



|
Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings
 |
CASTILLO DE SAN MARCOS (FORT MARION) NATIONAL
MONUMENT
Florida
|

|
Location: St. Johns County, eastern part of St.
Augustine; address: 1 Castillo Drive, St. Augustine, Fla. 32084.
|
|
The well-preserved Castillo de San Marcos,
constructed by the Spaniards in the years 1672-96, commemorates
primarily the Anglo-Spanish struggle for the present Southeastern United
States during the 17th and 18th centuries, a topic outside the scope of
this volume. For most of the 19th century, however, the post was known
as Fort Marion, a U.S. Army base and military prison where Seminoles and
Indians from the Southwest were incarcerated and where Lt. Richard H.
Pratt conducted an educational program for some of them that resulted in
his founding the Carlisle Indian School, Pa.
In 1821, when the United States officially acquired
Florida from Spain, it occupied the castillo and designated it as the
Post of St. Augustine, renamed 4 years later as Fort Marion. It was a
logistical base during the Second Seminole War (1835-43), fought because
of the tribe's opposition to relocation west of the Mississippi. During
the war, some of the captured chiefs and their followers were imprisoned
at the fort.
Later in the century the post again served as a
prison for Indians, this time for those from the West. At the end of the
Red River War (1874-75), the Government transported more than 70 tribal
leadersmainly Kiowas, Comanches, and Southern Cheyennes, but
including two Arapahos, and one Caddofrom Fort Sill, Okla., to
Fort Marion for indefinite imprisonment. The antagonism of frontiersmen
toward the Indians dictated against holding a civil trial in the West;
and the U.S. Attorney General contended that, as wards of the
Government, they could not be tried before a military court in
peacetime.
 |
Fort Marion about the time of
the Civil War. (National Archives) |
Lieutenant Pratt, a cavalry officer, escorted the
prisoners and supervised them after their arrival at Fort Marion in the
spring of 1875. Several incidents had marred the train trip to Florida.
Throngs of curious onlookers gathered at every major depot along the way
to jeer at the captives. A Cheyenne chief escaped through a train
window; in the process of recapturing him, a soldier shot and killed
him. Another Cheyenne tried but failed to commit suicide on board the
train, but managed to starve himself to death after reaching
Florida.
At first the Indians were shackled and confined in
the casemates of Fort Marion, though several times a day soldiers
conducted them to the roof for air and exercise. Within a few months,
however, Pratt ordered the shackles removed and allowed the prisoners to
build a huge shed for quarters on one of the terrepleins. Dressing them
in military uniforms, he conducted daily drills. As time went on, he
allowed his charges considerable freedom of egress from the fort and
welcomed visitors. For employment, they polished "sea bean" shells,
which they sold to curio dealers and others along with handcrafted
items. The prisoners also found jobs in nearby orange groves and
packinghouses, and occasionally worked in the local sawmill and railroad
depot.
The most significant aspect of prison life was
Pratt's educational experiment. Convinced that the Indians should be
assimilated into American society, Pratt provided the younger ones with
academic instruction. When they learned to read and write English, he
began to contact various vocational schools, hoping to secure their
acceptance for training under Government sponsorship. The only response
came from Hampton Institute, Va., a black school. By early 1878, when
the War Department released the prisoners, Pratt had arranged for the
education of 17 at the institute and five others by private citizens.
The rest returned to Indian Territory. The next year Pratt, enthused
over his educational program, established the Carlisle Indian
School.
 |
Lt. Richard H. Pratt's wards at
Fort Marion received military training. Here is a group of Indian
guards, who replaced the Army guards. (National Park
Service) |
Fort Marion played a prison-type role once again in
1886-87. In 1886 some 500 Chiricahuas and Warm Springs Apaches, who had
been terrorizing the Southwest, arrived from Arizona. Not rigidly
confined but quartered in a tent city atop the wide fort walls, they
suffered from extremely crowded conditions. Removed from their natural
habitat, they began dying in alarming numbers. In 1887, largely because
of the pleas of the Indian Rights Association and Generals Crook and
Howard, the Army moved the Indians to a 2,100-acre reservation at Mount
Vernon Barracks, Ala. In 1888, they were joined by Geronimo, Natchez,
and 26 other tribal leaders who had been imprisoned for 2 years at Fort
Pickens, Fla., where their wives and families had joined them from Fort
Marion in 1887. In 1894 all of them were again relocated, to Fort Sill,
Okla.
Included in Castillo de San Marcos National Monument
are the castillo-fort, surrounded by moat and outworks, and a gate that
was once part of the wall around the city of St. Augustine. Each evening
from December 1 through Labor Day a sound and light program telling the
history of the castillo is presented. Fort Marion's role is interpreted
as part of the park's overall program.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/soldier-brave/sitea11.htm
Last Updated: 19-Aug-2005
|