African Americans in the Texas Revolution
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Many African Americans, free and slave, supported Texas during its 1835-36 War of Independence from Mexico. Although official recognition of the African American role was generally denied, recorded accounts of individual acts of bravery and patriotism survived. Hendrick Arnold distinguished himself as a guide and soldier for Ben Milam's Texas army at the Siege of Bexar and later at the Battle of San Jacinto. William E. (Bill) Goyens, a prominent African American businessman of Nacogdoches, served as an interpreter and liaison for Sam Houston during treaty negotiations with the Cherokee Indians at the outset of the war. Samuel McCullough, Jr., a freeman, was severely wounded in the Goliad campaign in late 1835 and later recognized by the Texas Congress as among the first to shed blood in the Texas War for Independence. Joe Travis was among the few defenders of the Alamo to survive the devastating siege by Mexican general Santa Anna in 1836. Travis later carried news of the battle to General Sam Houston. African Americans are counted among the Texas army massacred at Goliad, among those who contributed money and transported supplies for the Texas army, and among those who died defending the Alamo. (1994)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Both free and enslaved African Americans supported the Texas cause during the 1835–36 War of Independence, though official recognition of their service was long withheld. Hendrick Arnold scouted and fought at the Siege of Bexar and San Jacinto; the Nacogdoches businessman William Goyens interpreted for Sam Houston in treaty talks with the Cherokee; the freeman Samuel McCullough, Jr. was among the first wounded in the Goliad campaign; and Joe, enslaved by Alamo commander William Travis, survived the fall and carried word of it to Houston. Others died at the Alamo and in the Goliad massacre or gave money and hauled supplies.
Why it matters
The marker restores African Americans to the founding story of Texas, from which they were long erased, and reveals the painful contradiction of enslaved and free Black people helping build a republic that would enshrine slavery. It is a corrective to a whitewashed frontier memory.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The years 1835 and 1836 were the hinge of Texas history — the months when Anglo colonists, Tejanos, and others in Mexican Texas fought a war of independence that would create the Republic of Texas. It was a violent, chaotic period of sieges and marches, and its central events still anchor the Texas origin story.
This was also a society organized around slavery, even as it fought for its own self-rule. African Americans in Texas at the time were both free and enslaved, and the war swept up people from every station. That so many contributed to the Texas cause — and that their contributions were so long unrecorded — is a tension written into the founding itself.
Official memory of the revolution, shaped in the decades that followed, largely wrote African Americans out. What survived instead were scattered records of individual acts, preserved almost in spite of the era's determination to overlook them. This memorial gathers those fragments back together.
People & events
The marker restores names that deserve to be spoken. Hendrick Arnold distinguished himself as a guide and soldier, serving Ben Milam's Texas army at the Siege of Bexar and later fighting at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. His scouting knowledge made him valuable in exactly the kind of close, uncertain fighting the war demanded.
William E. "Bill" Goyens, a prominent free Black businessman of Nacogdoches, lent a different kind of service: he acted as interpreter and liaison for Sam Houston during treaty negotiations with the Cherokee at the war's outset — diplomacy that helped keep the young effort from collapsing on a second front. Samuel McCullough, Jr., a freeman, was severely wounded in the Goliad campaign in late 1835 and was later recognized by the Texas Congress as among the first to shed blood for Texas independence.
And there is Joe, enslaved by Alamo commander William Travis, who was among the very few defenders to survive the fall of the Alamo to Santa Anna's army in 1836. Joe carried the news of the battle to Sam Houston. Beyond these named individuals, the inscription remembers the African Americans counted among the men massacred at Goliad, those who died defending the Alamo, and those who gave money and hauled supplies for the army — a fuller picture of a people present at every stage of the war.
Its place in the American story
This memorial does something essential for American history: it corrects the record. For generations, the founding of Texas was told as a story with a narrow cast, and African Americans — free and enslaved alike — were erased from it. Naming Arnold, Goyens, McCullough, and Joe insists that they belong in the account of how Texas came to be.
It also refuses to look away from a painful contradiction at the heart of the American story. Enslaved and free Black people helped win a republic that would go on to protect slavery — a version, in miniature, of the same paradox that ran through the American Revolution and the nation it produced. Holding both truths at once is what honest history requires.
As a corrective to a whitewashed frontier memory, the marker joins a wider national reckoning with who gets remembered and who gets left out. It argues that the founding generation of Texas was more diverse than the legend allowed, and that acknowledging that fact makes the history truer, not smaller.
If you visit
Come to this memorial ready to read slowly and to say the names aloud: Hendrick Arnold, William Goyens, Samuel McCullough, Jr., and Joe. Part of what the marker does is simply insist these people existed and mattered, and giving their names your attention is the point.
Let the memorial reframe the more famous sites it references. If your travels take you toward the Alamo, Goliad, or San Jacinto, carry this marker's roster with you — it changes how you stand in those places, widening the picture of who fought, bled, and supplied the army there.
This is a spot for reflection rather than spectacle. Give it the quiet it asks for, and consider the contradiction it names plainly: that people held in bondage helped build a republic that would keep them so. That honesty is the memorial's gift to anyone willing to receive it.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Hendrick Arnold
- · William E. Goyens
- · Samuel McCullough Jr.
- · Joe (Travis's slave)
Related events
- · Siege of Bexar
- · Battle of San Jacinto
- · Goliad campaign
- · Battle of the Alamo
Themes & tags
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