Dec. 25. Happy Battle of Lake Okeechobee Day! On Christmas day 1837, 176 years ago, the Africans and Native Americans who formed Florida’s Seminole Nation defeated a vastly superior U.S. invading army bent on cracking this early rainbow coalition and returning the Africans to slavery. The Seminole victory stands as a milestone in the march of American liberty. Though it reads like a Hollywood thriller, this amazing story has yet to capture public attention. It is absent from most school textbooks, social studies courses, Hollywood movies, and TV. This Christmas Eve 2014 marks the 177th anniversary of an heroic battle for self-rule and liberty by a daring band of American freedom-fighters traditionally ignored by textbooks. On the northeast corner of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, 380 to 480 members of the multicultural Seminole nation prepared to face down invading armies twice their size led by U.S. Colonel Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana slaveholder and career soldier, who had a reputation as an Indian killer that would take him to the White House as 12th President of the United States. His Seminole foes, with a history of armed resistance to foreign domination, were defending their sovereignty and land. Read full article by William Loren Katz: bit.ly/1bqgtzD. Then on Christmas Day 1837, 380 to 480 Seminole fighters gathered on the northeast corner of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee ready to halt the armies of Colonel Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana slaveholder and ambitious career soldier. He was building a reputation as an “Indian killer.” Taylor’s troops included 70 Delaware Indians, 180 Tennessee volunteers, and 800 U.S. infantry soldiers. As Taylor’s huge army approached, Seminole marksmen waited perched in trees or hiding in tall grass. The first Seminole volleys sent the Delaware fleeing. Tennessee riflemen plunged ahead until a withering fire brought down their commissioned officers and then their noncommissioned officers. The Tennesseans headed home. Then Taylor ordered the U.S. Sixth Infantry, Fourth Infantry, and his own First Infantry Regiments forward. Pinpoint Seminole rifle fire brought down, he later reported, “every officer, with one exception, as well as most of the noncommissioned officers” and left “but four . . . untouched.” That Christmas Day Colonel Taylor counted 26 U.S. dead and 112 wounded, seven dead for each slain Seminole, and he had taken no prisoners. After the two and a half hour battle the Seminoles took to their canoes and sailed off to fight again.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 09:03:09 +0000
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