Chapter 16

THE PERIOD POST-WAR OF 1812 TO BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR IN 1861

This chapter will be primarily focused on the Seminole Wars which were also known as the "Florida Wars". The rise of the Seminole Indian Tribe took place over a period of almost two hundred years and was greatly influenced by the encroachment of the European settlers into the area now known as Florida. The Seminoles were comprised of a number of remnants of other Indian Tribes that had escaped from the ravages of European settler invasion into their homelands, escaped indentured servants of every genetic set and the African Americans who had settled in Florida in the early 18th century who had no liking of the shackles of slavery or the rigors of servitude on a southern plantation.

The primary opponent to the tribes was the uniformed forces of the newly expanded United States Army under the leadership of General Andrew Jackson of War of 1812 fame.

There were three separate Seminole Wars.

First Seminole War ... Generally accepted to be from 1816 to 1819

Second Seminole War ... The second wave of heavy fighting was from 1835 to 1842

Third Seminole War ... The final formalized war was from 1855 to 1858 immediately prior to the American Civil War.

The Seminole Indian Tribe with the possible exception of the Apache Indian Tribe was the most ferocious and tenacious fighters faced by the American fighting forces right up until the following century when the United States Marines came up against the "Moro" tribesmen of the Philippine Islands in the early part of the twentieth century. (Fortunately, the invention of the 1911 Colt .45 caliber automatic sidearm had the "stopping power" to stop their frenzied assaults on their defensive positions.)

Taking the modest numbers of the Seminole Indian Tribe members into consideration, they were the most effective opponents of the American military on the field of battle. The Seminole Indians were finally overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the American fighters but a number of them simply melted away into the "Everglades" and refused to sign a treaty. (In modern times, the Seminole Indian Tribes have the last word because their gambling operations throughout the State rival any big corporation operation and they have amassed a fortune in profits as well as generating a tax base that pays for a sizable portion of the State's educational budget.

THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR

1816 – 1819

One of the little known facts of the War of 1812 was that the position of Spain in control of the lands in Florida was endangered by the Treaty that ended that war and they knew their claim was soon to end.

General Andrew Jackson turned his attentions to Florida at the insistence of American commercial and Nationalistic interests who saw the area as having great potential for economic profit. He led a military campaign into Florida in 1816 to rid the State of the Seminole Indian Tribe which had been raiding the farms and settlements of the newly arrived non-Spanish European settlers. This was the beginning of a protracted struggle against that tribe for control of the region.

The Spanish Rulers saw the wisdom of leaving the area which they were beginning see as more trouble than it was worth to the Crown. Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1819 but it was merely putting to paper what had already taken place. This first conflict in Florida resulted in a "Treaty of Moultrie Creek" of 1823 which required the Seminole Indian Tribe to vacate northern Florida and the Panhandle moving down into Central Florida on large tract of land deemed their "new reservation". Many of the tribe refused to sign the Treaty and simply ignored the decrees.

THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR

1835 – 1842

The period of the 1830s was when the new American nation attempted to solve their "Indian Problem" by relocating most of the American Indian Tribes to reservations west of the Mississippi River. Sometimes it was though harsh schemes like "The Trail of Tears" which decimated the Cherokee Nation and other times it was though a negotiated treaty with one of the American Indian tribes. In the case of the Seminoles, the United States authorities elected to force the Seminole Indian Tribe to leave the Florida regions entirely and relocate them to new lands in Oklahoma. For those of you that are interested it was called the "Treaty of Payne's Landing" of 1832 and was basically a sham meeting to gain signatures on a document that would justify the brutal methods employed to evict the Seminole Indian Tribe from Florida.

This second war was of longer duration because the Seminole Indians used unconventional warfare tactics that were similar to the campaigns of the French into the Mohawk River Valley and into the Ohio River Valley a century earlier. The Florida topography while relatively flat had vast areas of wilderness with rolling hills with extensive foliage that hid the Indians from observation. The presence of dense Everglades with passage possible only by boat made pursuit virtually impossible after a violent raid on the settlements and farms. The civilians were the group that suffered the most during this period of warfare because they never knew when the Indian would elect to target them as a victim of opportunity.

It has been estimated that over 80 percent of the populace claiming membership in the Seminole Tribe were either killed in this second war, or suffered death from lack of food or shelter and exposure to disease common to the humid climate. The majority of the survivors were transported to the reservation in Oklahoma against their will. Under the terms of the settlement, only a few hundred of the tribe was allowed to remain in a small reservation in southern Florida. This group was isolated from the outside populace and they retained their cultural persona.

THE THIRD SEMINOLE WAR

1855 – 1858

With almost unbelievable disregard for the treaty that essentially robbed the Seminole Tribe of more than 90 percent of their territory, the surrounding settlers began to steal parts of their small remaining reservation. This led to a pushback raid by the Seminoles in 1855 near the area now known as Fort Myers, a popular retirement hotspot for seniors. This led to a series of raids and reprisals with the result that neither side won a deciding victory nor won a deciding battle. After about three years of sporadic fighting, the Seminole Indians agreed to join their brothers in Oklahoma providing they were given transportation for themselves and their possessions and the dispossessed families received financial compensation. Only a handful of Seminole Indians refused to comply and moved deeper into the Florida Everglades never surrendering even to this day.

The removal of the Seminole Indian Tribe from Florida was part of the overall scheme to drive all indigenous Native populations west of the Mississippi River. The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the U.S. Constitution were forward thinking into the future with their plans of western expansion but saw the open lands of the west as convenient "parking space" for the American Indian Tribes until the crush of settlers moving west vied with the dislocated Indian Tribes for land and natural resources. It was important to these planners that the territory of Florida was secured as American territory prior to the western expansion. There was a deep-seated fear that the Florida territory could be used by one European country or another to springboard into position for invasion of the newly acquired western territory if it was left unguarded. The sole remaining player on the board of European Colonialism was Spain and they seemed content to remain focused on Central and South America as their area of operations.

Before future President Andrew Jackson turned his attention to Florida, he was involved in the subjugation of the Creek Indian Nation headquartered mostly in Georgia and Alabama. The Creek Nation was destroyed as a Tribe and a large number of them left to join the Seminole Indian Tribe in Florida.

Prior to the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, the British Navy and British Regular Army troops made landings in western Florida for the purpose of issuing firearms and tomahawks to the Seminole and Creek Tribes. They built a series of forts in that area centering their operations on what is now known as Pensacola Bay. The force of over a thousand Redcoats was reinforced by well over a thousand American Indian warriors and they put up a stiff resistance to General Andrew Jackson's response. He managed to drive the British out of the area and the Indian forces melted away into the forest with heavy losses.

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON INVADES FLORIDA

1818

General Jackson assembled a force of about 5,000 men and set up camp at Fort Scott in March, 1818.

The force was comprised of United States Army Regular troop, Tennessee and Georgia Militias, and a sizable force of friendly Creek warriors loyal to General Jackson. He entered Florida though the Apalachicola River channel rebuilding the "Negro Fort" with a new fort called Fort Gadsden. He took a straight line to Lake Miccosukee and burned down the Indian villages around Tallahassee destroying many Seminole Indian homes.

He captured Spanish forts and took British traders selling guns to the Indians into custody. He executed the Indian Chiefs accused of atrocities against the settlers and eventually executed some the British traders selling guns as well.

The General moved on to attack Indian villages near the Suwannee River which were occupied mostly by the "Black" Seminoles and former runaway slaves from north of the Georgia-Florida line. His men laid waste to Indian villages and freed English captives taken in previous raids. After destroying most of the Seminole villages, Jackson declared victory and sent most of the militiamen back home.

His second expedition into Florida was in the Pensacola area destroying Indian villages and capturing the Spanish Fort. The Spanish contingent surrendered and Jackson appointed one of his officers as the new military governor of West Florida.

Spain eventually ceded the Florida territory to the American government and renounced all future claims.

Britain protested the execution of its agents but allowed the controversy to go unanswered because their commercial interest in trade with the former colonies was far too important to their own economy.

The criticism of General Andrew Jackson's methods of operation were outspoken but they were not of sufficient magnitude to prevent him from becoming President of the United States. There were fears expressed mostly in the New England section that his election would result in a military dictatorship but those fears were totally unfounded.