Places: Fort King, Ocala, Florida

Perhaps the most well-known site of the Second Seminole War, Fort King or Camp King was built in 1827 and named in honor of Col. William King, the first American governor of West Florida.  The fort was a log stockade, but did have some stone buildings.  It was a military fort and the seat of the Indian Agent appointed to the Seminole, meant to serve as a staging area for their eventual removal from Florida.  It was also a trading post and a young Muscogee Creek man by the name of Billy Powell was well-known in the Native community which grew up near the fort.  During these days, Osceola was a young married father, Tustenugge or leading warrior under Chief Micanopy.  He came to the fort frequently to trade.  Mean did the trading and thus the shopping for the family. 

He would also come to plead with whatever Indian Agent was in residence on behalf of Seminole men caught hunting off the bounds of the reservation.  Generally, the desperate men had shot cattle belonging to a local settler, who would come to Fort King demanding that the offender be punished in the fullest extent of the law, lashes for trespassing and hanging for cattle rustling.  Osceola would offer to take the men into custody and turn them over to Chief Micanopy for whatever punishment he deemed fit, usually a stern warning.  The Agent would compensate the settler with money and turn the offender over to Osceola along with the man's weapon, vital for feeding his family.  Osceola would often round up offenders and bring them in, hoping to keep both sides happy.

His willingness to accommodate only went so far.  When Wiley Thompson was appointed in 1835, he determined to enforce the letter of the law.  He became suspicious of the amount of ammo Osceola purchased and refused to sell him any more.  The two men had words and angry accusations and threats went back and forth.  Fed up, Thompson clapped Osceola into the guardhouse and Abiaka had to intercede for him.  Both biographers dispel the notion that the argument had to do with Osceola's wife being part black and taken into custody by slave catchers.  Native women generally did not come around the fort, and thus Osceola's wife wouldn't have been known to the Agent. 

Wiley Thompson was outside the walls of Fort King, on a nightly stroll on December 28, 1835 when he and Osceola met for the last time and Thompson was killed.  The fort fell into disuse throughout 1836-37 after it was partially destroyed by a Seminole raid.  The stone buildings remained functional and served as the town courthouse until they were finally abandoned in 1842.

Eventually the stone and wood making up the fort were repurposed and the site abandoned as vacant land.  Today, a plaque commemorates the site of the post cemetery.