Seminole Wars
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The Seminole Wars, also known as the Florida Wars, were three wars or conflicts in Florida between the Seminole Native American tribe and the United States. The First Seminole War was from 1817 to 1818; the Second Seminole War from 1835 to 1842; and the Third Seminole War from 1855 to 1858. The second clash is often referred to as the Seminole War.
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Background
The Seminole are a Floridian tribe of Native Americans. The tribe was founded in the early 1700s when groups of Lower Creek migrated into the area from Georgia and Alabama. The region was nominally claimed by Spain, who allowed the Seminole to establish themselves to form a buffer between the Spanish and the British territories. From the 1770s, the name Seminole came to be attached to the tribes, meaning "runaway." Florida came under British control, but reverted to Spain after the American Revolutionary War.
First Seminole War
The First Seminole War was started with the invasion of eastern Florida by U.S. Army forces under the command of General Andrew Jackson. White settlers had previously attacked the Seminole and the Seminole had retaliated. The presence of runaway slaves and maroons living among the Seminoles, a community known to historians today as the Black Seminoles, was another sore point. Some historians date the commencement of the war to an attack on the Black Seminoles at Apalachicola, at the so-called Negro Fort, which was razed in July 1816. More conventionally, the war is dated from the arrival of Jackson in December, 1817. Jackson's forces captured St. Mark's on April 7 and Pensacola on May 24, 1818. The largest battle of the war, an engagement on the Suwannee river, was primarily between U.S. and black warriors. Jackson's overall campaign scattered but did not destroy the Black Seminole maroon settlements of Florida, led to the confinement of the Seminole Indians within a constricted area of the interior, and secured American control of eastern Florida, still nominally claimed by Spain.
In 1818, James Monroe's Secretary of State John Quincy Adams defined the American position on this issue. Adams accused Spain of breaking the Pinckney treaty by failing to control the Seminoles, and refused to apologize for Jackson's actions.
Second Seminole War
The U.S. gained formal control of Florida in 1821 through the Adams-Onis Treaty, which had taken weeks for Luis de Onís (Spain's representative in Washington) and Adams to work out. The American government immediately started efforts to displace the Seminoles, encouraging them to join other tribes in the Indian Territories (around modern Oklahoma). Following the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, some of the tribespeople signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing in May 1832 and began the move, but others retreated into the Everglades. The treaty required all Seminole to move out of Florida by May of 1835, and the U.S. Army arrived in the territory in early 1835 to enforce the treaty.
The Second Seminole War was fought by the Seminole as guerrillas. Drawing from a population of about 4,000 Seminole Indians and 800 Black Seminole allies, there were at most 1,400 allied Seminole warriors commanded by head chief Micanopy, but led and inspired by Osceola. A major battle fought between the Seminole and U.S. was the Battle of Lake Okeechobee in which Colonel Zachary Taylor won a Pyrrhic victory over the Seminole allies, claiming success even though U.S. forces suffered greater casualties. Eventually over 10,000 regulars and 30,000 militia served in Florida during the conflict. The U.S. government became increasingly frustrated and correspondingly treacherous — Osceola was captured at peace negotiations during a truce, and died in prison at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina in 1838. The American forces began to successfully combat the Seminole tactics under William J. Worth from 1841. Seminole villages were destroyed and their crops burned. Threatened with starvation, the conflict came to an untidy end on August 14, 1842, although no peace treaty was ever signed. Around 1,500 U.S. soldiers had died during the conflict, mostly from disease.
The U.S. government is estimated to have spent at least $20,000,000 on the war, at the time an astronomical sum. Many Indians were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the Mississippi; others retreated into the Everglades where they became known as the Miccosukee. About 500 Black Seminoles emigrated west with the Seminole Indians, with 250 of the blacks receiving promises of freedom in exchange for their surrender. In the end, the U.S. government gave up trying to subjugate the Seminole in their Everglades redoubts and left the remaining Seminoles in peace.
Third Seminole War
The Third Seminole War was the final clash over land between the Seminole and white settlers. The main Seminole leader was Billy Bowlegs. By the time the conflict was declared finished on May 8, 1858 there were fewer than 200 Seminoles in Florida -- and when Bowlegs surrendered, he had only forty warriors with him.
See Also
Sources
- "American Military Strategy In The Second Seminole War", by Major John C. White, Jr. "The greatest lesson of the Second Seminole War shows how a government can lose public support for a war that has simply lasted for too long. As the Army became more deeply involved in the conflict, as the government sent more troops into the theater, and as the public saw more money appropriated for the war, people began to lose their interest. Jesup’s capture of Osceola, and the treachery he used to get him, turned public sentiment against the Army. The use of blood hounds only created more hostility in the halls of Congress. It did not matter to the American people that some of Jesup’s deceptive practices helped him achieve success militarily. The public viewed his actions so negatively that he had undermined the political goals of the government."
- Letter Concerning the Outbreak of Hostilities in the Third Seminole War, 1856, from the State Library and Archives of Florida.
- "Tour of the Florida Territory during the Seminole (Florida) Wars, 1792-1859" by Chris Kimball "The Florida war consisted in the killing of Indians, because they refused to leave their native home -- to hunt them amid the forests and swamps, from which they frequently issued to attack the intruders. To go or not to go, that was the question. Many a brave man lost his life and now sleeps beneath the sod of Florida. And yet neither these nor the heroes who exposed themselves there to so many dangers and sufferings, could acquire any military glory in such a war. (From "The Army and Navy of America," by Jacob K. Neff, Philadelphia, J.H. Pearsol and Co., 1845.)"
