Missed Allliance: Buffalo Soldiers Vs. Plains Warriors

To the Indian, the buffalo soldier was simply another white man whose face happened to be black. To the black soldier, the Indian was the same deadly enemy he appeared to the whites. In retrospect it is evident that the former slaves and the Indians had much in common. It would be tempting to visualize their forming an alliance. But in history it seldom happened. An occasional escaped slave found sanctuary among Indians, but most often such runaways found only further enslavement, or, more likely, sudden death. Neither slave nor Indian seemed to recognize the potential common bond.

Elmer Kelton
The Wolf and the Buffalo
1980