Dade Battlefield Historic State Park
Dade Battlefield Historic State Park is a state park located on County Road 603 between Interstate 75 and U.S. Route 301 in Sumter County, Florida. The park includes of pine flatwoods and a live oak hammock. Also called the Dade Massacre site, it preserves the Second Seminole War battlefield where tribal Seminole warriors and Black Seminole allies fought soldiers under the command of Major Francis L. Dade on December 28, 1835. Each year, on the weekend after Christmas, the Dade Battlefield Society sponsors a reenactment of the battle that started the Second Seminole War.
Under the title of Dade Battlefield Historic Memorial, it is also a United States National Historic Landmark.
History
The Second Seminole War
The United States government negotiated the Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1824, placing the Seminoles on a reservation that included the site of the future battle. A combination of white settlers moving onto public land in violation of the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, slave hunters trespassing onto the reservation to capture maroons without proof of ownership, and the government's implementation of the Indian Removal Act and the Treaty of Payne's Landing to move the Seminoles over the protests of Seminole chiefs infuriated the Seminoles.At around 8:00 AM on the morning of December 28, 1835, around 130 Seminoles, led by Chief Micanopy, ambushed Major Dade and over 100 men along a segment of the Fort King Road as they marched to reinforce the troops stationed at Fort King. Dade, another commanding officer, and the entire left flank, consisting of one-half of the troops, were killed in the first volley. Over the next six hours, Dade's remaining troops and the Seminoles exchanged gunfire; the gunfire ceased as all but three of Dade's men and their guide Louis Pacheco were killed. Privates Joseph Sprague and Ransom Clarke returned to Fort Brooke ; Sprague later served until the end of the Second Seminole War, and Clarke died from his injuries five years later. The Dade Massacre began the Second Seminole War.
In 1836, General Thomas Sidney Jesup ordered a regiment of Tennessee militiamen led by Major Robert Armstrong, to build a supply depot at the site of Dade's Massacre named Fort Armstrong. From Fort Armstrong, Brigadier General Richard Keith Call led an attack on the Seminoles living in the Wahoo Swamp a few days after the fort's construction ended. Later in 1837, Major Thomas Childs took over command of the post. During his tenure, one "Colonel Dill", claiming that he was seeking escaped slaves, was detained and was ordered to return to his residence. General Jesup ordered that all government employees and express riders were barred from passing through Fort Armstrong for the purpose of looking for runaway slaves. This was to allow black Seminoles to enter the fort and to be eventually deported to reservations west of the Mississippi River. In 1984, after several years' work, the Sumter County Historical Society would place a marker at the site of Fort Armstrong.
Early 1900s
Attempts at preserving the Dade massacre site began in 1897 with a bill introduced in the United States Congress which called for the creation of a national park on the Dade massacre battleground and its inclusion in a national park system. Florida congressman Stephen Sparkman began efforts to preserve the Dade Massacre site on January 27, 1904, with the introduction of another bill in the United States House of Representatives seeking to create a national park on the battle's site. In 1907 and again in 1912, Sparkman re-introduced legislation that provided funding for a marker and for the preservation of the battleground. In 1919, United States representative Henry Jackson Drane of Florida, who had visited the Dade Battlefield area in 1884, introduced another bill for the creation of a memorial at the site.1920s
In 1910, two Florida newspapers, the Leesburg Commercial and the St. Lucie Tribune, encouraged legislators to place a marker on the site of the massacre. At the state level, an attempt to create a memorial park on the site of the Dade Massacre was made in the early 1920s. Before his term in the Florida Legislature, Lake County judge J. C. B. Koonce held pre-trial hearings at the park's site. Fascinated by the battle, Lake County judge Koonce began to develop the area into a park in 1908. In 1921, as the Sumter County representative in the Florida House, Koonce, state senator W. M. Igou of Eustis, state representative L. D. Edge of Groveland, state representative T. G. Futch of Leesburg, and United States Senator Duncan Fletcher urged the Florida legislature to preserve the site.In 1921, the state of Florida appointed Koonce, Fred C. Cubberly, and Mrs. A. M. Roland as commissioners of the Dade Memorial Park and authorized them to purchase 80 acres of land at and surrounding the site of the massacre from three local families and a local company for $2,000. The Florida Legislature also appointed the board to maintain and operate the park.
After the passage of the bill, Sumter County residents cleared the land to form the park. During the 1920s, Koonce sculpted statues of the soldiers and Seminoles involved in the battle, ordered a bronze statue to portray Dade, built the gazebo, and constructed the monuments indicating where the officers fell. Koonce and his son O. B. Koonce maintained the landscape. He also pushed to have an archway placed at the entrance to the park, the construction of a road leading to the park in 1926, and electric power lines to connect the park to the power grid. Koonce also constructed other statutes, such as a pelican. In 1922, Representative Drane and Chief Clerk Nathan Hazen of the Ordnance Department arranged to have two guns shipped to the Dade Memorial Park. A portrait of Chief Micanopy hung in the lodge and a statute of Osceola close to the lodge honored the two leaders.
Centennial of the Dade Massacre
In 1935, Koonce promoted the idea to conduct a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Dade Massacre. To mark the centennial of the Dade Massacre, organizers planned a reenactment of the battle. The Seminoles were to be invited to join and to formally sign a peace treaty with the United States government. Plans eventually changed to include a parade, a barbecue, concerts, addresses by dignitaries, and a full reenactment. On December 28, 1935, over 5,000 people, including Florida's governor attended the ceremony.World War II
During World War II, Dade Memorial Park served as a United States Army installation. The United States Army Air Corps unit trained personnel in Morse code and radio communications from January 1944 to June 1944. On May 29, 1944, members of the 622nd Signal Aircraft Warning Company were transferred to a base in Ocoee, Florida.The park also served as base housing for soldiers operating at the Bushnell Army Airfield. Tents and a supply room lined the area in front of the breastworks while a mess hall, an office, the motor pool, and a shower room flanked the living quarters. Other buildings were also built in other areas of the park.
1950s
In 1949, the Florida Legislature dissolve the Dade Memorial Park Commission and moved the park under the care of the then Board of Parks and Historical Memorials. Several facilities were built at this time. In 1957, construction on the recreation lodge was completed. The museum opened on July 4, 1957. By 1959, the park had built a children's playground, two tennis courts, a baseball field, courts for shuffleboard and horseshoes, several picnic shelters, and a barbecue shed.In an effort to restore the park to the conditions at the time of the battle, the Division of Natural Resources removed the archway, the monuments, and the statue of the pelican. At a public hearing about the park, the Division of Natural Resources officials faced strong opposition from long-time Sumter County residents who felt that the changes made to the park dishonored Koonce's vision for the park. Residents recovered the discarded monuments and placed them back in the park. When district naturalist John Dodrill realized that the statue portraying Dade was that of a Union soldier, agency officials attempted to raise money to replace the statue. Feeling that the state was dictating the park's design, county residents opposed the measure. In 1983, Dodrill designed a plaque explaining to visitors that the statue represented all fallen Sumter County soldiers.
1960s
About 1968, Sumter County employees found several cylinders measuring long and about in diameter on the Dade Battlefield Historic Site grounds. Suspecting that the vials were munitions that had been buried on the park grounds during World War II, the workers turned the vials over to a state agency. According to former Sumter County civil defense director Vernon Berry, the agency stated that one vial exploded while the agency was analyzing it.1970s
On January 22, 1973, Ney Landrum, Chief of the Division of Recreation and Parks, nominated Dade Battlefield to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. On November 7, 1973, the National Park Service issued national register number 72000353 to Dade Battlefield, listing the park on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1994, the National Park Service listed the park as a National Historic Landmark. To facilitate the study of the park, the National Park Service placed the park under the themes Political and Military Affairs, 1783–1860—Jacksonian Democracy, 1828–1844 and Westward Expansion of the British Colonies and the United States, 1763–1898—Military-Aboriginal American Contact and Conflict—East of the Mississippi, 1763–1850s.In 1976, the state of Florida selected the Dade Battlefield State Historic Site to be a Florida Bicentennial Trail site. To emphasize the park's historical significance, the Division of Recreation and Parks attempted to remove the playground, the baseball field, the tennis courts, and the shuffleboard and horseshoe courts. The south end of the road dividing the park was cut off, making it safe for visitors, and culverts were placed in the ditch that was dug in the park at some time after the battle. In addition, park officials planned to obtain a cannon for the battlefield. As of 2004, one tennis court and two shuffleboard courts remained of the recreational facilities.