SW0111 Dogged Researcher Used Shovels and Smarts to Confirm Okeechobee Battlefield Site

Seminole Wars Authority

We’ve known of the Okeechobee Battle and its site since that encounter on Christmas Day 1837, near that great lake’s northern shore in the southern Florida peninsula. But then, we forgot. We forgot the battle and we forgot the site, other than a marker from the Daughters of the American Revolution. Instead, by the 1980s, we knew the vicinity of the battle but didn’t have any artifacts or other archaeological evidence to definitively say the battlefield was there.

When a housing developer canvassed the area in 1985, the consultants hired came up with “dry holes.” Still, a handful of history hunters and friends of the site and event, pulled out their own shovels – and smarts – to settle the matter. One of those stalwarts is Willard S. Steele, or Bill as we know him. He researched and rushed out a book on the Battle of Okeechobee in 1985, so the public could be informed better about the battle and why the site deserved to be preserved.

Bill’s work has centered around many of the most significant battle sites and villages associated with the history of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. As a contractor for the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy from 1982 to 2012, he scoured the area for signs of the battle and then performed gumshoe research work by identifying contemporary accounts of the battle so he could pinpoint locations on the actual battlefield. At the roughly the same time, Bill managed operations at History Miami from 1984 to 1990. In 2002 the Seminole Tribe of Florida hired Bill as their tribal Archivist and, shortly thereafter, appointed him as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, a position he held for 10 years. Even after 35 years and more on the case, Bill continues to discover new facets of the battle and the battlefield. He joins us to discuss all of this.
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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