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.
Lake Panasoffkee is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sumter County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,551 at the 2010 census.
Osceola, named Billy Powell at birth in Alabama, became an influential leader of the Seminole people in Florida. His mother was Muscogee, and his great-grandfather was a Scotsman, James McQueen. He was reared by his mother in the Creek (Muscogee) tradition. When he was a child, they migrated to Florida with other Red Stick refugees, led by a relative, Peter McQueen, after their group's defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars. There they became part of what was known as the Seminole people.
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 Territory of Florida was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 30, 1822, until March 3, 1845, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Florida. Originally the major portion of the Spanish territory of La Florida, and later the provinces of East Florida and West Florida, it was ceded to the United States as part of the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty. It was governed by the Florida Territorial Council.
Oscar Boetticher Jr., known as Budd Boetticher, was an American film director. He is best remembered for a series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.
Joseph Marion Hernández was a slave-owning American planter, politician and military officer. He was the first delegate from the Florida Territory and the first Hispanic American to serve in the United States Congress. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he served from September 1822 to March 1823.
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 Battle of Wahoo Swamp was an extended military engagement of the Second Seminole War fought in November 1836 in the Wahoo Swamp, approximately 50 miles northeast of Fort Brooke in Tampa and 35 miles south of Fort King in Ocala in modern Sumter County, Florida. General Richard K. Call, the territorial governor of Florida, led a mixed force consisting of Florida militia, Tennessee volunteers, Creek mercenaries, and some troops of the US Army and Marines against Seminole forces led by chiefs Osuchee and Yaholooche.
Thomas Sidney Jesup was a United States Army officer known as the "Father of the Modern Quartermaster Corps". His 52-year (1808–1860) military career was one of the longest in the history of the United States Army.
Micanopy, also known as Mick-e-no-páh, Micco-Nuppe, Michenopah, Miccanopa, and Mico-an-opa, and Sint-chakkee, was the leading chief of the Seminole during the Second Seminole War.
The term Florida Western is used to describe a small number of films and literary works set in the 19th century, particularly around the time of the Second Seminole War. Not a significant number of these films have been made, as most Hollywood and other genre Westerns are usually located in other regions of the United States, particularly the former frontier territories of "the West".
Ar-pi-uck-i, also known as Abiaka or Sam Jones, was a powerful spiritual alektca and war chief of the Miccosukee, a Seminole–Muscogee Creek tribe of the Southeast United States. Ar-pi-uck-i successfully defied the U.S. government and refused to remove to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi and his influential leadership in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) resulted in the permanent Native American presence 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.
John Horse, also known as Juan Caballo, Juan Cavallo, John Cowaya and Gopher John, was a man of mixed African and Seminole ancestry who fought alongside the Seminoles in the Second Seminole War in Florida. He rose to prominence in the third year of what was to become a seven-year war when the first generation of Black Seminole leaders was largely decimated and the primary Seminole war chief, Osceola, fell into the hands of the American military commander, General Thomas Sydney Jesup.
Uchee Billy or Yuchi Billy was a chief of a Yuchi band in Florida during the first half of the 19th century. Uchee Billy's band was living near Lake Miccosukee when Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida during the First Seminole War and attacked the villages in the area. Yuchi Billy and his band then moved to the St. Johns River. During the Second Seminole War, Uchee Billy was an ally of the Seminoles, and was one of the principal war chiefs who fought the U.S. Army.
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 Peyton was a stockaded fort built in August 1837 by the United States Army, one of a chain of military outposts created during the Second Seminole War for the protection of the St. Augustine area in Florida Territory. Established by Maj. Gen. Thomas Jesup, it was garrisoned by regular army troops.
Benjamin Kendrick Pierce was a career officer in the United States Army. He was a son of New Hampshire Governor Benjamin Pierce and brother of President Franklin Pierce. Benjamin K. Pierce was a veteran of the War of 1812, the Second Seminole War, and the Mexican–American War, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army and colonel in the Florida Militia.
Fort Basinger's original site is located approximately 35 miles (56 km) west of Fort Pierce, Florida, along U. S. Highway 98 in Highlands County, Florida. It was a stockaded fortification with two blockhouses that was built in 1837 by the United States Army. It was one of the military outposts created during the Second Seminole War to assist Colonel Zachary Taylor's troops to confront and capture Seminole Indians and their allies in the central part of the Florida Territory in the Lake Okeechobee region. The Seminole Indians and their allies were resisting forced removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River as directed by the Indian Removal Act.
