The Seminole War Period
The
coastal area that was later to constitute historic Broward County offered a
number of topographic features that encouraged prehistoric as well as historic
era habitation. One topographic feature was the New River, a tidal river with
northern and southern branches that flowed out of the Everglades, fed by the
waters of Lake Okeechobee and the
southern wetlands that formed the Everglades - or River of Grass. When the flow
of water from the alluvial rivers was strong enough, this flow, combined with
storm incident wave action from the Atlantic Ocean, could open, close, or shift
the natural inlets. In the 19th century pioneer era, natural inlets were located
near the Loxahatchee River at Jupiter, the Hillsboro Inlet in north Broward,
and the New River Inlet, near the third military stockade named Fort Lauderdale,
which had been constructed on the barrier island. When stabilized and widened in
the modern era these inlets served as an accelerator to maritime business and
trade. Another important topographic feature was located in central Broward a
dozen miles from the coast, an elevated ribbon of wooded upland - the Pine
Island Ridge. This extended hammock, an island in the Everglades, offered
sanctuary to native peoples, and later became the site of intensive agricultural
activity in the early twentieth century. A review of historic maps aids in the
understanding of physical changes that occurred along the southeast Florida
coast.
In
1839 during the Second Seminole War, a topographic map of the southern Florida
peninsula was prepared by two Army Engineers - Capt. J. Mackay, and Lieut J. F.
Blake (Figure 5). The area constituting the New River coastal zone is well
defined. South of Boca Raton is now northern Broward County, west of the present
survey area. South of Middle River and flowing into an estuary behind a barrier
island (present Fort Lauderdale Beach) are Snook Creek and the New River, with
its north and south forks. Southwest of the New River are three hammock islands,
the easternmost in the vicinity of historic Pine Island Ridge, the site of a
minor battle in the Second Seminole War.
The
1839 Mackay - Blake map the St. Lucie Inlet, the Jupiter Inlet and the Hillsboro
Inlet in their present position, and presumably open. The New River
Inlet, however, is shown well to the south of the mouth of the New River - in
the general location of present Haulover Inlet. Is the 1839 map accurate? Was
New River Inlet in its correct position?
In early March 1838, Major
William Lauderdale and a force of U.S. volunteer troops moved south from Fort
Jupiter, along a route that came to be known as Military Trail. Over the two
year period, 1838 - 1839, three forts named after Lauderdale were constructed,
two near the forks of the New River, and a third outpost on the barrier island
near present Bahia Mar. Period sources state that the third fort was located
near a tidal inlet (George, 1988). Possibly during the Mackay - Blake mapping
expedition, the inlet was either closed or extremely shallow and unnavigable,
and thus considered inconsequential. During the Second Seminole War troops and
supplies were transported by sea south to Fort Dallas, on the Miami River. In
1838 when the original stockade called Fort Lauderdale was constructed on the
New River, Major Lauderdale and his troops blazed a trail south from Fort
Jupiter. The decision to march overland is another indication that there was no
navigable inlet close to the New River.
The
topographic puzzle presented by the position of the 1839 New River Inlet and the
present Haulover Inlet might be explained by the fact that the nearest navigable
inlet to the New River was given the New River Inlet designation. The Haulover
designation was the later name given when the 1839 New River Inlet silted shut;
a natural phenomenon that occurred periodically. Conversely, at the time of the
1839 map, the inlet near the third Fort Lauderdale might have been little better
than a haul over.
The
present Haulover Inlet, in north Dade County, was in historic times located
along a very narrow strip of barrier island and probably less than 400 feet
wide. Like the other tidal inlets this inlet often closed or shifted in response
to extreme weather conditions. These inlets, would be considered unnavigable by
today’s standards; however, small fishing boats of fifteen to twenty feet
could be floated through these breaks in the barrier island system at high
water. When the inlets closed, these sites were often turned into what were
known as haulovers. An historic haul over was a spot where small boats could be
pulled by mule teams or by human labor utilizing rollers from the estuary system
to the Atlantic and returned through the same process. As the story goes, a man
named Baker kept a team of mules near the location of present Bakers Haulover
Inlet, and for a fee facilitated the movement of small boats from the bay to the
Atlantic and back, thus - Bakers Haulover.
Another
historic haul over was located north of Broward County in south Palm Beach
County at the southern end of Lake Worth, in what is the present Town of Ocean
Ridge. In 1877, a small sloop, the Dolly approached this haulover from the
south; the boat master describes the passage over the barrier island into
present Lake Worth:
“In
about an hour’s time we arrived at the haulover where the two boats were
beached and then unloaded and hauled up out of the reach of the sea. Then the
real work commenced; the work of carrying everything over to the lake. Not
having planks and rollers we were compelled to use the Indian method of
spreading stalks of pawpaw to slide the boat overland to the lake. About two
hours after beaching the boats, the Dolly was floating in the waters of Lake
Worth and ready to sail the two miles to the old homestead (Pierce: 96 in Koski
- Karell: 49).”
Local
watermen, until the construction in the 1920’s of the Lake Worth - Boynton
Inlet, utilized this haul over. This is also the location where the Barefoot
Mailman would leave his small boat after a trip south down the length of Lake
Worth. The mailman would continue on foot down the beach, stopping at the Orange
Grove House of Refuge at present Delray Beach, then
swim Hillsboro Inlet,
then continue on to Fort Lauderdale, and Miami
(McIver in Koski - Karell, 1993).
The 1839 topographic map shows another important topographic designation of historic and regional significance - Boca Ratones and its variations. On the 1839 Mackay - Blake map is Boca Ratones Sound at the location of the present City of Boca Raton. To the south at the position of present Government Cut, the entrance to the Port of Miami, is Boca Ratones. The name Boca Ratones was adapted from earlier Spanish maps. The literal translation means “rats mouth”, or mouth of the rat. To the Spanish a boca ratone meant a place of sharp rocks, a hazard navigation. This spot on present Miami Beach, where sharp limestone rocks jutted up out of the water was dynamited in the early twentieth century when the barrier island that became Miami Beach was being dredged and filled and the entrance to Government Cut stabilized. It appears that the historic sharp rocks called boca ratones at present Lake Boca Raton remain as they were in the 19th century. Annotations for the boca ratones locations and variations of this designation may be found on most of the included historic maps.
The Seminole War in Broward
Notwithstanding
several unsuccessful attempts by the Spanish to maintain Missions in South
Florida, the southern peninsula remained relatively free of any permanent
European presence until the last two decades of the seventeenth century. Outside
of the failed Missions, there were only temporary fishing camps set up by
Spanish fishermen from Cuba, who made forays up the east and west coasts in
pursuit of their catch maintained temporary camps along the barrier island -
coastal estuary system (Covington, 1993. Tebeau, 1970). In the early nineteenth
century the Andrew Jackson era wars between the United States and the Native
American tribes of the southeast resulted in several protracted and bloody
engagements known as the Seminole Wars. These conflicts, interrupted by periods
of truce, treaty, and mutual disinterest, are generally divided
into First and Second Wars, or an initial conflict in the Jacksonian
period (1821-1833) followed by a Second Seminole war, phase one (1835 - 1838),
and Second War, phase two (1838 – 1842), and a final period of conflict
sometimes referred to as a Third War, in the period,
1855 - 1858 (Covington, 1993). For the purposes of this study, the second
period of conflict (1835 - 1842) is most germane; this was the period when the
three outposts known as Fort Lauderdale were constructed, as well as the period
in which the skirmish known as the Battle of Pine Island Ridge occurred.
The
tribes that have come to be called the Seminoles were formed out of a culturally
diverse population base that consisted of the native tribes of southeast Georgia
and Alabama, along with a smaller infusion of
Spanish, Anglo, and African bloodlines. The Seminole nation did not
evolve culturally on the Florida peninsula but constituted the union of the
above mentioned diverse elements driven south, into north and central Florida,
by the encroaching settlements of the American Republic. By the middle of the
eighteenth century, the emerging Seminole culture had largely replaced the
pre-Columbian natives of the peninsula, who had been decimated by disease and
war.
Florida
became a territory of the United States in 1821, at about the same time that
Vignoles was carrying out his survey of the Florida coastline and performing a
limited but tentative exploration of the peninsula in the area of the St. Johns
watershed (Vignoles, 1823). Since the first settlers arrived in the 1780’s,
the settlement at the New River had been slowly growing. By the second decade of
the nineteenth century, the population was estimated to have grown to seventy
persons (George, 1988). The original New River settler was a farmer - fisherman
named Lewis. His homestead was located east of the forks of
the New River. This area in the era of William
Cooley would later become the site of the expanded New River community (Figure
6).
The
acknowledged leader of the New River settlement was William Cooley who
established a farmstead on the river and specialized in the cultivation of
coontie, a plant that yielded a form of starch, a staple food for the Seminoles
and early pioneers. Cooley became the Justice of the Peace for northern Monroe
County, which at that time extended into present Palm Beach County. Cooley was a
man of many talents: farmer, public servant, trader with the Seminoles that
lived to the west at Pine Island, and wrecker (George, 1988).
On
January 6, 1836, Cooley and other male residents of
the New River community were engaged in the salvage of the Spanish
Brigantine, Gil Blas, which had wrecked north of the settlement near the
Hillsboro Inlet during a tropical storm or hurricane in September of 1835. The
salvage of the vessel had been an on-going operation, necessitating frequent
trips north to the wreck site where cargo was transferred to small boats and
transported south to the New River Community.
At
about noon on January 6, one band of approximately twenty Seminoles attacked the
undefended Cooley home on the New River. Present were Mrs. Cooley and the Cooley
children along with a male tutor Joseph Flinton, another New River resident.
Flinton was killed and scalped, and Mrs. Cooley and the children, attempting to
reach the river and watercraft, were pursued and killed. Following the attack,
the Seminoles looted the Cooley home of personal effects as well as a
substantial amount of salvaged cargo from the Gil Blas. Before withdrawing back
into the Everglades, the Seminoles burned the Cooley farm, but did not attack
other New River residents.
Prior
to the attack at the New River, the Seminoles had been friendly with the Cooley
family and traded with William Cooley. One reason offered as the motivating
factor for the Seminole attack on the Cooley farm has been explained as personal
retribution for Justice of the Peace Cooley’s failure to prosecute two white
men who had killed an Indian. Other reasons may have been linked to Cooley’s
monopoly on shipwreck salvage and his control of the coontie industry at New
River.
When
Cooley received word of the attack, he reportedly sailed south to the Cape
Florida lighthouse on Key Biscayne, transporting the New River settlers who had
fled their homesteads in the wake of the attack. Later, Cooley and an armed
party returned to his property and buried Mrs. Cooley, the children, and Joseph
Flinton. Following the attack, the settlers believed the New River settlement to
be uninhabitable, and a large group of settlers were transported to the safety
of Key West, the Monroe County
seat, via the Cooley schooner.
News
of the Cooley Massacre and associated attacks by Seminoles on properties along
the Miami River resulted in a military force being sent to the New River under
the command of Naval Lieutenant Levin M. Powell. The force of 153 soldiers and
sailors destroyed an Indian camp on the south side of the river, but the Indians
had withdrawn. Largely based on Cooley’s estimates of the Seminole population
in south Florida 200 - 300 in the
coastal areas and others in the interior the Commander of Federal troops in
Florida, General Thomas Jessup, ordered a force to the New River to construct a
fortification and carry out operations against the Seminoles in the interior
(George, 1988).
On March 2, 1838, Major William Lauderdale moved south from Fort
Jupiter to the New River with 223 Tennessee Volunteer Militia and an artillery
battery composed of 38 U.S. regular troops. The trail forged south from Jupiter
along the wooded coastal ridge became the route that was later to become known
as Military Trail (Figure
7). After a three-day march, the Lauderdale expeditionary force arrived on the
New River. A site for the fort was selected west of the abandoned Cooley
property at a point called the “windings,” on the north fork of the New
River. Over the period March 6-10, the troops constructed a two-story blockhouse
surrounded by a six-foot picket fence. Shortly thereafter, on March 16, the
official designation of the post became Fort Lauderdale. Soon a semi-circle of
fortifications was in place around the southern littoral of the peninsula - from
east to west: Fort’s Pierce, Jupiter, Lauderdale, Dallas, Poinsett, at Cape
Sable and Fort Myers, near the present city of that name (Tebeau, 1970).
Prior
to an attempt to engage the Seminoles, from Fort Lauderdale, naval lieutenant
Levin Powell returned to Fort Lauderdale, and established a camp on the south
branch of the New River. The south branch of the river led into the Everglades,
flowing parallel to the Indian settlement on Pine Island Ridge. On March 22,
just under a month since the Lauderdale-led troops had marched south, a combined
force of 550 men on a variety of small boats moved into the Everglades led by
Lauderdale, Powell, and Colonel William Bankhead from Fort Jupiter.
The
objective of the U.S. forces was the Pine Island Ridge hammock, which had served
over time as a primary village for the Florida Seminoles. Located in the present
west Broward Town of Davie, the Pine Island hammock extended for half a dozen
miles through the wetlands of the eastern Everglades. After the first Seminole
war (circa 1830), the wooded Pine Island Ridge had been brought under
cultivation, and the Indians had constructed chickees, their open air,
palm-roofed dwellings, along the length of the ridge.
At
the time of the Cooley massacre, the Seminoles had a smaller camp, on the river
near a white settlement, it is likely that the attack at the New River community
was launched from Pine Island. The attack against Pine Island was described by a
civilian provisioner to Fort Lauderdale, William Tucker in a letter: “Today
about 500 men left our camp and are still out in search of Wild Cat, Alligator,
and Sam Jones (Seminole War Chiefs), who were until a day or two ago about eight
miles distant. They have left and now 500 men are on their trail in search of
them. Tomorrow we shall expect to hear a battle (Tucker in George, 1988).
The skirmish that is known as the Battle of Pine Island Ridge defines
the largely futile, frustrating war against the Seminoles in South Florida. As
the troops waded in waist high water toward the elevated ridge, an unknown
number of Seminoles led by a leader named Sam Jones opened fire. The U.S. forces
returned the fire. Several casualties were sustained by the advancing troops;
however, by the time the troops reached the Ridge in any force, the Seminoles
had retreated to the west into the sanctuary of the Everglades, where the slow
equipment encumbered federal troops were unable to follow.
The
Pine Island engagement became the only large expedition launched against the
Seminoles from New River. Major Lauderdale due to chronic illness was forced to
retire north after less than a month’s duty in the inhospitable climate of
coastal Florida. During the journey home to Tennessee, Lauderdale died on May
10, 1838 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A second Fort Lauderdale was constructed in
February 1839, at Tarpon Bend on the New River, east of the original fort
(Figure 8). This fort, too, although more accessible to Military Trail, was
considered logistically untenable and a final fort was constructed near a tidal
inlet, now closed near the present day Bahia Mar complex (George, 1988).
The choice of a coastal fortification was made for several reasons. First, there was no more New River community to protect after the Cooley massacre, and a coastal fortification separated from the mainland by a natural body of water could be more easily defended.
Second, sorties against the Seminoles could be conducted
easily from the coast using the twin branches of the New River, thus making an
inland site redundant. Also, before the construction of the military road, the
New River community had been a maritime settlement dependent on supply by
shallow draft coastal vessels like the one owned by Cooley, able to enter the
New River Inlet as it existed at
that time. A coastal fortification also doubled as a primitive port facility and
served as a deterrent to traders who attempted to do business with the
Seminoles. Finally, the third Fort Lauderdale served as a forerunner to the
houses of refuge that were constructed in the 1880’s to serve as sanctuaries
for shipwrecked sailors. As in the time of the Tequesta, Jega, and Ais, the
Seminoles were also prone to raid shipwrecks for much needed supplies, and a
coastal fortification served as a deterrent to this activity.
The
Second Seminole war ended in 1841, and officials of Florida largely ignored the
Seminoles, who remained in south Florida when the territory became a State in
1845. Following the end of hostilities the post named Fort Lauderdale was
decommissioned on February 15, 1842. Up until the last two decades of the
nineteenth century, the landmass that constituted the future Broward County and
the present community of Fort Lauderdale remained largely uninhabited. What the
construction of the third fort on the barrier island had done was mark the
epicenter for later development. What
was later to become Fort Lauderdale beach was described by a soldier, Francis O.
Wyse: “This post pleases me much. It
is situated by the seashore on a narrow strip of land separated from the
mainland by New River, which at this point is not fifty yards from the sea; so
by stepping a few yards out the back door, we can take a fresh water bath, or if
the salt is preferred, we have but to step a few paces to the front and plunge
into the surf (Wyse in George: 39).”
In
1849, what is called the Third Seminole War, or Billy Bowlegs War, began. This
minor continuation of earlier hostilities resulted in no military action in the
New River region. The conflict did lead to additional infrastructure being added
to the coastal zone. In October 1856, the military engineer Abner Doubleday, the
inventor of baseball and later a Union Civil War hero, was dispatched to Fort
Dallas on the Miami River with orders to construct a military road north. This
corduroy road stretched from Arch Creek in present north Dade County, where the
creek emptied into the northern end of Biscayne Bay. The road followed the
coastal ridge, the future right of way of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast
Railroad, and terminated at New River, the end of the former Military Trail that
had been constructed south from Fort Jupiter (Tebeau, 1970).
Due
to the hostile, uninviting terrain of the Florida peninsula, the First Seminole
War was fought largely in north and central Florida and supported strategically
and logistically from military bases located at the modest population centers of
Jacksonville and St. Augustine on the east coast and Tampa and Pensacola on the
west coast. These northern, coastal bases supported a series of smaller forts
that were constructed during the Second Seminole War: Fort Lauderdale on the New
River, Fort Dallas on the Miami River. Forts at Tea Table Key, near Indian Key,
in the upper Keys, and from Fort Poinsett, at Cape Sable in the Ten Thousand
Islands region of Florida Bay, supported the Florida Keys and extreme southern
peninsula. The southwest coast was supported from Fort Myers on Estero Bay and
the central west coast from strategically important Fort Brooke at Tampa Bay.
These
smaller fortifications could not be adequately maintained by convoys over land
routes; therefore water was the fastest and safest method of resupplying
outposts on the southern littoral of the peninsula. Supplies and fresh troops
were transported largely by small shallow draft coastal vessels, generally
sloops and schooners, which could easily navigate the coastal shallows between
the Florida peninsula and the Florida Current. Often these smaller vessels could
navigate some of the inlets, bays, and the estuary systems which separated the
forts from the open Atlantic and Gulf. For navigation up waterways like the St.
Lucie, Loxahatchee, and Miami rivers, the army and navy utilized flatboats that
could be both sailed and rowed. These small craft, often armed with a small bow
cannon, were also used on Lake Okeechobee, as well as access rivers to the lake
at Kissimmee River, and the smaller Fisheating Creek, running west from Lake
Okeechobee. When smaller boats were needed the troops also utilized native craft
such as the dugout canoe (DeVane, 1970).
The
final assault on the South Florida Seminoles was conducted just before the Civil
War, from 1855 to 1858. In November of 1855 there were 81 troops at Fort Capron,
an outpost near present West Palm Beach, and a larger number, 168, at Fort
Dallas on the Miami River. These small garrisons, along with the garrisons on
the southwest coast and from Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay, were directed to carry
out the strategy of Brigadier General William S. Harney. This strategy was
simple. The orders from Harney read: “Confine Indians to Big Cypress Swamp and
everglades where it will be impossible to live during wet seasons. They
will try to occupy islands of coast and high country to the north and
east of Lake Okeechobee. They can be captured at these positions - On Atlantic
Coast - two companies at Fort Dallas in boats move from Cape Sable to Fort
Dallas. Enter Everglades when water rises (Harney in Covington, 1993).”
The
Harney strategy harassed but failed to dislodge the remaining Seminoles from the
southern Peninsula. The elusive Indians withdrew into remote areas such as the
Big Cypress Swamp, where they remained largely out of sight. By the end of the
1850s the conflict was over; too few Federal troops, the inhospitable terrain,
and the exigencies of the Civil War in the north redirected U.S. forces to war
efforts in the middle states. The remaining Seminoles continued to live in the
Everglades, which remained until the turn of the century an undeveloped region
of wetlands with only tiny enclaves of settlers in the coastal zone.