John Horse
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John Horse (b. 1812 - d. 1882), also known as Juan Caballo and Gopher John, was a military advisor to Osceola and a leader of the Afro-Seminole contingents against American troops during the Seminole Wars. He later became a scout for the United States Army and led a number of Black Seminoles across the Southeastern United States to first Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and later to Mexico, where he died.
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[edit] Early Life and war
Horse was born and raised as a slave in Micanopy, Florida. The year that he was born, the War of 1812 broke out between American and British troops. Horse, while a biracial slave to a Seminole family, wasn't treated in the type of manner that was common in the institution of chattel slavery in the northerly states such as Georgia. The First Seminole War (1817-1818) occurred during his childhood.
As a young man, he gained notoriety within the Seminole Nation as an interpreter for Osceola and Chief Alligator, and fought against the army of Zachary Taylor during the Second Seminole War. He led an escape of over 700 Seminole and [[Black Seminoles from a relocation camp near Fort Brooke, alongside Osceola and Sam Jones, a Mikasuki chief. He voluntarily surrendered to US troops in 1838 because of a lack of morale and reinforcements, a year after Osceola and other leaders were captured under the pretense of a white flag, and was shipped from Tampa Bay to New Orleans, and eventually settled in Indian Territory with his family, some 500 Black Seminoles who had accepted removal.
[edit] Life in Oklahoma
Once in Indian Territory, he accepted a job as an interpreter for the Army, which needed interpreters to convince the remaining insurrectionists in Florida to surrender and relocate to Indian Territory, and returned to Florida in 1839. He returned to Indian Territory in 1842 along with some 120 other Seminole who were captured and forcibly expelled. However, the pro-slavery Creek people were already settled in the lands that were promised by the Army to the Seminoles. This led to tensions with the Creek, who tried to kidnap several Black Seminoles, and succeeded in capturing Dembo Factor, a war veteran. Coacoochee, a traditionalist who opposed the idea of living with the Creek, protested the possible selling of Factor to the Territory as a slave. He was joined by Horse, and while the Army recovered Factor to the Seminole, no criminal charges were filed against the suspected slavers by the Creek Nation. Coacoochee and Horse then traveled to Washington, D.C. in 1844 to seek a separate land grant for the Seminole. They failed to secure a treaty and went home empty-handed, and an unsuccessful attempt was made on Horse's life by a Seminole man. Horse traveled again to Washington, and lobbied his old enemy Gen. Jesup, for a separate land for Seminole settlement; Jesup then granted Fort Gibson as a place of residence to the Seminoles. However, during his time in Washington, then-Attorney-General John Y. Mason ruled that the Black Seminoles were functionally fair game for slave raiders. This meant that over 280 Black Seminoles, including members of Horse's own family, could be sold into chattel slavery under the whites and Creeks by their informal Seminole masters.
[edit] Migration
To that end, John Horse and Coacoochee led a group of Seminoles from Fort Gibson to modern Wewoka. During this time, Coacoochee and Horse thought of constructing an alliance of plains Indians, eastern Indians and fugitive slaves in an uprising against the federal government. The two waited until the notorious Indian agent, Marcellus Duval, finished his tenure and returned to Washington. Then they immediately led a migration across Texas and the Rio Grande into Coahuila, Mexico. They presented themselves to the Mexican commander at Piedras Negras on July 12, 1850.
[edit] Later life
Horse eventually secured land for the migrants, but returned with a number of Black Seminoles after the American Civil War to work as Indian scouts for the US Army. However, he returned to Mexico after a number of years, and then died en route to Mexico City while trying to gain more land rights for his people in northern Mexico. A community of Black Seminoles still resides in Coahuila to this day.
