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The Story of Fort Heileman
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 fort was a collection of buildings. No
photographs or drawings exist of the fort.
This is an artist’s idea of what it looked like
based on the written descriptions left by
people who were there.
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.
1. Seminole
2. Creek
3. Choctaw
4. Chickasaw
5. Cherokee
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 first picture is
of warrior and
leader Osceola
when he was a boy.
The American
boy’s name is not
known.
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.
Abraham, a
Black
Seminole
Chief.
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 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.
Micanopy
Mad Wolf
Osceola
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.
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
Zachary Taylor
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 Florida
refused to move. American troops came to force them to leave
their homes, and the fighting began.
Osceola stabbed the treaty with a knife
to show that he refused to obey it.
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 Clay County, houses in nearby counties
were burned, and Clay County 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 threatens Florida.
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.