SW060 At Wahoo Swamp, Seminoles Continue to Frustrate Army Indian Removal Plans

 

The battle with the funny name, Wahoo Swamp, provided a bookend to US military efforts to remove Seminole from Florida in 1836. Spring battles within the Withlacooche River region taxed the efforts of a number of Federal Army generals. With these regulars unable to bring the Seminole heal, Florida territorial governor Richard Keither Call, as territorial militia chief, took troops into the Wahoo Swamp to try his hand at removing the Seminole, in this case, using volunteers and Florida militia with available regular troops. His effots were as futile as the regulars' attempts before him.

Craftsman Mark Luther constructed a meticulously accurate miniature representation of the Battle of Wahoo Swamp.

The battle became known for the death of one of its officers, David Moniac, who had led Creek volunteers and had been the first Native American (Indian) to attend and graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. This is because the battle itself was inconclusive for the U.S. military. For the Seminoles, thwarting American military advance meant they would live another day free in Florida.  

National report newspaper account on the battle (bottom second column).
Sean Norman, acting director of GARI, Gulf Archaeological Researrch Instititute, joins us to discuss the battle itself and its contours. In our next episode, he returns to discuss the GARI survey on the area of the Battle of Wahoo Swamp. He describes how they engaged the community impacted, surveyed the available terrain, discovered variouis artifacts, and what GARI concluded in its report. 

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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