The Seminole Wars
The First Seminole War: 1817-1818
When Britain controlled Florida, the British often incited Seminoles against American settlers who were migrating south into Seminole territory and taking control of the land. These old conflicts, combined with the safe-haven Creek, Cherokee and Seminoles provided for black slaves, provoked a series of battles. Most took place between General Andrew Jackson and the Creeks in Alabama, but the U.S. Army also crossed into Spanish Florida several times. The US destruction of Ft. Mose, “The Negro Fort,” near St. Augustine and the destruction of a native village near Tallahassee in 1817, provoked retaliation by the Seminoles. They killed or captured a boat load of combined civilians and military personnel on the Apalachicola River. President James Monroe sent General Andrew Jackson, shown here on the right, to retaliate. Jackson arrived in Spanish Florida near present-day Tallahassee in March 1818 and quickly marched across the Panhandle between Pensacola and the Suwannee River, driving the natives out of their villages, burning the structures and taking the corn and cattle. The natives fled toward present-day Jacksonville.
As soon as the United States acquired Florida in 1821, the government began urging the Indians to leave their lands and relocate along with other southeastern tribes to Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma. Americans believed it was their “manifest destiny” to own all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
The Second Seminole War: 1835-1842
In 1830, Congress passed and President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act to force all natives to leave their land east of the Mississippi River in exchange for land west of the Mississippi River. Most members of the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw tribes, the cultural and ancestral kin of the Seminoles, agreed to abide by the treaty. They had to walk to their new homes, a journey of a thousand miles. Of the 14,000 who left, 4,000 died along the way. Their journey is known as the Trail of Tears.
Most of the Seminoles refused to move. A small number of them signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing, in May 1832, agreeing that all Seminoles would give up their Florida lands within three years and move west. All Black Seminoles, the runaway slaves, had to remain behind, a painful problem because many of them had married Seminoles.
Osceola spoke for a substantial segment of the natives who complained that the chiefs who signed the treaty did not represent everyone, including the most powerful chief, Micanopy. When the U.S. Army arrived in 1835 to enforce the treaty, the Seminoles were ready for war.
Ft. Heileman was built in 1836. The primary objective of the fort was as a supply depot and trans-shipping point for supplies for the military forces across North Florida. Not a conventional stockade fort, it was not intended as a battle post, but the local families flocked to the fort when farms in neighboring counties were attacked. The presence of the US troops provided psychological comfort for the beleaguered civilians.
The campaigns of the Second Seminole War were an outstanding demonstration of guerilla warfare by the Seminoles. The Micos (Chiefs), including Jumper, Alligator, Micanopy and the warrior Osceola, led less than 1,000 warriors against more than 30,000 US troops led by a succession of Generals, none of whom decisively defeated the Seminoles.
After Generals Duncan L. Clinch and Edmund P. Gaines and Winfield Scott abandoned one fort after another and failed to halt the increasing numbers of attacks on American settlements, Thomas S. Jessup assumed command of the Florida campaign. Jessup conducted a war of attrition against the Seminoles, and he killed or captured so many that Micanopy and others agreed to move westward. Osceola, however, did not capitulate, and continued to fight. Jessup captured Osceola under a flag of truce, but even his loss to the Seminoles failed to stop the fighting.
Colonel, later General Zachary Taylor fought the largest battle against the natives at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee on Christmas Day, 1837, and he assumed command of the state campaign the next year. General William Jenkins Worth finally ended fighting through a series of bribes and the promise of land near the Everglades to the 300 or so remaining Seminoles.
The Seminoles did not officially surrender, and always inflicted more casualties on the Americans than the Americans inflicted on them. They engaged in short, intense battles with the Americans, then withdrew to fight another day. The Second Seminole War was the fiercest war waged by the U.S. government against American Indians. The United States spent more than $40 million and every regiment in the army fought. The war left more than 300 soldiers and uncounted American civilians dead.
The Third Seminole War: 1855-1858
A Third Seminole War broke out in 1855, when conflicts – largely over land – arose between whites and the Seminoles who remained in Florida. Billy Bowlegs played a central role in the last series of skirmishes. By May 8, 1858, when the United States declared an end to conflicts, more than 3,000 Seminoles had been moved west of the Mississippi River. That left roughly 200 to 300 Seminoles remaining in Florida, hidden in the swamps.
For the next two decades, little was seen of the Florida Seminoles. Slowly, they began to contact surrounding settlements to trade. In the late 1950s, the tribes drafted a charter and on July 21, 1957, tribal members voted in favor of a Seminole Constitution. This document established the federally recognized Seminole Tribe of Florida.
In two awards, the federal government gave over $67,000,000 to the Seminoles of Oklahoma and Florida as compensation for the forced migrations.