The Seminole Wars were a series of three military conflicts between the United States and the Seminoles that took place in Florida between about 1816 and 1858. The Seminoles are a Native American nation which coalesced in northern Florida during the early 1700s, when the territory was still a Spanish colonial possession. Tensions grew between the Seminoles and settlers in the newly independent United States in the early 1800s, mainly because enslaved people regularly fled from Georgia into Spanish Florida, prompting slaveowners to conduct slave raids across the border. A series of cross-border skirmishes escalated into the First Seminole War in 1817, when American General Andrew Jackson led an incursion into the territory over Spanish objections. Jackson's forces destroyed several Seminole and Black Seminole towns, as well as the briefly occupied Pensacola before withdrawing in 1818. The U.S. and Spain soon negotiated the transfer of the territory with the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819.
The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups of people collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of American Indians and Black Indians. It was part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars. The Second Seminole War, often referred to as the Seminole War, is regarded as "the longest and most costly of the Indian conflicts of the United States". After the Treaty of Payne's Landing in 1832 that called for the Seminole's removal from Florida, tensions rose until fierce hostilities occurred in the Dade battle in 1835. This conflict started the war. The Seminoles and the U.S. forces engaged in mostly small engagements for more than six years. By 1842, only a few hundred native peoples remained in Florida. Although no peace treaty was ever signed, the war was declared over on August 14, 1842.
The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, was a conflict initially fought by European colonial empires, United States of America, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas against various American Indian tribes in North America. These conflicts occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for Indian tribes' lands. The European powers and their colonies enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; some entailed cycles of violent reprisal.
William Selby Harney, otherwise known among the Lakota as "Woman Killer" and "Mad Bear," was an American cavalry officer in the US Army, who became known during the Indian Wars and the Mexican–American War for his brutality and ruthlessness. One of five general officers in the US Army at the beginning of the American Civil War, he was removed from overseeing the Department of the West because of his Southern sympathies early in the war, although he kept Missouri from joining the Confederacy. Under President Andrew Johnson, he served on the Indian Peace Commission, negotiating in several treaties before spending his retirement partly in Missouri and partly trading reminiscences with Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant in Mississippi, eventually moving to Florida afterwards, where he spent the last few years of his life.
The Grattan Massacre, also known as the Grattan Fight, was the opening engagement of the First Sioux War, fought between the United States Army and Lakota Sioux warriors on August 19, 1854. It occurred east of Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory, in present-day Goshen County, Wyoming.
The Battle of Ash Hollow, also known as the Battle of Blue Water Creek or the Harney Massacre, was an engagement of the First Sioux War, fought on September 2 and 3, 1855, between United States Army soldiers under Brig. Gen. William S. Harney and a band of the Brulé Lakota along the Platte River in present-day Garden County, Nebraska. In the 20th century, the town of Lewellen, Nebraska, was developed here as a railroad stop.
The Battle of Lake Okeechobee was one of the major battles of the Second Seminole War. It was fought between 800 Federal troops of the 1st, 4th, and 6th Infantry Regiments and 132 Missouri Volunteers under the command of Colonel Zachary Taylor, and between 380 and 480 Seminole warriors led by chiefs Abiaka, Billy Bowlegs, and Halpatter Tustenugee on 25 December 1837. Halpatter Tustenuggee had played a major role in the Dade Battle two years earlier. The Seminole warriors were resisting forced relocation to a reservation in Oklahoma. Though both the Seminoles and Taylor's troops emerged from the battle claiming victory, Taylor was promoted to the rank of brigadier general as a result, and his nickname of "Old Rough and Ready" came mostly due to this battle.
Fort Brooke was a historical military post established at the mouth of the Hillsborough River in present-day Tampa, Florida in 1824. Its original purpose was to serve as a check on and trading post for the native Seminoles who had been confined to an interior reservation by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823), and it served as a military headquarters and port during the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). The village of Tampa developed just north of the fort during this period, and the area was the site of a minor raid and skirmish during the American Civil War. The obsolete outpost was sparsely garrisoned after the war, and it was decommissioned in 1883 just before Tampa began a period of rapid growth, opening the land for development.
Holata Micco was a leader of the Seminoles in Florida during the Second Seminole War and was the remaining Seminole's most prominent chief during the Third Seminole War, when he led the Seminoles' last major resistance against the United States government. With the possibilities of military victory dwindling, he finally agreed to relocate with his people to Indian Territory in 1858. As part of the settlement, he was paid $6,500 plus $1,000 each for the subchiefs and $100 each for the women and children who went with him. He is buried in Hughes County, Oklahoma.
The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida. Together with the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, it is one of three federally recognized Seminole entities.
Fort Dallas was a military base during the Seminole Wars on the banks of the Miami River in what is now Downtown Miami, Florida, United States.
Fort King was a United States military fort in north central Florida, near what later developed as the city of Ocala. It was named after U.S. Colonel William King, commander of 4th Infantry Regiment and the first governor of the provisional West Florida region.
Abiaka, also known as Sam Jones, was a Seminole-Miccosukee chief, warrior, and shaman who fought against the United States during the Seminole Wars. He was born among the Miccosukee people of Georgia, who would migrate south into Florida and become part of the Seminole tribe. He initially rose to prominence among the Seminoles as a powerful shaman. Abiaka became the principal chief of the Seminoles in 1837 during the Seminole Wars. He was a guerrilla warfare tactician and he led the Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee, the largest battle of the conflict. Abiaka successfully resisted the United States and its policy of Indian Removal, and his leadership resulted in the continued presence of the Seminole people in Florida.
The Dade battle was an 1835 military defeat for the United States Army. The U.S. was attempting to force the Seminoles to move away from their land in Florida and relocate to Indian Territory. Amidst a war between the Government of the United States and the Seminole two U.S. Army companies numbering 103 men under the command of Major Francis L. Dade were ambushed by approximately 180 Seminole warriors as they marched from Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay to reinforce Fort King in Ocala. Only three U.S. soldiers survived the attack, and one died of his wounds the following day.
The Battles of the Loxahatchee occurred west of what is now Jupiter, Florida in January 1838 between the United States military and the Seminole Indians. The First Battle of the Loxahatchee occurred on January 15, involving a mixed Navy-Army unit under Lt. Levin M. Powell. The Second Battle of the Loxahatchee occurred on January 24 involving an army under Major General Thomas Jesup. The two battles were fought within a few miles of each other against the same group of Seminoles.
Fort Denaud is a census-designated place (CDP) and former fort in Hendry County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the CDP was 2,049, up from 1,694 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Clewiston, Florida Micropolitan Statistical Area (μSA).
The Colt first model ring lever rifle and Colt second model ring lever rifle are two early caplock revolving rifles that were produced by the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company between 1837 and 1841. The first model, produced between 1837 and 1838, was the first firearm manufactured by Samuel Colt, developed shortly before the advent of the Colt Paterson revolver. The first model was succeeded by the second model, produced between 1838 and 1841, which featured minor variations in design and construction. Both models are distinguished from later Colt revolving long-arms by the presence of a small ring lever located in front of the trigger. This lever, when pulled, would index the cylinder to the next position and cock the internal hidden hammer. Although complicated in design and prone to failures, fifty first model rifles were ordered by the U.S. Army for use against Seminole warriors in the Second Seminole War.
Spanish Indians was the name Americans sometimes gave to Native Americans living in southwest Florida and in southernmost Florida during the first half of the 19th century. Those people were also sometimes called "Muspas". Seminoles, Muscogees, Alabamas, and Choctaws were also reported to be living in southwest and southern Florida in the early 19th century. Many Native Americans were employed by and often resident at Spanish-Cuban fishing ranchos along the coast of southwest Florida. During the Second Seminole War, a band led by Chakaika that lived in the Shark River Slough in the Everglades was particularly called "Spanish Indians". The residents of the fishing ranchos and, after Chakaika's death in 1840, many people from his band, were sent west to the Indian Territory, and Spanish Indians were no longer mentioned in the historical record. Scholars long regarded the Spanish Indians as likely a surviving remnant of the Calusa people. More recent scholarship regards the Spanish Indians as Muskogean language-speakers who had settled in southern Florida in the 18th century and formed a close association with Spaniards, or were even beginning to form a Spanish-Native American creole people.
Chipco, also known as Echo Emathla, (1805-1881) was a 19th-century Seminole chief and warrior. He was one of the most prominent Seminole chiefs during the Seminole Wars, and by the end of the conflict he was the main leader of the Muscogee-speaking band of Seminoles in Florida. At a young age, Chipco and his family of Red Sticks fled as refugees to Florida because of the War of 1812, where they joined the Seminole tribe. As Chipco grew older he became a chief and eventually fought against the United States and its policy of Indian Removal. Chipco was one of the Seminole leaders at the Dade Battle, where Seminole warriors successfully ambushed a column of the U.S. Army and killed over 100 U.S. troops. This battle started the Second Seminole War, which Chipco would fight in through its entire duration. By the end of the Seminole Wars, Chipco and his band had successfully resisted the United States and were part of the group of Seminoles who remained in Florida, and they were the only Seminole band who continued living in Central Florida.
Alexander Ramsey Thompson Jr. (1793–1837) was a United States soldier. He was a graduate of the West Point Military Academy, who fought in the War of 1812 and the Second Seminole War. In the latter war, Thompson was killed by Seminoles at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee.
United States 