sk any high-school freshman about America’s westward ex-pansion and you’ll hear all you need to know about “manifest destiny” and the heartbreaking fate of the native people who stood in the way. But few history textbooks tell the story of the Native Americans imprisoned in Fort Marion, Florida, hundreds of miles from the open plains where so many lives were lost.
Oklahoma, 1874. The Red River War ended in victory for the U.S. army, and thousands of American plains Indians were quickly removed to reservations like Fort Sill and the Darlington Agency. Seventy-four of these individuals—mostly male warriors—were sent east to St. Augustine, Florida, convicted of murder and rebellion without a trial. For three years, they were imprisoned in Fort Marion, now known as Castillo de San Marcos—the name given to the military installation when it was first established by the Spanish in 1695.
The prisoners were members of five different tribes, primarily Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche. After days of travel by wagon, rail, and steamboat, they arrived at a prison where conditions were quite bleak. Many slept on dirt flooring. Disease was a constant threat. But drastic changes were about to take place.
Captain Richard Henry Pratt, an officer in the 10th Cavalry, oversaw the prisoners from the moment they left Oklahoma. As the head of an African- American unit led by white officers, Pratt had spent several years coordinating the work of Indian scouts who offered guidance to American soldiers. Evidently, his experience with these repressed groups made him sympathetic to their plight, prompting him to speak out on their behalf.
“Pratt instituted some major changes in the first six months of their imprisonment, removing their chains and shackles and improving their living facilities,” says Amy Harper, a park guide at Castillo de San Marcos. “In his autobiography, Pratt talks a lot about equal rights, and in reading his words, you get the sense he really felt very strongly about the need to assimilate Native Americans into white society. During a time of westward expansion, Native Americans were losing their land and their mobility, their horses were being captured and slaughtered, and buffalo were becoming more scarce—their whole way of life was really dying out. Pratt really believed assimilation was their only chance for their survival.”
Pratt dismissed the local guard and had some of the young Indians serve as guards for the rest of the imprisonment. He took the men on camping and fishing trips on Anastasia Island, across the bay. Local women volunteered to teach the prisoners for several hours every morning, helping them learn to speak, read, and write in English.
“Visitors were welcome to [come to the prison] every day except Sundays, [which were devoted to] instruction,” Pratt wrote in his autobiography, Battle-field & Classroom. “I conceived it my highest duty to correct the unwarranted prejudice promoted among our people against the Indians through race hatred and the false history which tells our side and not theirs, and which has been so successfully nursed by keeping them remote and alleging that they alone have irredeemable qualities.
It was just as important to remove from the Indian’s mind this false notion that the greedy and vicious among our frontier outlaws fairly represented the white race.”
Prisoners were encouraged to earn money by crafting products such as polished sea beans, toys, and bows and arrows, all sold to tourists. Many of the men also pursued art, transferring their skills from the canvas of a buffalo hide to accounting ledgers and any other scraps of paper that could be procured—a common practice among Indians in the west, as buffalo became more scarce and paper became more widely available.
Most of the childlike images depict life on the plains or typical prison activities including camping, swimming, and organized outings. At least 900 images were created during their internment, many of which are preserved in private collections, museums, and archives as the most tangible reminders of a complicated period in our nation’s history.
Although some considered Pratt their advocate, if not an outright savior, others point out that every day spent in the prison stripped these men of their tribal identities.
“Descendants of the prisoners at Fort Marion always have mixed opinions about Captain Pratt,” says Harper. “As the founder of the Carlisle School—the model school for all Native American boarding schools of the era—Pratt was one of the first people to go west and actively recruit students. Although parents generally had to grant permission for their children to attend, coercion was common and many schools reported abuses, so Native Americans still have negative associations with these schools and the man who created them.”
In 1878, Pratt successfully petitioned the government for the prisoners’ release, and the Native Americans were transferred back to the care of the Indian Bureau. Some men returned to their families in the west, but 22 chose to stay on the east coast and continue their education.
It’s difficult to say if these men were eager to embrace the new world they’d found in the white man’s lessons or if they simply recognized there was no going back to the world they’d left behind.
Scott Kirkwood is senior editor for National Parks magazine.
Ask any high-school freshman about America’s westward ex-pansion and you’ll hear all you need to know about “manifest destiny” and the heartbreaking fate of the native people who stood in the way. But few history textbooks tell the story of the Native Americans imprisoned in Fort Marion, Florida, hundreds of miles from the open plains where so many lives were lost.
