Opposition: Zachary Taylor, 1784-1850

Most people remember the 12 President for his short term in office, barely 15 months from March, 1849-July, 1850.  Others remember his service in the Mexican War.  However, long before either, Zachary Taylor was prominent in two battles against Native Americans, the Black Hawk War and 2nd Seminole War. 

Like his colleague William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, 1784-1850, came from a landed Virginia family.  Despite their social position, they left Virginia when Zachary was still a child and settled in Louisville, Kentucky.  His father became wealthy in real estate.  Kentucky was still frontier and there was little opportunity for formal schooling.  Whenever he could go to school, Zachary was a quick learner.  He grew to manhood and enlisted in the Army in 1808.  Despite the family's wealth in land, he would need a day job and the army promised steady pay and relatively light duty while he quietly invested in land, slaves, and bank stocks.  In 1810, he married Margaret Mackall, also a settler in Kentucky, but from a prominent Maryland family.  The couple would have six children.

In the windup to the War of 1812, he was called to Indiana to take over command of what was then called Fort Knox, now Vincennes, Indiana (not the Fort Knox we know today).  He restored ordered to an unruly garrison and won the praise of Indiana Governor William Henry Harrison.  At that time, James Wilkinson, the commander of the American Army, ended up under court martial and Taylor was called to Washington to testify, missing the Battle of Tippecanoe and Tecumseh's Rebellion in the process.  He was soon back in Indiana, defending Fort Harrison and taking part in an expedition to what is now Illinois.  His first serious encounter with Native warriors, in the Battle of Wildcat Creek on November 22, 1812, ended up in a retreat.  He later won a colorfully named battle at Credit Island.  He was only a captain when the War ended.  He resigned his commission in 1815, and reenlisted a year later as a major.

The next few years saw Taylor in command of various outposts, rising from major to lieutenant-Colonel.  He was promoted to colonel in time for the Black Hawk War of 1832.  However, aside from a few skirmishes, the war soon fizzled and it was back to garrison duty.  However in 1837, he was dispatched to Florida and met the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee on December 25, 1837.  There, he faced a Native command team consisting of Billy Bowlegs, Abiaka, and Coacoochee, among others, none of them happy that, just weeks before, Osceola and Coacoochee had been taken prisoners under a flag of truce.  Technically, the battle was a draw, with the Seminoles inflicting casualties on already rattled U.S. troops and Taylor's men depleting cattle and other food sources the Seminoles couldn't afford to lose.  However, the U.S. government needed a diversion from the dying hero at Fort Moultrie who'd captured the public's imagination and billed Okeechobee as a victory, promoting Taylor to Brigadier-General. 

At about this time in his life, Taylor began to think about politics, using his new military fame to transition to a peacetime career.  The Mexican War intervened in 1846-1848, but after the war was over, it was Taylor's turn to run for President.  He was inaugurated in March, 1849, and served for little over a year.  On July 4, 1850, he attended a picnic in Washington, D.C. and ate cherries washed down with milk on a hot day.  Within a few hours, he was complaining of stomach troubles.  Days later he was dead of cholera, most likely food poisoning from whatever he'd eaten on July 4th, compounded with the crude medical tactics of the day such as purging and bleeding.  A 20th century autopsy on his remains found no evidence of poisoning or other foul play. 

Years later, after having agreed to remove to Oklahoma, Billy Bowlegs would come Washington D.C. on a delegation.  Touring the U.S. Capitol, he saw a picture of Taylor and smiled.  He pointed to himself and said, "me whip!"  I beat him! 

Opposition: Francis Langhorne Dade

The moral of this story is in three parts.  1) Never underestimate your enemy.  2) The guy you think is your enemy may not be your biggest problem right now.  3) Never forget 1 and 2.  Brevet Major Francis Langhorne Dade did all of the above on December 28, 1835 and it cost him his life and a hole in the head, but not from the usual suspect.  Yes, this story involves Osceola.

In 1835 Osceola was everywhere and the garrisons in northern Florida were spread thin trying to pin him down.  There were other Seminole leaders, Coacoochee, Tiger Tail and John Horse but the American public and the Army brass in Washington and Florida were fixated to the point of obsession on Osceola.  They dismissed two men who were more senior to Osceola at the time, Abiaka, a war leader and medicine man who was Osceola's mentor, and Micanopy, Leading Chief of the Seminoles.  Both were old men and considered to be doddering old fools.  They were far from.  Both were crafty, smart, strategic thinkers who had the respect of their people and knew how to handle themselves on a battlefield.  Osceola was Tustenegge or leading warrior, of Micanopy's band of Seminoles, meaning that Osceola took orders from Micanopy, not the other way round.

On the morning of December 28, 1835, Micanopy and his warriors were waiting for Osceola to join them before ambushing a column of men heading from Fort Brooke to Fort King, in present-day Ocala, Florida.  The men were under the command of Brevet Major Dade.  Dade had been born in Virginia in 1793 and joined the army in 1813, when he was 20 years old.  He had no formal training in the military, but would have had some on-the-job experience during the War of 1812.  In a peacetime army, opportunities for promotion were few and far between.  Brevetting, or giving an officer a nominal rank instead of a full promotion kept some mobility in the ranks.  Dade was brevetted major in 1828 and posted to Florida with the 4th Infantry Regiment as the Second Seminole War broke out in 1835. 

As his men marched up the old Spanish King's Highway toward Fort King, Dade hadn't posted scouts.  Contrary to what's usually portrayed in movies, the area isn't swampy jungle.  There was space between the trees and Dade no doubt thought he could easily spot any warriors sniping through the trees.  If Osceola showed up, Dade was ready.  Little did Dade or Micanopy know that Osceola was away on personal business.  He was lying in wait near Fort King for Indian Agent Wiley Thompson to venture out of the fort.  Thompson would taken an evening walk that night and run into a bullet from his worst enemy.

Meanwhile, on the King's Highway, Micanopy's men crept ever closer to the infantry column, its heavy wagons bogged down in mud, the men beginning to straggle along the trail.  The Seminole knew their home range and could crawl and creep through brush as well as anyone.  They didn't need to stand to shoot.  As the day dragged on and Osceola didn't show up, Micanopy gave the signal to attack.  He took aim from behind a tree on Major Dade himself and dropped him with a shot in the head.  His men quickly surrounded the stranded column, coming so close that one warrior later said they could hear the sergeants cussing at their men and the situation.  Next to fall was Capt. George W. Gardiner, who was no doubt doing more cussing than anybody.  In the end 107 soldiers were killed and 2 wounded, of which one died later on.  Only two men survived.  Seminole losses were 3 killed and 5 wound.

Despite this dismal failure, or because of it, Dade has several places named after him.  Miami-Dade County, Florida, Dade County, Georgia, Dade County, Missouri, Dadeville, Alabama and Dade City, Florida.  There was also a Fort Dade, now decommissioned.  Dade and his men are buried at St. Augustine National Cemetery near Osceola's brother-in-law, Major David Moniac, killed in another battle.  A monument marks the battlefield in Dade Battlefield Historic State Park, where a reenactment is held every year.

Never underestimate your enemy. 

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. 

Great Leader: Micanopy of the Seminole

The life of this Native leader points up how little Whites understood Native ways of leadership.  Derided as a senile old man who needed Osceola and Abraham to do his thinking for him, Micanopy was instead an agile and energetic leader of his people until his death in exile in Oklahoma.

And here we go with naming confusion.  Micanopy (c 1780-1849) was either a title, as the word means high chief, or it was an accession name.  His primary name was Sintchakkee, which means "one who frequents (hangs around) ponds".  He was also called Hulbutta Hajo, or "Crazy Alligator".  This, too, may have been an honorific rather than a name since Hajo/Hadjo/Harjo, now a common surname among Seminoles, was once a war name given to warriors who were considered crazy, i.e., reckless in battle.  Micanopy was born near St. Augustine around 1780.  He was the nephew of Bolek, sometimes known as Billy Bowlegs I (and, again, NOT William Bowles), and became leading chief of the Seminoles in 1819.  In turn, Micanopy's nephews were Coacoochee and Billy Bowlegs II, whom we've already met.  Micanopy became a prosperous landowner.  He owned slaves and welcomed runaways to his employ and to live among his people.  He saw nothing wrong with intermarriage between Natives and Blacks or of giving freed Blacks equal status among his tribe.

In this he ran up against opposition by White slave owners in Georgia and Florida, who were upset that the Seminoles posed an enticement to their slaves to run away.  They accused the Seminoles of stealing slaves and raiding plantations to do so.  However, any raiding was generally done by desperate Seminole men confined to their reservation after the 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek, and who needed food to supplement the meager or non-existent rations.  Per the terms of the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, the Seminoles were required to identify and return any escaped slaves.  They had no intention of doing anything of the kind.  As more Settlers moved into Florida, the demand to remove the Seminoles entirely became more incessant.  The Jackson Administration tried to force and enforce the Treaty of Payne's Landing, which required the Seminoles to give up Florida entirely and move to Oklahoma.  Micanopy refused to sign and the government agents blamed Osceola, meanwhile putting pressure on Abraham, who was owned by Micanopy but who had become a Native leader in his own right to urge Micanopy to sign.

Micanopy did agree to go to Oklahoma and inspect the land being offered to the Seminoles, which was in the area controlled by the Creeks.  He later said that his mark was forged on the Treaty of Fort Gibson and adamantly denied ever signing that treaty.  Whites brushed aside his protests as those of a doddering old fool who was afraid of Osceola.  Micanopy proved the opposite when he led the war party that culminated in the Dade Battle in December, 1835.  Without Osceola present, Micanopy fired the first shot of that battle, knocking Major Francis Dade (namesake of Dade County), right off his horse and dead.  Despite their early successes, the Seminoles were running out of men and resources.  Micanopy knew their time in Florida was running out and agreed to surrender in 1837.  As he and his people waited transport to Oklahoma, Osceola raided the American encampment and liberated all of them back into the forest.  But their freedom was short-lived.  In October, 1838, Micanopy was with Osceola when the latter arranged a meeting with Col. Thomas s. Jessup where they were all taken into custody.

Micanopy spent the winter at Fort Moultrie.  He initially refused the many painters who clamored for his portrait, but finally agreed to let George Catlin paint his likeness.  He was also present when his protégé and colleague Osceola died, and was among those standing on the ramparts of the fort as White soldiers carried Osceola to his grave.  Micanopy and his people were transported to Oklahoma and placed among the Creeks, where tensions escalated between the two now distinct tribes.  With little rations, no corn or farming implements, their clan and family structure broken up, the Seminoles had difficulty reconstituting their society.  Micanopy was old and his power was fading, but he did what he could.  In 1845, he was signatory to a Treaty which gave the Seminoles some autonomy from the Creek.  He died at Fort Gibson on January 2, 1849.  While his nephew Billy Bowlegs II continued the fight in Florida, and Coacoochee led a breakout of Seminoles headed for Mexico and hopefully freedom, another nephew, Jim Jumper, succeeded Micanopy as Principal Chief.