followers headed back toward the Rio Grande (Greene 45). The Apache retreat

toward Mexico sealed the fate of Victorio when U.S. and Mexican forces killed him south of the

American Border. While true that the soldiers and officers of Fort Davis were tasked with

defending the road from Indian insurgency, the narrative of the National Park Service is sparse

on the details surrounding the important role that Grierson and his charges played in the demise

of one the foremost leaders of Native American peoples. And while, at the time, there was an

inability of the federal and state government to establish effective, workable Indian policy, the

hunting and killing of Indian leaders across the southwest, and even into the reservations, falls in

line with the overall tendency the federal government had in sanctioning the destruction of

indigenous tribes (Wooster, Outpost on the Texas Frontier 45).

Internal racial conflict is another part of the narrative of Fort Davis that is understated by

the National Park Service. There were a considerable amount of enlisted people of color at the

site in the years following the civil war and unfortunately black soldiers experienced

discrimination while fulfilling their duties (Greene 47). During the two decades that black

soldiers were stationed at Fort Davis there were many incidents caused by uneasy race relations.
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For instance, Private Charles M. Douglas was a white man of dark complexion that was

ruthlessly taunted for his appearance. The degree to which he was teased caused Private Douglas

to become violent against his own company until he finally cracked under the

pressure(Wooster, History of Fort Davis 278). Private Douglas began to associate only with

black soldiers and threatened to desert the army if he was not transferred to an exclusively black

company. In this case, the racism of lead to the downfall of a white enlisted man, however the

real victims in most instances were enlisted men of color.

Another incident occurred when Corporal Daniel Tallifero, a black officer, was shot in the

head by the wife of Lieutenant Frederic Kendall as Corporal Tallifero was attempting to enter the

bedroom of the other officer. This event may have caused a state of paranoia in the white officer

class because the idea of a black enlisted man attacking a white officers wife threatened the

foundations of military society (Wooster, History of Fort Davis 279). So threatened felt the

white officer class that, when the opportunity presented itself, an example was made of young

distinguished black officer.

The most prolific racially motivated occurrence at Fort Davis was the court martialing of

the first black graduate of West Point, Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper. Flipper was accused of

misappropriating funds and subsequently arrested in August 1881. After his trial, Flipper was

dishonorably discharged from service and spent the remainder of his life in an attempt to clear

his name and record. Though there is evidence to suggest that Flipper was a terrible cleric and

most likely did mishandle military finances, a white officer would not typically have received

such a stiff penalty and the severity of his punishment suggests that racism dictated the final

decision (Wooster, History of Fort Davis 283). It should be noted that the National Park Service

has dedicated a road at the Fort Davis National Historic Site in honor of Lieutenant Flipper, but
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the service stands to gain a more respectable image by downplaying the impact of post-Civil War

racial tension on Fort Davis.

The National Park Service has long and storied history with reserving iconic spaces on

the North American continent. As one of these sites, Fort Davis is a remarkable example of an

Indian War era frontier outpost, a black history monument, and is located in the scenic Davis

Mountains. To deny the darker implications of the forts past, however, is to skew history in favor

of an ideal America that never was.

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Works Cited

"The First Fort Davis: 1854-1862." The First Fort Davis: 1854-1862 - Fort Davis National

Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service):. U.S. National Park Service, n.d. Web. 12 Apr.

2016.

Greene, Jerome A. Historic Resource Study: Fort Davis National Historic Site. Denver: U.S.

Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, 1986. Print.

"The Second Fort Davis: 1867-1891." The Second Fort Davis: 1867-1891 - Fort Davis National

Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service):. U.S. National Park Service, n.d. Web. 12 Apr.

2016.

Wooster, Robert. Fort Davis: Outpost on the Texas Frontier. Austin: Texas State Historical

Association, 1994. Print.

Wooster, Robert. History of Fort Davis, Texas. Santa Fe, NM: Division of History, Southwest

Cultural Resources Center, Southwest Region, National Park Service, Dept. of the

Interior, 1990. Print.