The Story of FortHeileman
Ft.Heileman was established in 1836 where the boat ramp is located today in Middleburg. Middleburg was called Garey’s Ferry then. There were no airplanes, no cars, and hardly any trains then. The best way to haul anything was by water. The wharf at Garey’s Ferry was an important trade center where farmers exchanged their crops for furniture and supplies they could not make themselves. The military used the wharf to bring in supplies for the army in North Florida.
The fort was created because of a war between the Americans and the Native Americans. The war was fought for three reasons: land, lifestyle, and race.
The first reason the Americans and the Native Americans fought was because the Americans wanted to take control of the land the Natives lived on in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia.
The tribes living on the land were the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and the Seminoles. The tribes were related by kinship and by their way of life, though their languages were somewhat different.
The second reason the Americans and the Native Americans fought was because the two groups had very different rules for how they lived.
Both Americans and Native Americans farmed. In American families, farming was a task done by the men. Among the Seminoles the women were the farmers. American women at that time could not vote, but Seminole women had a voice in decisions affecting the whole village. Only American men could be “head of the household,” but in the Seminole communities women made most of the decisions about the family.
Seminole children did not attend school. They learned from their parents and other adults in the villages how to be good hunters and farmers and how to make the weapons and tools they needed. The Seminoles’ cousins the Cherokee had a written language and a Constitution similar to the United States Constitution. The Seminole language was not written down and the Seminoles could not read or write.
The differences between the American way of life and the Native way of life made it hard for the two groups to do business together. The Natives did not believe anyone could “own” the land any more than anyone could “own” the sky. The Natives had powerful chiefs, but no one spoke for all the Natives like the President of the United States speaks for all Americans.
The third reason the Americans and the Native Americans fought was because of American attitudes about race. Even when the Natives tried to live like the Americans, the Americans did not want them for neighbors because of their dark skin.
The Seminoles welcomed African-American slaves who escaped slavery by running away to the Native villages. They became part of the community, married Seminoles, and lived according to Seminole community rules.
Most of the natives in four of the five tribes did not want to fight the Americans. They agreed to give up their land and move to the Indian Territory, which is now the state of Oklahoma.
They had to walk, a journey of a thousand miles. Of the 14,000 people who began the trip, 4,000 of them died on the way. Their journey is called the “Trail of Tears.”
The two most powerful Seminole chiefs who fought in the war were Micanopy and Mad Wolf. Osceola was the most famous Seminole warrior.
The two most famous United States Presidents during the Seminole Wars were Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Before Jackson became President, he was a General. He fought against the Seminoles in the early years of the war.
Another General who fought against the Seminoles, Zachary Taylor, became President of the United States after the war ended.
The worst of the fighting began when fifteen Seminoles signed a treaty with the Americans.
The treaty stated that the Seminoles would leave their land in Florida and move to Oklahoma. The problem was that the men who signed the treaty did not speak for all the Seminoles.
Osceola and over half of the 5,000 Seminoles in Floridarefused to move. American troops came to force them to leave their homes, and the fighting began.
Most of the fighting was in South Florida, but the Seminoles attacked farms across the Florida Panhandle as well. Even though no farms were attacked in ClayCounty, houses in nearby counties were burned, and ClayCounty farmers and their families were afraid. They went to Ft.Heileman for safety.
The families moving into the fort had to learn new rules for eating and sleeping, and how to spend their time during the day. The new rules for the people at Ft.Heileman were a lot like the rules people have to follow when a hurricane threatensFlorida. Families have to evacuate to schools, churches, and other public places.
Families could take only a few of their possessions. They had to live in tents or shelters made of branches, with little privacy. Other families lived only a few feet away. They had to get in line to get their meals, like students today get in line in the cafeteria at school. Almost all of life took place outdoors.
They couldn’t do the normal things they usually did during the day. They had no crops to tend or livestock to feed. Children could not go to school.
Many people became ill and died. The physician at the fort did not have enough medical supplies, nor was there a hospital at the fort. One of the children who died was the baby son of Captain Samuel McRee. A poem titled “The Burial of an Infant in Florida”appeared in the Army and Navy Chronicle in 1840.
I lay thee here my sinless one
I put thee down to rest
But not upon thine elder bed
Nor on thy mother’s breast.
Within this little grave they’ve scooped
Far in the forest wild
I lay thee here my precious one
I leave thee here my child.
The war lasted, on-and-off, from 1817 until 1858.
The Seminoles were not defeated, but the fighting finally stopped when most of them said they would go to Oklahoma.
Not all of them left Florida, however. The Seminoles who stayed moved into the Everglades around Lake Okeechobee, where they have lived since the war ended.
The fort was abandoned in 1842 because the fighting had stopped in this area. The United States government moved some of the soldiers who had died at the fort to the military cemetery in St. Augustine. About three dozen veterans and an unknown number of citizens (including the Captain McRee’s baby son) remain buried at the fort’s cemetery.
All Native Americans became United States citizens in 1924. In 1970 the United States government awarded the Seminoles $12,347,500 for the land they lost during the Seminole Wars. In 2002, the government awarded the Oklahoma Seminoles $55,000,000 for their lost land.
Today the area where the fort was located is a park. Each year on Memorial Day, a service is held near the fort’s cemetery to honor the families and military veterans who died so that Florida could be settled by Americans.