RECASTING A HERO: THE RED WASHING OF POMPEY FACTOR AND THE ERASURE OF BLACK INDIGENEITY
History is not only written by the victors — it’s often redrawn, repainted, and reimagined in ways that serve power, not truth. Pompey Factor, a Black Seminole and Medal of Honor recipient, stands as a powerful example of how America revises Blackness, even in its monuments. His face documented in historical photographs tells one story, while the sanitized bronze bust memorializing him tells another.
This is the story of who Pompey Factor truly was, and how his legacy has been manipulated to erase the presence of Soulaan (Autochthonous Black American) identity from American history.
Who Was Pompey Factor?
Born in 1849 in Arkansas, Pompey Factor was a Black Seminole Indian Scout in the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars. As part of a distinct community of Soulaan-descended people who had long resisted both slavery and colonial encroachment, Black Seminoles held a unique cultural and political position. They were not simply auxiliaries — they were warriors defending their sovereignty and survival.
In 1875, Pompey Factor, alongside scouts Isaac Payne and John Ward, was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during a perilous river crossing in Texas, which led to the capture of hostile forces. He was a veteran, a tactician, and a man whose story stood at the intersection of Black resistance and Indigenous survival.
The Real Face vs. The Bronze Face
Historical photos like those maintained by the National Park Service clearly depict Factor as an older Black man with textured hair and Afro-Indigenous features. These images preserve his truth.
But his commemorative plaque at Fort Concho paints a very different picture. The bust features a smoother face, thinner lips, and a European-influenced interpretation of “Indianness” that renders him nearly unrecognizable. The stylized image does not just obscure his Blackness — it replaces it.
This visual revision is not simply artistic liberty. It is a deliberate act of erasure. It “red-washes” a Black hero into a more politically convenient, racially ambiguous figure. A form of soft ethnocide rendered in bronze.
Red-Washing: A Form of Erasure
“Red-washing” is the process of recasting Black historical figures as Native or ethnically ambiguous, severing their connections to Soulaan-descended communities and to the struggle for racial justice. It’s the cousin of whitewashing and just as insidious.
In Pompey Factor’s case, this revisionism:
• Distances him from his Soulaan identity,
• Undermines the role of Black Seminoles in U.S. military and resistance history,
• And aids in the broader project of detaching Black Americans from land-based claims and indigeneity.
This is part of a historical pattern. From Ancient Egypt to the Black pioneers of the Wild West, Black contributions have been visually rewritten to suit the narratives of dominant culture. The “Egyptians were Middle Eastern” trope follows the same logic as Pompey Factor’s bust: If Black people built something great, they must not have been Black.
⸻
Why This Still Matters
For Soulaan people Black Americans with deep ancestral roots predating the Civil War this kind of erasure is not just symbolic. It is material, political, and psychological. Monuments, textbooks, and museums are all part of a national archive that either includes us or deletes us.
Pompey Factor is not a footnote in someone else’s story. He is a Soulaan icon, a freedom fighter, and a reminder that our face belongs on our history.
⸻
Reclaiming the Narrative
We must demand truth in our monuments and insist on accuracy in our national memory. That means:
• Challenging red-washed imagery in public memorials.
• Supporting historical institutions that honor Black and Soulaan perspectives.
• Telling the unfiltered stories — names, faces, and all of those who shaped this nation through resistance and resilience.
Pompey Factor’s real face deserves to be seen, not sculpted away.
Sources
• National Park Service: nps.gov
• U.S. Army Center of Military History: Medal of Honor recipients
• Seminoe-Negro Indian Scouts, 9th Cavalry, Fort Clark archives
⸻