John Horse

John Horse (c. 1812–1882), also known as Juan Caballo, Juan Cavallo, John Cowaya (with spelling variations) and Gopher John, was of mixed ancestry (African and Seminole Indian) who fought alongside the Seminoles in the Second Seminole War in Florida. He rose to prominence in the third year of what was to become a seven-year war when the first generation of Black Seminole leaders was largely decimated and the primary Seminole war chief, Osceola (Asi Yahola), fell into the hands of the American military commander, General Thomas Sydney Jesup. John Horse had been fighting alongside Osceola and acting as his interpreter by this time. When they were seized while under a flag of truce during negotiations with Jesup's emissary, Florida militia general Joseph Hernandez, John Horse found himself imprisoned along with Osceola and other members of his band at Fort Marion (Castillo de San Marcos), the old Spanish fort that formerly defended St. Augustine, the colonial capital of Spanish Florida.

John Horse gained his initial fame for joining with a Mikasuki brave named Wildcat (Coacoochee), the son of the Mikasuki chief, King Phillip Emathla, in executing a daring escape from the fort which, until then, had been believed by American forces to be unbreachable. Wildcat and John Horse formed an alliance and went on to lead the remnants of the shattered Seminole bands, including members of the Mikasuki, Tallahassee, Appalachee and Yamassee bands (many of different ethnic backgrounds in what was by then a highly mixed grouping of Indians and Africans) to safety in the south-central part of Florida, ahead of Jesup's forces. In the Battle of Lake Okeechobee on Christmas Day in 1837, Halpatta Tustanagi (Chief Alligator), an ally of the captured Osceola, and the Seminole medicine man Abiaka (Sam Jones) led the escaping Seminole with Wildcat and John Horse playing leading roles in holding off the assault of Zachary Taylor, then in hot pursuit.

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