Resistance

On the night of November 29, John Horse and the Seminole captives escaped from the strongest fort in Florida. John Horse shared a cell with Coacoochee, Osceola, King Phillip, and sixteen other prisoners. Considered escape-proof, the cell was not guarded at night. It had only one opening: a slit fifteen feet up the wall, blocked by two iron bars. Waiting for a moonless night, the prisoners cut through the bars with a smuggled file. They had feigned illness for days, starving themselves so they could fit through the opening. Even so, several scraped the skin off their backs as they slid through the stone. One by one, the prisoners emerged and dropped down the rough outer wall of the fort -- to the moat and to freedom.