Seminole Wars

From the beginning of the 1700s and continuing for over a century, American Indians from various groups streamed into Spanish Florida. They fled there to escape white expansion, violent rivalries with other Indian nations such as the Creeks, and wars between the European settlers. In time, these Indians became identified as Seminoles, a Muskogee term that means “runaways.”

The various groups of Seminoles cemented relationships with each other, eventually establishing loose military and political alliances. African Americans figured prominently in this alliance in the nineteenth century, both as slaves of the Indians (who had started keeping slaves at the end of the eighteenth century) and as Maroons, African Americans who had escaped slavery in Georgia and the Carolinas and made their way to live among the Seminoles in Florida . Even while Florida remained a Spanish holding, the Seminoles and other Florida Indians ran into conflicts with the United States. The result was a series of three wars.

First Seminole War (1817–18)

In 1816 the United States built Fort Scott near the border between Georgia and Spanish-held Florida. Across the Flint River in Florida was a settlement of the Mikasuki, a Florida tribe. Their chief, Neamathla, was violently anti-United States. He used the village as a base from which to stage raids into the southeastern part of the country and as a collecting point for loot and runaway slaves. The United States put together a small army to confront Neamathla. The result was a small battle on November 21, 1817, the opening action of the first Seminole War. After that battle the Mikasuki retreated eastward.

Two months later the U.S. secretary of war, John C. Calhoun , ordered Major General Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) to lead a war against the Seminoles. At Fort Scott, Jackson built up a force of 1,500 white men and 2,000 Creek Indians. With this force, he pursued the Seminoles eastward, destroying their villages along the way. By early April he had broken all Indian resistance west of the Suwannee River. He next turned his force against the territories held by the Spanish in that area, all of which he conquered.

Second Seminole War (1835–42)

The first Seminole War persuaded Spain to give Florida to the United States before it was lost through conquest. The transfer was completed in 1821. Without being consulted, the Florida Indians, including the Seminoles, were transferred to U.S. rule. Then, in 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized relocating all Indians living in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River. Most of the Seminole Indians fiercely opposed being forced from their lands. They prepared to fight.

In December 1835 the war chief Osceola (1804–1838) killed an Indian agent and some U.S. soldiers. By that time Andrew Jackson was president, and he was an ardent believer in moving Native Americans out of the way of white settlement. He ordered American forces to fight the Seminoles. At first, the U.S. Army used classical military methods. The Indians countered with guerrilla tactics, using small, independent combat groups that wore down the regular army and made victory impossible. Jackson then sent Major General Thomas S. Jesup (1788–1860) to Florida.

Jesup had little respect for Indians and soon abandoned the conventions of so-called civilized war. He experimented with bloodhounds, forced captives on pain of death to betray their friends, and violated flags of truce and promises of safe conduct. Under a flag of truce he seized Osceola in October 1837. By the time Jesup was relieved of duty in May 1838, about one hundred Indians had been killed and twenty-nine hundred captured.

Warfare continued for four years. By 1842 there were no more than three hundred Seminoles left in Florida. The United States decided it would be easier to give them a small amount of land in Florida than to continue the battle. Accordingly, the few remaining Indians agreed in mid-August 1842 to confine themselves to the area south of Pease Creek and west of Lake Okeechobee.

Third Seminole War (1855–58)

When Florida became a state in 1845, it decided to expel the Seminoles completely. The state built roads leading into the Indians' lands, and the U.S. Army took measures to harass the Seminoles, hoping to push them into committing violent acts. One patrol vandalized some property deep in Seminole country that happened to belong to the foremost Seminole leader, Billy Bowlegs (c. 1810–c. 1864). This heedless act set off an explosion. Bowlegs, leading thirty-five warriors, attacked the U.S. patrol in 1855, killing six men. The third Seminole War was under way.

At the start of the third war there were perhaps 360 Seminole in Florida, 120 of them warriors. The United States and the state of Florida had a force of thousands, including hardened Indian fighters. The Seminoles were soon forced to surrender, and 165 Seminoles, including Billy Bowlegs, were sent to the lands in Indian Territory , in present-day Oklahoma. Bowlegs returned to Florida in December 1858 and helped to persuade another 75 to move to Indian Territory. Roughly 125 Florida Seminoles remained in their homeland and were never forced to leave.