Dade Battlefield

Today Bill and I ventured south in search of Beasley Mfg., in the small town of Center Hill.  You'd think in a state as flat as a pancake that a business in Center Hill would be a snap to find.  No such luck.  Even a grid workup of the town streets and a complete circumnavigation of the town boundaries we couldn't find it. Just as we were about to give up we found it.  What a hole in the wall and it's CLOSED BILL.  Here we are at the threshold of the home of the infamous Beasley matts and it's closed.  We'll go back to Beasley tomorrow.  The story continues then.

To avoid the drive being a complete bust we dug into our Rand McNally to find what else was in the neighborhood.  We opted for the Dade Battlefield Historic State Park.  What an interesting and enjoyable choice.

A brief history of the territory in question.




Over the next years, the settlers continued to complain about the Indians. General Jackson from Hermitage, TN.  now President of the United States.  The year is 1835.  The President's crusade was to relocate all Seminole Indians in Florida to Oklahoma. Naturally there was resistance on the part of the Indians to this plan.  Three Chiefs, Alligator, Jumper and Micanopy lead the Indian resistance.

This is the area along the 20 foot wide road that lead between Tampa and Fort Brooke, near the present day site of Ocala.





Major Dade was assigned to lead a force of 108 soldiers to take care of this nuisance group. The Chiefs and their Indians laid in wait for the Major and his soldiers to arrive. Early in the morning they were ambushed midway along the road traveled between Tampa and Fort Brooke. Most were killed or wounded in the first phase.  A second phase of the battle ensued and by early afternoon all officers and soldiers were dead, except for three who later crawled away and made it back to Fort Brooke, over 60 miles away.



We walked the battlefield which hasn't changed in over 150 years.  Pillars mark the place where a few of the soldiers fell.

Above is Chief Micanopy.

This massacre was the launch pin to the Second Seminole War from 1835 to 1842 when the U.S. sent 40,000 troops instead 108.  It took seven years but in the end only 300 Seminole Indians remained. The rest were shipped off to Oklahoma or dead from battle or disease,  This war was the most costly of all Indian wars, costing over 40 million, 1500 soldiers dead and an unknown number of Indians.




Chief Billy Bowlegs wasn't done yet and in 1855 he attacked a U.S. Civil Engineering crew after they destroyed his prized banana plants.

This resulted in the Third Seminole Indian War of 1855 to 1858.  Chief Bowlegs finally agreed to leave Florida in 1858 with all 164 remaining of his people, 122 with him and 42 that were captured and removed.


And so we enjoyed a piece of history we knew little about.

Outside the battlefield area a group from WWII re-enactors was setting up for the weekend events.

It was a good day.  We walked, we learned, we saw, we discovered, we recovered, we came home.

Thanks for visiting.  Come back again.