“Buffalo Soldier” by Bob Marley

"Buffalo Soldier" sat unreleased until 1983, when it surfaced on Confrontation, the posthumous album of Bob Marley and the Wailers recordings, and it became one of Marley's best-known songs. He wrote it with Noel "King Sporty" Williams, and it's reggae with a history lesson tucked inside.

The title points to the black cavalry regiments of the US Army, the Buffalo Soldiers, who fought in the wars against Native Americans after 1866. The name is thought to have come from the Native Americans themselves, and the troops embraced it. Their work ran from building forts and telegraph lines to settling railroad disputes, and to guarding the settlers who were taking Native American land.

Marley saw their story as a fight for survival and made those soldiers stand for black resistance everywhere, which gives the song its hard, proud center.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.