Lost and Found: Reclaiming Fort Shackleford

Welcome back to our Seminole Spaces series! In this series, we explore places and spaces that are important to Seminole history, culture, and tourism. This week, we are looking at the reclaiming of Fort Shackleford. A Seminole War period fort, Fort Shackleford was located on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation. Built and then burned down by Seminoles in 1855, Fort Shackleford was thought to be lost to time. But was it really? Today, follow along as we untangle the story behind the lost fort, and how it is now being reclaimed.

In our featured image, you can see a map of the Big Cypress Swamp drawn by Lt. George Hartsuff, acting Topographical Engineer, 2nd Artillery, 1855. This map, along with a number of other military records, were retrieved by Archaeologists Shawn Keyte and Benjamin Bilgri in 2019 on a trip to the National Archives. You can learn more about their trip here in a Museum Blog post. Famously, Hartsuff was known for stating that the area was “totally unfitted for human habitation” during an exploratory trip to Lake Okeechobee.

 

The Seminole War Period

We have previously touched on the Seminole War period several times on the blog. Marked by violence and oppression, the United States government began the systematic removal of native peoples from their homelands in the southeast in the early 1800s. Although historians tend to split the conflicts between the U.S. and Seminoles into three wars, the reality for the Seminole people is they were embroiled in one, long war. For the Seminoles, the war began when they came under organized attack by the U.S. in 1812, and only ended in 1858. These decades of conflict were devastatingly brutal. They resulted in the death or removal of all but a few hundred Seminoles, hidden in the swamp. What is incorrectly termed the Third Seminole War lasted from 1855-1858. By this time, the Seminoles were staunch in their resistance to removal and utilized guerilla warfare to overwhelm the more robust forces of the U.S. Army.

Due to their knowledge of the terrain, incredible resilience, and determination to survive, the Seminoles were very difficult for the United States to remove from their homelands. When treaties didn’t work, Seminoles hid in the swamp to escape capture as the government pushed for full removal. Even in the ‘peacetime’ period the Secretary of War Jefferson Davis “ordered increased troops into Florida to patrol and survey Seminole land, but the soldiers and the militias with them destroyed Seminole camps and farms.” The increased pressure pushed Seminoles even further inland and lit the fuse that would lead to the final leg of the Seminole War in 1855.

 

Fort Shackleford

Built on what is now the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, Fort Shackleford was constructed in early 1855. In a 2017 presentation, now-Archaeologist II Shawn Keyte shared that it was “one of several forts built by the U.S. Army used to scout near the Big Cypress and Everglades regions during the U.S. Government’s efforts to pressure the Seminoles into leaving the area.”

In a 2017 blog post, Keyte would share that it served as “an outpost for further exploration of the Everglades during the U.S. Government’s attempt at Indian Removal in the early and mid-1850s.” Fort Shackleford and Fort Drum, which is also located on the 1855 map shown above, were abandoned by the U.S. Army, with the intention of returning later after the wet season. Unaccustomed to the weather, humidity, and terrain of the Everglades, the Army was unprepared.

 

Burned to the Ground

Hartsuff, in a report submitted to his superior on June 18^th, stated that:

“For agricultural purposes, I can conceive of no country not entirely a barren waste, more utterly & wholly worthless than this. The only portion, that can be made at all productive are the hammocks which are small few & scattered, for all other purposes it is in my opinion equally valueless to a civilized population. It can never be occupied except in the same manner as the Indians who occupy it. For them in consequence of their peculiar habit & wants it is habitable & considering its resources to them both for subsistence & concealment, and the smallness of their number, as a stronghold in case of hostilities, it is impregnable.”

Hartsuff himself was tasked with assessing the conditions the following dry season. But, upon return, both Forts had been burned to the ground. Seminoles living in the area, which included Billy Bowlegs, had burned the Fort Shackleford site in an act of resistance. On their return trip, Hartsuff and his men were reportedly attacked by a group of Seminoles led by Billy Bowlegs (Eck 2002). Hartsuff’s subsequent report would ignite hostilities again and renew the U.S. Army’s efforts to eradicate Seminoles in Florida. The exact location of the fort was thought to be lost.

 

The Copeland Marker

In the 1940s, government surveyor D. Graham Copeland was tasked with making maps, and placing markers on important historic sites. A marker was placed on the site of Fort Shackleford, as determined by Copeland. The pyramid-shaped cement marker, complete with capped plaque, can be seen below.

Unfortunately, with the placement of the plaque came the danger of looters. In order to protect the site from looting, Seminole leader Josie Billie ordered the marker moved over a mile away from the original site. Treasure hunters still came but could no longer locate the fort site.

Additionally, Keyte shared in the 2017 blog post that “the area where the marker may have been moved to may have been ‘salted’ to try and prevent any further looting by treasure hunters or those looking to take advantage of the Seminoles. ‘Salting’ is basically the act of someone placing an item or items in an area where treasure hunters might frequent in hopes of tricking them into thinking they found something of value.” The exact location of the fort became further muddied in an effort to protect it from looters.

 

Finding Fort Shackleford

In addition to military records, the Copeland marker and oral histories all fed into the general area where the fort was constructed. Although a vast array of artifacts, including correct-era ammunition, nails, glass, and other items had been found, definitive proof of the fort’s exact location would not be found by the THPO until 2018.

In the winter of 2017, THPO Archaeologists Shawn Keyte and Dave Scheidecker became determined to locate the fort site. Throughout the years, the THPO had utilized metal detection, Ground Penetrating Radar, oral histories, survey, and historical research to determine the fort’s location. Convinced the Copeland marker had never been moved (in a clever bait-and-switch by Josie Billie) they focused their efforts in the 2017 season around the marker itself. After a seemingly fruitless search for most of the season, they eventually found more remnants of square-cut nails. This in itself was not that exciting…until they found a piece of charred wood.

 

Finding the Posts

In a 2018 Museum Blog post, THPO Collections Manager Domonique DeBeaubien stated that “This may not seem like much, but many 19th century forts were constructed entirely of wood. While we had located a few metal nails and objects that may have dated to the correct time period, what our archaeologists really wanted to find was evidence of the structure itself.  As the crew continued their work, they began to see a series of dark oval stains in the soil, each about the size of a post. As they continued to excavate, they realized that remnants of the posts were actually still preserved!”

Above, you can see the Seminole Tribe of Florida Tribal Archaeology section excavating a test unit at the Fort Shackleford site. Kneeling next to the test unit is Shawn Keyte, who is currently an Archaeologist II/Crew Chief with the THPO. Behind him in the center is Nick Butler, current Chief Data Analyst with the THPO. Photo courtesy of Samantha Wade, current Lab Manager and Bioarcheologist for the THPO.

 

The Fort Has Been Found!

Keyte thought that the posts they located “may have formed part of the stockade (or fence) surrounding the wooden blockhouse.  Officers would have kept quarters in the more robust blockhouse, while soldiers would have erected tents within the confines of the stockade.” But, the posts themselves were not enough. The crew wanted to be sure that this was Fort Shackleford. Along with the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum’s then-Conservator Robin Croskery Howard, they carefully extracted the post and sent it off for Carbon-14 testing. This would allow them to assign a date to approximately when the fire occurred. Incredibly, the first carbon-14 date came back with a value of 1840 +/- 30 years. Fort Shackleford had been found.

Reclaiming Fort Shackleford

Since 2017, a number of students from Ahfachkee school have come to the site to help in the archaeological work. Through these field schools, students gain a better understanding of the history of the site, as well as work towards healing what the fort represented for so many.

Moses Jumper, who owns the pastureland the fort site is located on, offered a personal perspective at the first field school in 2017. “This is part of your history as Seminoles,” Jumper told the students. “The army wanted to send us all to Oklahoma. Seminoles burned it down. If it wasn’t for your ancestors fighting for what they believed in, you wouldn’t be here. I’m always thankful for them. It’s important to learn your history; we all come from a proud bloodline. Take pride in who you are.”

Above, you can see Moses Jumper talking to the students at the Fort Shackleford site in 2017. At the field school, the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders got a hands-on lesson in archaeology. They wielded metal detectors, screened dirt, and excavated test units with the TAS team. Students got to handle artifacts and participate in hands-on learning about their own history.

By the next field school in 2019, the team had discovered the line of posts seen above. Jack Chalfant, raised on the Brighton reservation and part of the TAS team, emphasized the importance of telling your own history. “Everywhere you walk, there’s someone who walked there before you,” he said. “As you’re walking around you need to open your eyes and notice things. We’re supposed to be the ones telling our story. You need to look around and maybe you’ll be out here teaching the kids.”

Now, once a site of oppression and violence, Fort Shackleford exists as a symbol of resilience. Seminoles were not pushed out, but rather resisted. Today, despite incredible suffering, they remain unconquered. The United States Army abandoned the fort and Seminoles destroyed it mere months after it was built. In a place that Hartsuff called “unfitted for human habitation” Seminoles have survived and thrived. The fort, and all it represents, is part of Seminole history, one that the Seminole Tribe of Florida has reclaimed after being lost to time.

 

Well, not really lost – remember Josie Billie? Copeland’s marker had never been moved, and the exact Fort Shackleford location is, in essence, right where the marker said it was. For Seminoles, the fort had never really been lost. Merely intentionally misplaced; it was theirs after all.

 

Resources

Eck, Christopher R., 2002 South Florida’s Prelude to War: Army Correspondence Concerning Miami, Fort Dallas, and the Everglades Prior to the Outbreak of the Third Seminole War, 1850-1855. Tequesta. Historical Museum of Southern Florida.

Finding Fort Shackelford: A lost U.S. Army Fort from the Seminole War Era. Shawn P Keyte. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Fort Worth, TX. 2017.

 

Author Bio

Originally from Washington state, Deanna Butler received her BA in Archaeological Sciences from the University of Washington in 2014. Deanna moved to Florida in 2016. Soon, she began working for the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Deanna was the THPO’s Archaeological Collections Assistant from 2017-2021. While at the THPO, Deanna worked to preserve, support, and process the Tribe’s archaeological collection. She often wrote the popular Artifact of the Month series and worked on many community and educational outreach programs. She lives in Lakeland, FL with her husband, two sons, and dog.