David Moniac

David Moniac (December 1802 – November 21, 1836), an American military officer, was the first Native American graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1822.^[1] A Creek with some Scots ancestry, who was related to major Creek leaders on both sides of his family, Moniac was the first cadet to enter West Point from the new state of Alabama. Moniac resigned his commission in 1822 to manage his clan's property in Alabama, where he developed a cotton plantation.

In 1836, during the Second Seminole War, Moniac was commissioned as a captain and selected to command a Creek volunteer cavalry unit, the only Native American among the officers. He was killed at the Battle of Wahoo Swamp. In the 1990s, his remains were transferred from a local cemetery to the newly established Florida National Cemetery for military veterans, a few miles away.