Who is buried in St. Augustine graves marked 'Six Unknown Indians'?

Amy Larner Giroux has been drawn to the mysteries of cemeteries since she was 16, when she would go to graves with a box of matches to light her way, writing down the names of the dead and putting them in a coffee can. Later as a genealogist and academic researcher, she learned there's a lot of knowledge to be gained in cemeteries.

But also many questions.

"There are always questions in a cemetery, there's always a headstone that says 'Research me, find out who I am,'" she said. "Those are the rabbit holes I go down. I try to give people back their names."

Giroux's recent project has been particularly meaningful: She has been researching burial sites in St. Augustine (Florida) National Cemetery where there are two separate graves, each with a headstone inscribed “Six Unknown Indians.”

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After five years of digging through letters, books and U.S. Army records dating back more than a century, Giroux discovered the names of chiefs and warriors from the Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche tribes who were imprisoned and died at Fort Marion, now the Castillo de San Marcos.

They are believed to have been buried in those unnamed graves.

The Native American prisoners were captured in the Buffalo War of 1874-1875 and then exiled to Florida. Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Caddo and Arapaho warriors made up the 72 prisoners, whom the government tried to assimilate into Western culture with the strategic effect of demoralizing their tribes back home.

Giroux Is associate director of the University of Central Florida's Center for Humanities and Digital Research, supporting professors and grad students.

Her work in St. Augustine is part of a collaboration between UCF researchers, the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, the National Park Service, the Florida National Guard and Flagler College to bring to light more about the experiences of the imprisoned warriors.

She has worked with descendants of the prisoners to reconstruct their lives and learned more about the "intergenerational trauma" stemming from the imprisonment of their ancestors.

"I couldn’t be more honored working with these folks," Giroux said.

What are the names of some Native Americans who died in St. Augustine?

Giroux is still working to discover the identity of other Native American prisoners who died at Fort Marion in the 1870s. Here are the names she knows now:

• Cheyenne Chiefs Lean Bear and Heap of Birds.
• Cheyenne warriors Big Moccasin, Starving Wolf and Spotted Elk.
• Kiowa Chiefs Mah-mante and Co-a-bo-te-ta (also known as Sun).
• Kiowa warrior Ih-pa-yah.
• Comanche warrior Nad-a-with-t .

Giroux also tells of Cheyenne Chief Grey Beard, who rather than be imprisoned escaped from a train carrying prisoners to Jacksonville where they would then travel by boat to St. Augustine. Grey Beard was hunted down and shot, later dying in Baldwin west of Jacksonville. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Piney Grove Cemetery there.

The cause of death for the other prisoners was disease, except for Lean Bear, who starved himself rather than be imprisoned, Giroux said.

Using her research, the National Cemetery Administration plans to replace the “Six Unknown Indians” grave markers with headstones that show the names of the warriors, the tribe they belonged to and the date of their deaths.

Remembering the dead

In November a series of events in Florida honored the memory of the imprisoned Native Americans. They included a ceremony in Baldwin to honor Grey Beard and others in St. Augustine for the warriors who died there.

Gordon Yellowman, peace chief of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, journeyed from Oklahoma to the fort where his great-great-grandfather, Cometsevah, a Cheyenne chief and warrior, had been captive.

Yellowman was chief curator of an exhibition last year at Jacksonville's Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens of art created by Cheyenne warriors while they were prisoners of the fort. But this was his first visit to St. Augustine, to Cometsevah's prison.

"To experience the surroundings, the building, the walls, the cold, the dampness, I had to experience that myself to know what he went through, and the other prisoners," Yellowman said.

His great-great-grandfather managed to make it home to Oklahoma, where he passed away, but he never spoke of his imprisonment, Yellowman said.

The ceremonies in November were powerfully moving and meaningful, he said.

"We knew we had to do that for them, to release their spirits," Yellowman said. "Their journey, they're going home now, that’s how the Cheyenne say it: Going home. You could feel it. For me, it was very, very spiritual and powerful to feel that.” 

Leslee Keys, a retired Flagler College professor and director of historic preservation, coordinated a partnership between the school and the National Park Service that researched the imprisonment of Native Americans at the fort during three periods in the 19th century.

Flagler also conducted a symposium at the school in November covering numerous topics related to the warriors imprisoned during the 1870s.

“It was really to draw all of that chapter of Florida’s history," she said. “It was very much a healing event.“ 

Looking for Cheyenne ancestors

Norene Starr has traveled from Oklahoma to St. Augustine numerous times, researching her Cheyenne ancestors who died there.

Heap of Birds was a chief, an easy target for U.S. authorities looking to break the spirit of the Cheyenne. Big Moccasin, meanwhile, "was considered a troublemaker" by the U.S., "but he was a warrior, a strong warrior," she said.

Starr, an Army veteran, is a special projects and research coordinator with the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and has worked to see the Fort Marion project get to where it is now.

She grew up with the knowledge that her ancestors had been taken to Florida and died there but knew nothing beyond that.

She first visited St. Augustine in 1984 and found nothing on the prisoners. She returned a few years later and was shown a piece of paper with the names of some of the deceased warriors. She's been back several times, including with her grandchildren.

In November she came back again, and visited the graves of the "Six Unknown Indians."

"That is so significant because it gave us a place and place in time for me to come to terms with this," she said. "I took my older brother there. That gave us peace, knowing exactly where they were at, knowing where they lay."