The Villages Daily Sun ran a page and a half with photos of fat old guys in vintage ca 1840s army uniforms commemorating the fallen "heros" of the Dade "massacre" in the Second Seminole war. It implied that the brave patriots were ambushed by the savages, and it pissed me off. My letter to the editor follows:
Sirs,
The article in Sunday's Daily Sun honoring the American fallen at Dade battlefiel...d site, seems to infer that the blameless American soldiers were, without cause, brutally ambushed by those dastardly Seminoles.
Spain, who had made relatively minor interference with native lands, ceded Florida to the US in 1819, and white greed for Indian lands in the southeast rose to a fever pitch.. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized relocation, "by force if necessary" of all Indians east of the Mississippi (principally those five "civilized" tribes with large traditional tribal lands) to Oklahoma. In 1832, Andrew Jackson essentially ignored a USSC decision (Worcester vs Georgia) regarding Indian rights, and the forced exodus began in earnest. Some Seminoles actually had the nerve to object. The Army's purpose, then was to find, round up and forcibly relocate them.
Major Dade knew the Seminole Indians were shadowing his men, but believed that if an attack were to occur, it would occur during one of the river crossings or in the thicker woods to the south. Like Custer in 1876, his hubris was to be his downfall. Having passed the denser woods and in order that the command could move faster, Dade recalled his flanking scouts. The "ambush" as whites call it, was an attack carefully planned by Chief Micanopy, whose first shot killed Major Dade. Two years later, Osceola, deceitfully captured under a flag of truce , died at Fort Marion. There would be another 4 years of fighting. After a third Seminole War ended in 1858 about 200 Seminole survived in the far south of Florida.
Truth told, American forces in 1836 Florida were in about the same situation as German soldiers in 1939, rounding up Czech Jews for deportation. The heroes here were the Seminole, fighting for their homes.
Sirs,
The article in Sunday's Daily Sun honoring the American fallen at Dade battlefiel...d site, seems to infer that the blameless American soldiers were, without cause, brutally ambushed by those dastardly Seminoles.
Spain, who had made relatively minor interference with native lands, ceded Florida to the US in 1819, and white greed for Indian lands in the southeast rose to a fever pitch.. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized relocation, "by force if necessary" of all Indians east of the Mississippi (principally those five "civilized" tribes with large traditional tribal lands) to Oklahoma. In 1832, Andrew Jackson essentially ignored a USSC decision (Worcester vs Georgia) regarding Indian rights, and the forced exodus began in earnest. Some Seminoles actually had the nerve to object. The Army's purpose, then was to find, round up and forcibly relocate them.
Major Dade knew the Seminole Indians were shadowing his men, but believed that if an attack were to occur, it would occur during one of the river crossings or in the thicker woods to the south. Like Custer in 1876, his hubris was to be his downfall. Having passed the denser woods and in order that the command could move faster, Dade recalled his flanking scouts. The "ambush" as whites call it, was an attack carefully planned by Chief Micanopy, whose first shot killed Major Dade. Two years later, Osceola, deceitfully captured under a flag of truce , died at Fort Marion. There would be another 4 years of fighting. After a third Seminole War ended in 1858 about 200 Seminole survived in the far south of Florida.
Truth told, American forces in 1836 Florida were in about the same situation as German soldiers in 1939, rounding up Czech Jews for deportation. The heroes here were the Seminole, fighting for their homes.
No comments:
Post a Comment