A decade ago, St. Augustine, Florida tourists visiting the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, or what is historically known as Fort Marion, learned a one-sided history.
“Our visitors could walk away with the impression that ‘Oh, assimilation was a good thing,’” said Steve Roberts, the Director of Interpretation and Education at Castillo de San Marcos.
However, after Roberts and his colleague Gordy Wilson walked through the exhibits, they knew they needed to provide a more complex picture.
“We knew that those exhibits and history had been told from a U.S. military perspective …versus listening to the oral tradition of the tribes,” he said in an interview with KOSU. “And it struck us both that we needed to do better.”
This realization ultimately led Roberts and Wilson to build a relationship with Norene Starr, Cheyenne and Arapaho Outreach Coordinator and descendant of Chief Heap of Birds and Big Moccasin — two leaders sent to Fort Marion, who never made it back home.
Starr said she worked closely with Roberts and Wilson to shape what would become the Fort Marion Symposium, a collaboration that grew to involve the four Oklahoma tribal nations and the National Park Service and funding from the National Park Foundation.
The second annual symposium was held this year. It was the first time the event had taken place in Oklahoma, where the story of the Indigenous prisoners at Fort Marion began.
Tribes in what is now Oklahoma—the Cheyenne and Arapaho, Kiowa and Comanche nations—fought forced relocation during the Red River War, ultimately leading to their surrender in 1875 due to depleted resources.
Influential tribal leaders were imprisoned following the war. Eventually, more than 50 leaders and warriors were selected by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas H. Neil to be transported to Fort Marion, Florida.
The selections were made based on war crimes, often brought about by false testimonials and to fulfill a quota. Yet, as Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Max Bear said, those men did what they had to do to survive.
“Prisoners at Fort Marion, they're going to be viewed as somebody that did something bad and heinous,” Bear said during the symposium. “These men defended themselves for their people, their children because we already had three known massacres at that time.”
Opportunities were given for attendees to tell their ancestral histories, and tough memories were shared.
The Indigenous men held captive were under Captain Richard Henry Pratt, who later became well-known for running the Carlisle Indian Boarding School. Pratt displayed the prisoners as “captured savages” to make a profit while traveling to Florida, though that attempt was unsuccessful.
Once they arrived at Fort Marion, the men were forced to cut their long hair and ultimately assimilate.
While assimilation is a piece of history at the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, tourists can now recognize the harm of cultural genocide as well as attendees of the symposium.
“It's always a work in progress, and there's more work to do,” Roberts said. “While the exhibit had focused on Captain Pratt in particular, we'd added a new panel that is a counterpoint to that of Chief Heap of Birds talking about intergenerational trauma [and] his line of descendants that are strong people.”
Starr said when she visited the exhibit, she saw her ancestor, Chief Heap of Birds, right next to Pratt. Seeing the Indigenous perspectives growing at the monument —both big and small — reminds Starr of the important work shifting the narrative can do, which she is grateful for.
“All the time that I put in on this project and creating this whole project, it's not for me… it's for my people, and especially my grandchildren,” Starr said.
She hopes her work will remind them of where they come from, who they are, and where they are going.
The Fort Marion Symposium wrapped up on Thursday at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Roberts said they hope to partner with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo nations again to plan another symposium.