Quaint and Historic Forts of North AmericaHammond, John Martin
History
Quaint and Historic Forts of North America
Hammond, John Martin
Fortification -- North America; Fortification -- United States; Historic buildings -- United States
In 1783 took place another one of those shuffles between high
contracting parties by which each party thinks that he has secured
the better of the bargain. England traded Florida to Spain for
Jamaica. Spain traded Jamaica to England for Florida. In 1821 Spain
ceded Florida to the United States, and in 1825 the name of the
fort was changed from Fort St. Mark to Fort Marion in honor of
General Francis Marion, of Revolutionary fame.
The Seminole War began in 1835 and continued until 1842, costing
the United States two thousand lives, and forty million dollars.
Fort Marion was the centre of the military operations of this
conflict and it was the scene of the disgraceful episode of
treachery by which Osceola and other Indian chieftains were
captured. In 1838 General Hernandez, in command of the United
States forces, sent word to Osceola that he would be protected if
he should come to Fort Marion for talk of peace. With seventy of
his followers the Indian came to the conference and was placed
in irons. The prisoner was taken to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston
harbor, where from much brooding and confinement he died. The same
tactics were repeated in another sitting with Coacoochee, the
remaining great leader of the Seminoles, and the Seminole War was
ended. Coacoochee was confined in Fort Marion, where his cell is
pointed out to visitors. His fate became that of an exile, for with
his people he was transported to a western reservation.
During the Civil War Fort Marion had a brief flurry of excitement
when the fort was seized by Southern sympathizers in 1861. It
quickly fell before Federal troops, however, and had no further
active part in that war.
The old fort is still government property, but its days of activity
are long since past. That it will be maintained for many years as a
reminder of the past is, however, well assured.
LA FUERZA, MORRO CASTLE, AND OTHER DEFENCES
HAVANA--CUBA
The city of Havana was located where it stands to-day in 1519,
after a four years’ unsatisfactory trial of a site on the opposite,
or south, coast of the island. It jogged along comfortably through
all of the ordinary perils of that time until 1538, when it was
attacked and sacked by a French privateersman. The authorities
in the home country determined to provide some means of defence
for the baby metropolis, and one Hernando de Soto, an impecunious
adventurer who had followed Pizarro to Peru, and had returned
enriched with plunder from that unhappy land, was commissioned
governor of Cuba and Florida with instructions to build a fortress
at Havana.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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