Dade battle

The Dade battle (often called the Dade massacre) was an 1835 military defeat for the United States Army. Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 the U.S. was attempting to force the Seminoles to move away from their land in Florida provided by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek (following the American annexation of Spanish Florida see the Adams-Onis Treaty) and relocate to Indian Territory under the terms of the Treaty of Payne's Landing. Two U.S. Army companies numbering 103 men under the command of Major Francis L. Dade were ambushed by approximately 180 Seminole and Black Seminole warriors as they marched from Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay to reinforce Fort King in Ocala. Only three U.S. soldiers and their guide Louis Pacheco survived the attack, and one died of his wounds the following day. The battle sparked the Second Seminole War, which ended in 1842. By that time, most Seminoles had surrendered and been transported out of Florida, and a small group remained in central Florida (see Chipco's band) while another portion had moved further south to the edges of the Everglades in the Big Cypress (see Abiaka and Holatta Micco). There was no formal treaty ending this conflict which was another chapter in the long fought Seminole Wars.