Buffalo Soldier in Bonita Canyon

Sharon Kennedy is an independent researcher and writer whose research interests currently are Black history and pioneer women in southern Arizona. She has written three books and several magazine articles, calls Detroit her hometown, and currently lives in Sahuarita, Arizona.   

In this talk we will explore the history of Buffalo Soldiers.

In May of 1885, the Tenth Cavalry, one of the four regiments of Black soldiers in the US Army, arrived in the Arizona Territory in response to Apache Geronimo escaping from the San Carlos Reservation and heading to Mexico.  Two troops, E and H, were assigned to Bonita Canyon adjacent to Bonita Springs in the Chiricahua Mountains to guard against Geronimo’s ability to access water for his people and horses. While there for seven months, the soldiers built a ten-foot-tall stone monument dedicated to slain President James Abram Garfield. Buffalo Soldiers in Bonita Canyon: Who They Were and…