The Dade Battle: How the Second Seminole War Began

On the morning of December twenty-eighth, eighteen thirty-five, a column of one hundred seven United States soldiers marched north through the Florida flatwoods, heading from Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay toward Fort King near present-day Ocala. Major Francis Dade rode at the front. They were moving through what was then Seminole territory, and almost everyone in the column knew the territory was hostile. What they did not know was that they were already being watched.

Approximately one hundred eighty Seminole and Black Seminole warriors had positioned themselves in the high grass along the trail. Among them was Micanopy, one of the most senior chiefs of the Seminole Nation. When Dade's column came into range, Micanopy raised his rifle and fired the opening shot. It killed Major Dade from his saddle.

What followed was a systematic destruction. The initial volley killed or wounded roughly half the soldiers in the column. A brief defense was organized among the survivors. They hauled a small cannon and fired it into the treeline. But the warriors encircled the position, and within a few hours the fight was over. Of the one hundred eight soldiers, only three survived long enough to crawl back toward Fort Brooke. One of those died of his wounds the next day. Two made it.

The Dade Battle, as Seminole oral tradition calls it, was the opening engagement of the Second Seminole War. That conflict would last seven years, consume forty million dollars, kill more than fifteen hundred United States soldiers, and result in the forced removal of most of the Seminole Nation to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. It was one of the longest and most costly Indian wars the United States ever fought.

A state park now marks the battlefield. The graves of the soldiers are here. Each year in December, a reenactment brings the engagement back to the flatwoods where it began.