David Pendleton Oakerhater - Fort Marion Prisoner

Fort Marion Prisoner

In the Red River War of 1874 and 1875, the United States government pacified the last Native American militants in Indian Territory, fighting a series of skirmishes until the militants were exhausted by lack of food and supplies. The warriors, including Oakerhater, surrendered in 1875 at Fort Sill near what is now Lawton, Oklahoma. A group of 74 were selected from there and another location, all without trial, for imprisonment in Florida. Oakerhater was in a group chosen for being the eighteen farthest right in a line-up by a US Army colonel who had been drinking and was running out of time before nightfall. Some among the eighteen had nothing to do with the insurrection.

The army assigned First Lieutenant (later Captain) Richard Henry Pratt to transport the prisoners to an old Spanish fort, the Castillo de San Marcos (then known as Fort Marion), near Saint Augustine. Shackled together, they were taken across country on foot, by wagon, train (most had never before seen a train), and steamboat. Many initially thought they would be executed. At least two attempted suicide; one was later shot and killed attempting to escape, and another died of pneumonia.

Captain Pratt believed that Native Americans were deserving of support and respect, and could be assimilated as full members of society. He thought they needed to abandon their old ways and learn the various practices of America's dominant white culture to survive: English, work, Christianity, literacy, education, and so on. The practice of forced assimilation, now criticized as cultural genocide, was considered progressive in its time. Most considered Native Americans to be enemies and murderers who should be killed, imprisoned, or defeated through force. Pratt's superior, General Philip Sheridan, dismissed Pratt's beliefs as "Indian twaddle".

Conditions at the old fort were initially very poor: prisoners slept on the floor of their cells facing a central open-air courtyard. Several died in the first weeks. Pratt quickly improved conditions, obtaining army uniforms, removing the prisoners' shackles, setting them to work building a new residential shed, and procuring bedding. Later, as trust developed on both sides, Pratt convinced his superiors to allow the Indians to carry nonoperational rifles, perform guard duty, obtain outside employment collecting and selling sea beans and other tourist items, have passes to visit the town on Sundays to attend church, and camp unsupervised on nearby Anastasia Island.

Pratt, who offered to resign his military post if the experiment failed, appointed Oakerhater First Sergeant of the prisoners, with a duty to organize morning military drills, ensure hygiene and dress code, choose assistants for Captain Pratt, and oversee the prisoners in Pratt's absence. Pratt and his wife also arranged for volunteer teachers who were vacationing in Florida from across the United States to instruct the prisoners in English, carpentry, and other subjects. They allowed the Indians to conduct a mock buffalo hunt.

In return the prisoners educated townspeople and tourists in archery, and made handicrafts and drawings to sell. Aware for their part of the nature of Pratt's experiment, the prisoners took pride in their work and martial discipline, eager to demonstrate that they could master white Americans' cultural and military practices. They took longer to overcome other cultural barriers, such as discomfort with being taught by women. The first summer Pratt arranged for their families to visit them from the Indian Territory. Within two years of arrival at Fort Marion, Oakerhater was proficient in English, and was regularly writing letters to townspeople he had befriended. That year nineteen of the prisoners were released, in exchange for accepting scholarships for education on the East Coast.