Fort Hamer was a Second Seminole War fort and hospital on the south bank of the Manatee River at the highest point navigable by steamboats. It was part of a broader U.S. military strategy to establish a line of forts across the state from the Manatee River to Indian River on the east coast, and it was the first fort built as part of that strategy, beginning in November 1849 under the direction of Major John Henry Miller of the Fourth Artillery. Vital to the U.S. Army's ability to remain resupplied, it included barracks, stables, a large hospital, and a supply warehouse that supported its role as a staging and supply post. At its height, the fort housed at least 190 soldiers in January 1850. At that stage of the Second Seminole War, small bands of Indians worn down by continuous conflicts and atrocities met with government agents and agreed to removal to Oklahoma in return for compensation and protection. Fort Hamer became the embarkation point for seventy-four Seminole, Miccosukee, and Muscogee Indians who left Florida on February 28, 1850 aboard the steamer Fashion, including nineteen men, twenty-two women, fourteen boys, and nineteen girls, among them the Miccosukee Chief Kapiktoosootsee. Another party of fourteen Seminoles followed to New Orleans a month later aboard the same ship, and a final small group of emigrants followed in August. As its strategic value rapidly declined, the fort was deconstructed by November of that year, and its materials were sent south for reuse in building Fort Casey and Fort Myers.