Seminole Wars
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.
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, meaning "runaway", came to be attached to the tribes. For a time, Florida came under British control, but reverted to Spain after the
American Revolutionary War.
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Andrew Jackson led an invasion of Florida during the First Seminole War. |
The First Seminole War was started with the invasion of
East Florida by
U.S. Army forces under the command of General
Andrew Jackson. White settlers had previously been attacked and 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. During this campaign, Andrew Jackson seized two British traders whom were supplying the Seminoles with weapons. One of them was Alexander Arbuthnot, a seventy-year-old Scottish trader that had told the seminoles a false story telling them that the
Treaty of Ghent gave them Florida. The other man was
Robert Ambrister, a former British naval officer. Arbuthnot was shot, while Ambrister was hanged. 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 East 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 Sèminoles, and refused to apologize for Jackson's actions.
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 tribes people 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 and Spanish soldiers. 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 despite heavy U.S. casualties. Eventually over 10,000 regulars and 30,000 militia served in Florida during the conflict. The U.S. government managed to defeat large guerilla groups in the area heavily funded by Spain. Osceola was captured at peace negotiations during a truce after being betrayed by the Spanish leadership, 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. Spain also invested heavily, though they preferred to fund and reward slaughter and uprising rather than send the army of Spain to openly march against the United States. Finally however the Spanish crown reached an agreement with the United States, and Spain abandoned their former "allies." 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.
This war started because Americans from a fort in Georgia destroyed the crops of the main Seminole leader,
Billy Bowlegs, by burning them. This Seminole War was the final clash over land between the Seminole settlers and white settlers. By the time the conflict was declared finished on
May 8,
1858 there were few Seminoles in Florida -- and when Bowlegs surrendered, he had only forty warriors with him.
*
"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.)"
*
Black Seminoles*
Ethnic cleansing*
History of Florida*
Indian Campaign Medal*
Population transfer*
Seminole (tribe)*
William Harrington, Mexican-American War Veteran*
Black Seminoles and the Second Seminole War: 1832-1838
