The Elusive Fort Shackelford: The Brief Life and Long Legacy of a Lost Seminole War Fort
Author(s): David W Scheidecker
Year: 2017
Summary
Secluded within a remote cattle pasture on the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation sits a concrete marker from the 1940’s declaring it to be the location of Fort Shackelford, a US Army outpost built in 1855 during the prelude to the Third Seminole war. Investigations to verify the location however turned up a complex history. Historical research not only cast doubt on the marker’s accuracy, but revealed a cautionary tale of misinformation, looting, site tampering, and tribal sovereignty. Now, utilizing a combination of modern and traditional archaeological methods including source accounts, historic maps, oral histories, remote sensing, and GIS technology, the Seminole Tribe of Florida Tribal Historic Preservation Office pursues an ongoing project to find the true location of Fort Shackelford.
Cite this Record
The Elusive Fort Shackelford: The Brief Life and Long Legacy of a Lost Seminole War Fort. David W Scheidecker. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Fort Worth, TX. 2017 ( tDAR id: 435435)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Florida
•
Military
•
Seminole
Geographic Keywords
North America
•
United States of America
Temporal Keywords
Historic
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 389