The Seminole Wars , also known as Florida Wars , are the three conflicts in Florida between Seminole, an American native formed in Florida in the early 18th century, and the American Army Union. Taken together, Seminole Wars is the longest and most expensive (both in terms of human and monetary) of Indian Wars in the history of the United States.
- The First Seminole War (c 1816-1819) began with General Andrew Jackson's visit to West Florida and Florida Spain against the Seminoles after the end of the War of 1812. The British and Spanish governments expressed outrage over "invasion". However, Spain can not maintain or control the territory, as some local rebellions and insurrections are made clear. The kingdom of Spain agreed to submit Florida to the United States per Adams-OnÃÆ's Treaty of 1819, and the displacement took place in 1821. According to the Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1823, the Seminoles were asked to leave northern Florida and confined to a large reservation at the center of the Florida peninsula. The US government enacted the agreement by building a series of fortresses and trading posts in the region, especially along the Gulf and Atlantic coast.
- The Second Seminole War (1835-1842) was the result of the United States government attempting to force Seminoles to leave Florida altogether and move to the Indian Territory per Indian Removal Act of 1830. The battle began with the Dade Massacre in December 1835, and raids, minor skirmishes, and several larger battles raged throughout the Florida peninsula over the next few years. Initially, the defeated and defeated Seminoles effectively used guerrilla warfare to thwart more American military forces. In October 1836, General Thomas Sidney Jesup was sent to Florida to take command of the campaign. After vainly chasing the Seminole fighters through the desert, Jesup changed his tactics and began searching and destroying Seminole's farm and village, a strategy that ultimately changed the course of the war. Jesup also endorsed the controversial arrest of leaders of Seminole Osceola and Micanopy under signs of a ceasefire. In the early 1840s, most Seminole residents in Florida had been killed in combat, marred by hunger and disease, or moved to the Indian Territory. Several hundred Seminoles were allowed to remain on an unofficial reservation in southwest Florida.
- The Third Seminole War (1855-1858) again was the result of Seminoles responding to the US Army settlers and scouts who violated on their lands, perhaps deliberately to provoking a rough response that would result in the final elimination of Seminoles from Florida. After a survey crew soldiers discovered and destroyed Seminole plantations west of the Everglades in December 1855, Chief Billy Bowlegs led an assault near Fort Myers, beginning a conflict consisting mostly of attacks and retaliation, without major fighting being fought. American forces again tried to destroy food supplies at Seminoles, and by 1858, most of the remaining Seminoles, who were tired of war and faced hunger, agreed to be sent to Oklahoma in exchange for the promises of safe travel and cash payments to their leaders. It is estimated that 200 Seminoles still refuse to go and retreat far to the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp to live on land undesirable by white settlers.
Video Seminole Wars
​​Latar Belakang
Colonial Florida
Penurunan budaya asli
Native indigenous peoples of Florida declined significantly in numbers after the arrival of European explorers in the early 1500s, mainly because Native Americans had little resistance to newly introduced diseases from Europe. Spanish oppression of the indigenous rebellion further reduced the population in northern Florida until the early 1600s, by which time the formation of a series of Spanish missions enhanced relations and stabilized the population.
Raids from the newly established Carolina Province in the early 1600s began to experience a sharp decline of the indigenous population. In 1707, British soldiers and their Indian Yamasee allies had killed, carried off, or drove most of the remaining indigenous people during a series of raids throughout the Florida region and along the peninsula. In the first decade of the 18th century. 10,000 - 12,000 Indians were taken as slaves according to the governor of La Florida and in 1710, observers noted that northern Florida is virtually uninhabited. All the Spanish missions are closed, because without a native, there is nothing they can do. Some of the remaining natives fled west to Pensacola and onwards or eastward around St. Augustine. When Spain handed Florida over to Britain as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the majority of Florida's surviving Indians took part with Spain to Cuba or New Spain.
Origin of Seminole
During the mid-1700s, small groups of native American tribes from the southeastern United States began to move into uninhabited areas of Florida. In 1715, Yamasee moved to Florida as a Spanish ally, after a conflict with the British colony. People Creek, initially mainly the Lower Creek but later including Upper Creek, also began to move to Florida from the Georgian region. The Mikasuki, Hitchiti - speaks, settling around what is now Lake Miccosukee near Tallahassee. (The descendants of this group have maintained a separate tribal identity like Miccosukee today.)
Another Hitchiti group of speakers, led by Cowkeeper, settled in what is now Alachua County, where the Spanish kept cattle ranches in the 17th century. Since one of the most famous farms is called El Rancho de la ChÃÆ'ºa , this region is known as "Alachua Prairie". The Spaniards in Saint Augustine started calling the Alachua Creek Cimarrones , which roughly means "wild people" or "runaway". This is the possible origin of the term "Seminole". The name was eventually applied to other groups in Florida, although the Indians still considered themselves as members of a different tribe. Other Native American groups in Florida during the Seminole War including Choctaw, Yuchi or Spanish Indians, are so called because it is believed they are from Calusas; and "rancho Indians", who live in a Spanish/Cuban fishing camp (ranchos) on the Florida coast.
African and African American slaves who can reach the castle are essentially free. Lots of Pensacola; some are free citizens although others have fled the United States. The Spaniards offered slave freedom and landed in Florida; they recruited former slaves as militia to help retain Pensacola and Fort MosÃÆ'Â ©. Other fugitives joined the Seminole bands as free tribe members.
Most of the former slaves in Fort MosÃÆ'Â © went to Cuba with the Spaniards when they left Florida in 1763, while others lived with or near various Indian groups. The fugitive slaves from Carolina and Georgia continued on to Florida, when the Underground Railway drove south. Blacks who live with or subsequently join the Seminoles become integrated into the tribes, learn the language, adopt the dress, and marry. Blacks know how to farm and serve as translators between Seminole and white people. Some Black Seminoles, as they are called, became important tribal leaders.
Initial conflict
During the American Revolution (1775-1783), the English - who ruled Florida - recruited Seminoles to attack border settlements in Georgia. The war confusion allows more slaves to escape to Florida. The British promised slave freedom to fight with them. These events make the enemies of Seminoles in the new United States. In 1783, as part of a treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, Florida was returned to Spain. The Spanish grip in Florida is light, as it only maintains a small garrison at St. St. Augustine, St. Marks and Pensacola. They did not control the border between Florida and the United States and could not act against the Muskogee State founded in 1799, imagining as an independent American Indian nation from Spain and the United States, until 1803 when the two countries conspired to trap its founder. Mikasukis and other Seminole groups still occupy cities on the US side of the border, while American squatters move to Florida Spain.
Britain split Florida into East Florida and West Florida in 1763, a division maintained by Spain when they retook Florida in 1783. West Florida extended from the Apalachicola River to the Mississippi River. Together with their ownership in Louisiana, Spain controls the lower reaches of all rivers that drain the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains. It bans the US from transport and trade in lower Mississippi. In addition to his desire to expand west of the mountain, the United States wants to gain Florida. He wanted to gain free trade in western rivers, and to prevent Florida from using the base for a possible US invasion by a European country.
The purchase of Louisiana in 1803 put the mouth of the Mississippi River in the hands of the United States. That does not help a large part of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi being drained by a river that passes through East Florida or the West to reach the Gulf of Mexico. The US claims that the Louisiana Purchase has entered West Florida west of the Perdido River, while Spain claims that West Florida extends to the Mississippi River.
Proclaiming an independent state (country)
Muscogee
Republic of West Florida (1810)
In 1810, the American population in the Baton Rouge District of West Florida (the area now known as the Florida Parish, none in the modern state of Florida) overthrew the local Spanish authorities, confiscated the appropriate citadel, and demanded protection from the United States. The self-declared West Florida Republic emerged from late September to early December 1810. President James Madison authorized William CC Claiborne, the governor of the Orleans Region, to seize West Florida from the Mississippi River to the east as far as the Perdido River (the boundary between the modern states of Florida and Alabama). Claiborne occupies only the western area of ​​the Pearl River (Louisiana's current eastern border), aka Baton Rouge District.
Madison sent George Mathews to handle a dispute over West Florida. When an offer to change the remains of Florida Occidental to the US was canceled by the Spanish governor, Mathews went to Florida Oriental to engage Spanish authorities there. When the effort failed, Mathews, in extreme interpretation of his order, conspired to incite a similar rebellion to what happened in the Baton Rouge District.
Patriot War of East Florida (1812)
East Florida residents are happy with the status quo, so the US raises the volunteer's strength in Georgia with free land promises. On March 13, 1812, this "Patriot" troop, with the help of several US Navy warships, captured Fernandina. Although the foreclosure of Fernandina was initially approved by President Madison, he later denied it. The Patriot, however, could not take Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine. Increased tensions and war approaches with the United Kingdom led to the end of American attacks to East Florida.
In 1813 American troops captured the Mobile District (coastal Mississippi and Alabama today), from Spain.
Before the Patriots withdrew from Florida, Seminole, as a Spanish ally, began to attack them.
Maps Seminole Wars
First Seminole War
There is no consensus about the start and end dates for the First Seminole War. The US Army Infantry showed that it lasted from 1814 to 1819. The US Navy History Center gave the date of 1816-1818. Other army sites date war as 1817-1818. Finally, the history of the 1st Battalion unit, Field Artillery 5 illustrates the war that occurred only in 1818.
War of the Creek and the Negro Citadel
During the War of the Creek (1813-1814), Colonel Andrew Jackson became a national hero after his victory over the Red Stick Creek in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. After his victory, Jackson imposed the Fort Jackson Treaty on the Creek, which resulted in the loss of many of the Creek region in what is now southern Georgia and central and southern Alabama. As a result, many of the Creek left Alabama and Georgia, and moved to West Florida Spain. The Creek refugees join the Seminole of Florida.
In 1814, Britain was still at war with the United States, and saw benefits in recruiting Indian allies. In May 1814, British troops entered the mouth of the Apalachicola River, and distributed weapons to Seminole and Creek soldiers, and slaves of the fugitives. England moved upstream and started building a fort at Prospect Bluff. A Royal Marines company, led by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Nicolls, then arrived, but was invited to move to Pensacola in late August 1814. It was estimated, by Captain Lockyer of HMS Sophie, that in August 1814 there were 1,000 people India in Pensacola, of which 700 soldiers. Two months after Britain and their Indian allies were repelled from an attack on Fort Bowyer near Mobile, US troops led by General Jackson drove England from Pensacola, and returned to the Apalachicola River. They managed to continue the work at the fort at Prospect Bluff.
When the War of 1812 ended, all British troops left the Gulf of Mexico except Lieutenant Colonel Nicolls and his troops in (neutral) West Florida Spain. He directed the provision of a fort at Prospect Bluff with cannons, muskets, and ammunition. He told the Indians that the Treaty of Ghent guaranteed the return of all the lost land in India during the War of 1812, including Creek land in Georgia and Alabama. Since Seminole is not interested in having a fort, they return to their villages. Before Nicholls left in the spring of 1815, he transformed the castle into fugitive slaves and Seminoles he initially recruited for possible attacks on US territory during the war. When the news spread in Southeast America about the castle, the white man called it the "Negro Fortress." Americans fear that it will inspire their slaves to escape to Florida or rebel.
Recognizing that it was in the territory of Spain, in April 1816, he informed Governor JosÃÆ'Â Â © Masot of West Florida that if Spain did not omit the castle, he would. The governor replied that he had no power to seize the fortress.
Jackson commissioned Brigadier General Edmund Pendleton Gaines to control the castle. Gaines directed Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch to build Fort Scott on the Flint River just north of the Florida border. Gaines says he intends to supply Fort Scott from New Orleans via the Apalachicola River. Since this means passing through the Spanish territory and passing through the Negro Fort, it will allow the US Army to oversee Seminole and the Negro Fortress. If the castle fired on a supply ship, America would have a reason to destroy it.
In July 1816, a supply fleet for Fort Scott reached the Apalachicola River. Clinch took the power of more than 100 American soldiers and about 150 Lower Creek soldiers, including the head of the Tustunnugee Hutkee (White Warrior), to protect their journey. The supply fleet met Clinch in Negro Fortress, and two warships took positions across the river from the fortress. African-Americans in the castle fired their cannons to US and Creek troops, but lacked training in steering weapons. White Americans shot back. Nine shots of a ship's gun, "hot shot" (a cannon ball that heats up into red light), landed in a fortress powder magazine. The explosion leveled the castle and sounded over 100 miles (160 km) in Pensacola. This is called "the deadliest gunshot shot in American history." Of the 320 people known to be in the castle, including women and children, more than 250 died instantly, and many more died of their wounds soon after. After the US Army destroyed the castle, he withdrew from Florida Spain.
The inhabitants of the wild and American criminals stormed Seminole, killing villagers and stealing their cattle. Seminole hatred grows and they respond by stealing cattle again. On February 24, 1817, a raid group killed Mrs. Garrett, a woman living in Camden County, Georgia, and her two young children.
Fowltown dan Scott Massacre
Fowltown is the village of Mikasuki (Creek) in southwest Georgia, about 15 miles (24 km) east of Fort Scott. The Neamathla chief of Fowltown was at loggerheads with Fort Scott's commander of land use on the eastern side of the Flint River, essentially claiming Mikasuki's sovereignty over the region. The land in southern Georgia has been handed over by tributaries in the Fort Jackson Treaty, but Mikasukis does not consider themselves Creek, does not feel bound by the treaty they have not signed, and does not accept that the creeks have any rights. to give up the land of Mikasuki. In November 1817, General Gaines sent a force of 250 men to seize Fowltown. The first attempt was beaten by Mikasukis. The next day, November 22, 1817, the Mikasukis were expelled from their village. Some historians date the start of the war for this attack on Fowltown. David Brydie Mitchell, former Georgian governor and Indian Creek agent at the time, declared in a report to Congress that the attack on Fowltown was the beginning of the First Seminole War.
A week later, a ship carrying supplies for Fort Scott, under the command of Lieutenant Richard W. Scott, was attacked on the Apalachicola River. There were forty to fifty men aboard the ship, including twenty sick soldiers, seven army wives, and possibly several children. (Despite reports of four children being killed by Seminoles, they were not mentioned in the initial report of the massacre, and their presence has not been confirmed.) Most of the passengers on board were killed by the Indians. A woman was taken captive, and six survivors made it to the fort.
While General Gaines was under orders not to attack Florida, he then decided to let a minor nuisance to Florida. When news of the Scott Massacre at Apalachicola reached Washington, Gaines was ordered to attack Florida and pursue the Indians but did not attack the Spanish installation. However, Gaines went to East Florida to deal with the pirates who had occupied Fernandina. War Secretary John C. Calhoun then ordered Andrew Jackson to lead the invasion of Florida.
Jackson invades Florida
East Asia <(span id = "East_Florida_ (east_side_of_Apalachicola_River)"> East Florida (east side of the Apalachicola River)
Jackson gathered his troops at Fort Scott in March 1818, including 800 US troops, 1,000 Tennessee volunteers, 1,000 Georgian militia, and about 1,400 friendly Lower Creek soldiers (under the command of Brigadier General William McIntosh, head of the Creek). On March 15, Jackson's soldiers entered Florida, marching across the banks of the Apalachicola River. When they arrived at the Negro Fort, Jackson ordered his men to build a new fortress, Fort Gadsden. The soldiers then set off for Mikasuki village around Lake Miccosukee. Anhaica Indian Town (now Tallahassee) was set on fire on March 31, and the town of Miccosukee was taken the next day. More than 300 Indian homes were destroyed. Jackson then turns south, reaching Fort St. Marks ( San Marcos ) on April 6th.
In St. Marks, Jackson confiscated the Spanish fortress. There he found Alexander George Arbuthnot, a Scottish merchant working in the Bahamas. He trades with Indians in Florida and has written letters to British and American officials on behalf of the Indians. He reportedly sold weapons to the Indians and prepared them for battle. He may be selling weapons, because Indian prime merchandise is deer skin, and they need weapons to hunt deer. Two Indian leaders, Josiah Francis (Hillis Hadjo), a Red Stick Creek also known as "the Prophet" (not to be confused with Tenskwatawa), and Homathlemico, have been arrested when they went to an American ship that flew the British Union. Flags anchored from St. Marks. As soon as Jackson arrives at St. Marks, the two Indians were brought ashore and hanged without trial.
Jackson leave St. Marks to attack villages along the Suwannee River, which is occupied mainly by slave-buron slaves. On April 12, the army found a Red Stick village on the Econfina River, and attacked it. Nearly 40 Red Sticks were killed, and about 100 women and children were arrested. In the village, they found Elizabeth Stewart, the woman who was arrested in an attack on a supply ship on the Apalachicola River in November before. The army found the villages in Suwannee empty, many of the Black Seminoles who had fled to Tampa Bay to the Angolan maroon community. After destroying the main Seminole and black villages, Jackson declared victory and sent the Georgian militia and the Lower Creeks home home. The remaining soldiers then return to Fort St. Marks.
About this time, Robert Ambrister, a former "agent" of the Royal Navy and appointed himself, was captured by Jackson's army. At St. Marks, a military court was held, and Ambrister and Arbuthnot were assigned to help Seminoles and Spain, inciting them to fight and lead them against the United States. Ambrister threw himself at the mercy of the court, while Arbuthnot maintained his innocence, saying that he was only involved in legal trades. The court sentenced the men to death but then succumbed and turned Ambrister's punishment to fifty lashes and a year for hard work. Jackson, however, returned Ambrister's death penalty. Ambrister was executed by firing squad on April 29, 1818. Arbuthnot was hung from the lap of his own ship.
Jackson left the garrison at Fort St. Marks and return to Fort Gadsden. Jackson first reported that everything was peaceful and he would return to Nashville, Tennessee.
West Florida (west of the Apalachicola River)
General Jackson later reported that the Indians were gathered and supplied by the Spaniards, and he left Fort Gadsden with 1,000 people on May 7, headed for Pensacola. The West Florida governor protested that most of the Indians in Pensacola were women and children and that the men were unarmed, but Jackson did not stop. When he reached Pensacola on May 23, the 175-man Spanish governor and garrison retreated to Fort Barrancas, leaving the city of Pensacola to Jackson. Both sides shoot each other for several days, and then Spain surrenders Fort Barrancas on 28 May. Jackson left Colonel William King as West Florida military governor and went home.
Consequences
There was an international impact on Jackson's actions. Foreign Minister John Quincy Adams has just started negotiations with Spain for Florida purchases. Spain protested the invasion and confiscation of West Florida and delayed negotiations. Spain had no means to retaliate against the United States or regain West Florida with power, so Adams let Spanish officials protest, then issued a letter (with 72 supporting documents) blaming the war on Britain, Spain and India. In the letter he also apologized for the confiscation of West Florida, saying that there was no American policy to seize the Spanish territory, and offered to give St Marks and Pensacola back to Spain.
Spain accepted and eventually resumed negotiations for Florida sales. Defending Jackson's necessary actions, and feeling that they are strengthening his diplomatic position, Adams demands that Spain control the population of East Florida or submit it to the United States. The agreement was subsequently reached where Spain handed East Florida to the United States and abandoned all claims to the West.
Britain protested the execution of two people who had never entered the United States. There is talk in the UK demanding reparations and receiving retaliation. Americans are worried about another war with Britain. In the end Britain, realizing how important the United States is to its economy, chooses to maintain good relations.
There is also an impact in America. Congressional committees held hearings into the irregularities of the Ambrister and Arbuthnot courts. While most Americans support Jackson, some fear Jackson might be a "horse riding man", Napoleon, and turning the United States into a military dictatorship. When Congress reunited in December 1818, a resolution was introduced condemning Jackson's actions. Jackson was too popular, and the resolution failed, but the execution of Ambrister and Arbuthnot left a stain on his reputation for the rest of his life, although that was not enough to prevent him from becoming President.
First Interbellum
Spain submitted Florida to the United States in 1819 with the Adams-OnÃÆ's Treaty, and the United States took ownership in 1821. The effective administration slowly came to Florida. General Andrew Jackson was appointed military governor in March 1821, but he did not arrive in Pensacola until July. He resigned in September and returned home in October, having spent only three months in Florida. His replacement, William P. Duval, was not appointed until April 1822, and he went on an extra visit to his home in Kentucky before the end of the year. Other official positions in the region have the same turn and absence.
Seminoles are still a problem for the new government. In early 1822, Captain John R. Bell, temporary secretary of the Florida region and a temporary agent to the Seminoles, prepared an estimate of the number of Indians in Florida. He reports about 22,000 Indians, and 5,000 slaves are held by Indians. He estimates that two-thirds of them are refugees from the Creek War, with no legitimate claims (in the US view) to Florida. The Indian settlement is located in the area around the Apalachicola River, along the Suwannee River, from there to the south-east to Alachua Prairie, and then southwest to the north a little Tampa Bay.
Officials in Florida worry from the start about the situation with the Seminoles. Until the agreement is signed to make reservations, Indians are not sure where they can grow crops and hope to harvest them, and they have to compete with white whites moving to the land they occupy. There is no system for licensed merchants, and unlicensed merchants provide liquor to the Seminole. However, due to the presence of part-time and frequent replacement of territorial officials, meetings with Seminoles were canceled, postponed, or sometimes held only to establish the time and place for new meetings.
Moultrie Creek Agreement
In 1823, the government decided to complete Seminole on a reservation in the central part of the territory. Meetings to negotiate the agreement are scheduled for early September 1823 at Moultrie Creek, south of St. Augustine. Around 425 Seminoles attend the meeting, choosing Neamathla to become their deputy head or Speaker. Under the terms of the negotiated agreement there, Seminole is forced to go under the protection of the United States and submit all claims on land in Florida, in exchange for reservations of approximately four million hectares (16,000 km²). Reservation will run in the middle of the Florida peninsula from the north of now Ocala to the line even with the south end of Tampa Bay. The boundaries were both inland from both beaches, to prevent contact with merchants from Cuba and the Bahamas. Neamathla and five other tribal chiefs were allowed to guard their village along the Apalachicola River.
Under the Moultrie Creek Agreement, the US is obliged to protect Seminole as long as they remain law-abiding. The government should distribute agricultural, livestock and pig equipment to Seminole, compensate them for travel and losses involved in relocating to reservations, and grant rations for a year, until Seminoles can plant and harvest new crops. The government should also pay tribes US $ 5,000 per year for twenty years and provide translators, schools and blacksmiths for twenty years. In turn, Seminole should allow roads to be built throughout the reservation and must catch and return to the US jurisdiction of any escaped or other fugitive slave.
The implementation of the agreement stalled. Fort Brooke, with four infantry companies, was established at its present location in Tampa in early 1824, to show Seminole that the government was serious about moving them to a reservation. However, in June, James Gadsden, who was the lead author of the agreement and commissioned to apply it, reported that Seminole was unhappy with the agreement and hoped to renegotiate. Fear of a new war creeping. In July, DuVal Governor mobilized the militia and ordered the Tallahassee and Miccosukee leaders to meet him at St Marks. At the meeting, he ordered Seminole to move into a reservation on October 1, 1824.
The move had not started yet, but DuVal began paying Seminole compensation for the repairs they had to leave as an incentive to move. He also has the promised allowance sent to Fort Brooke in Tampa Bay for distribution. Seminole eventually began to move to reservations, but within a year some returned to their former home between the Suwannee and Apalachicola rivers. In 1826, most of Seminole went to reservation, but did not develop. They have to clean and plant new fields, and cultivated fields suffer from long drought. Some tribes are reported to be starving to death. Both Colonel George M. Brooke, commander of Fort Brooke, and Governor DuVal wrote to Washington seeking help for the starving Seminole, but the request was caught in the debate over whether people should be moved west of the Mississippi River. For five months, no additional help reached Seminole.
The Seminoles slowly settled on the reservation, although they had isolated the clash with the whites. Fort King was built near the reservation bureau, at the Ocala location now, and as early as 1827, the Army was able to report that Seminoles were on the reservation spot and Florida was peaceful. During the five-year peace, some settlers continued to call for resettlement. Seminole opposes such a move, and especially on the suggestion that they join their Creek relationship. Most whites consider Seminole only as a tributary that has just moved to Florida, while Seminole claims Florida as their home and denies that they have ties to the tributaries.
The Seminole and slave catchers argue over the possession of slaves. New plantations in Florida increase the slave pool that can escape to the Seminole region. Concerned about the possibility of an Indian rebellion and/or a slave uprising, DuVal Governor requested additional Federal troops for Florida, but in 1828 the US closed Fort King. Short of food and found poaching downhill on reservation, Seminole walked away to get food. In 1828, Andrew Jackson, the old enemy of Seminoles, was elected President of the United States. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Elimination Act which he promoted, which solved the problem by moving Seminole and other tribes west of the Mississippi.
Treaty of Payne's Landing
In the spring of 1832, the Seminoles on reservation were summoned to a meeting at Payne's Landing on the Oklawaha River. The negotiated agreement there calls for the Seminoles to move west, if the land is found suitable. They must settle on the Creek reservation and become part of the Creek tribe. The delegation of seven leaders who will check the new reservation did not leave Florida until October 1832. After touring the area for several months and negotiating with the tributaries that had settled there, the seven leaders signed a declaration on March 28, 1833., that the new land acceptable. Upon their return to Florida, most of the chiefs left the statement, claimed that they had not signed it, or that they were forced to sign it, and in any case, that they did not have the power to sever all the tribes and bands that stayed on the reservation. The villages in the Apalachicola River area were more easily persuaded, however, and went west in 1834.
The United States Senate finally ratified the Payne's Landing Agreement in April 1834. The treaty has granted Seminoles three years to move west of Mississippi. The government interprets three years as early as 1832 and expects Seminoles to relocate in 1835. Fort King reopened in 1834. The new Seminole Agent, Wiley Thompson, was appointed in 1834, and the task of persuading the Seminoles to move falls into him. He summoned the leaders together at Fort King in October 1834 to talk to them about the transfer to the west. Seminoles told Thompson that they had no intention of moving and that they did not feel bound by the Payne Landing Agreement. Thompson then asked for reinforcements for Fort King and Fort Brooke, reporting that, "Indians after they received Annuity, bought a lot of powder & Lead." General Clinch also warned Washington that the Seminoles had no intention of moving and that more troops would be needed to force them to move. In March 1835, Thompson called the leaders together to read a letter from Andrew Jackson to them. In his letter, Jackson said, "If you... refused to move, I then directed the Commanding Officer to get rid of you by force." The chieftain asked for thirty days to answer. A month later, the chief of Seminole told Thompson that they would not move west. Thompson and the leaders started arguing, and General Clinch had to intervene to prevent bloodshed. Finally, eight of the leaders agreed to move west but were asked to postpone the move until the end of the year, and Thompson and Clinch agreed.
Five of the most important Seminole leaders, including Micanopy of Alachua Seminoles, did not agree to move. In retaliation, Thompson stated that the leaders had been removed from their positions. When relations with Seminoles deteriorated, Thompson banned the sale of arms and ammunition to the Seminoles. Osceola, a young fighter who began to be noticed by the white man, was deeply disappointed by the ban, feeling that it equated Seminoles with slaves and said, "The white man will not make me black, I will make the white man red with blood; and then blacken it in the sun and rain... and the pigeon lives on its flesh. "Apart from this, Thompson considers Osceola a friend and gives him a shotgun. But then, when Osceola caused trouble, Thompson told him to lock himself at Fort King for the night. The next day, to secure his release, Osceola agreed to comply with the Payne Landing Agreement and to bring his followers in.
Things got worse. On June 19, 1835, a group of white people searching for lost cattle discovered a group of Indians sitting around a campfire, cooking up what they claimed to be one of their herds of cattle. The white man disarmed his arms and started beating up the Indians, when two more arrived and opened fire at the white man. Three white people were injured and one Indian was killed and one wounded, on what is known as a battle in Hickory Sink. After complaining to Agent Thompson India and not receiving a satisfactory response, Seminoles became more confident that they would not receive fair compensation for their complaints about the hostile treatment by the settlers. Believed in response to the incident at Hickory Sink, in August 1835, Pvt. Kinsley Dalton (for whom Dalton, Georgia, was named) was killed by Seminoles when he brought a letter from Fort Brooke to Fort King.
In November 1835, Chief Charley Emathla, who did not want a share of the war, agreed to move and sell his livestock at Fort King in preparation for moving his people to Fort Brooke to emigrate to the west. This action is considered a betrayal by other Seminoles who months earlier stated on the council that every Seminole head who sells his livestock will be sentenced to death. Osceola met Charley Emathla on the road back to his village and killed him, wasting money from buying livestock all over his body.
Second Seminole War
When Florida officials realized that Seminole would refuse relocation, preparations for the war began. Settlers fled to safety because Seminole attacked plantations and militia wagon trains. Two companies numbering 110 people under the command of Major Francis L. Dade were sent from Fort Brooke to fortify Fort King in mid-December 1835. On the morning of December 28, troop trains were ambushed by a group of Seminole soldiers under the Alligator command near modern Bushnell, Florida. All of their small commandos and cannons were destroyed, with only two seriously wounded soldiers back to Fort Brooke. Over the next few months General Clinch, Gaines and Winfield Scott, as well as territorial governor Richard Keith Call, led a large number of troops in the vain search of the Seminoles. Meanwhile Seminoles attacked the entire state, attacking farmland, settlements, plantations and Army fortresses, even burning Cape Florida lighthouses. Supply problems and high disease rates during the summer caused the Army to leave some fortresses.
On December 28, 1835 Mayor Benjamine A. Putnam with army forces occupied the Bulow Plantation and fortified with cotton balls and a fortress. Local gardeners take refuge with their slaves. The mayor left the site on January 23, 1836, and the Bulow Plantation was later burned by the Seminoles. Now the National Park, the site remains a window to the destruction of conflict; The large stone ruins of the large Bulow mills stood slightly changed from the 1830s. In February 1836, Seminole and the black allies attacked 21 plantations along the river.
Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock was among those who discovered the remains of Dade's party in February. In his journal he wrote about the discovery and expressed his dissatisfaction:
"The government is wrong, and this is the leading cause of indiscretionary opposition from India, who have noblely defended their country against our efforts to uphold the false treaty." Indigenous peoples use every means to avoid war, but are forced into it by our government tyranny. "
On November 21, 1836 at the Battle of Wahoo Swamp, the Seminole fought against American allied forces of 2500, successfully pushing them back. among the dead Americans is David Moniac, the first Western American graduate. The fighting restored the Seminole belief, demonstrating their ability to defend their land against their old enemies, the Creek and the white settlers.
Late in 1836, Maj. Gen. Thomas Jesup, US Quartermaster, was placed under the command of war. Jesup brought a new approach to war. He concentrated on using Seminoles instead of sending large groups that were more easily ambushed. He needed a large military presence in the state to control it, and he eventually brought the power of more than 9,000 people to the country under his command. About half of the troops are volunteers and militia. This also includes marine brigades, and Marine and Marine-Revenue personnel patrolling the coast and rivers and rivers in the interior.
In January 1837, the Army began to achieve more tangible success, capturing or killing many Indians and blacks. At the end of January, some Seminole chiefs sent envoys to Jesup, and arranged a truce. In March a "capitulation" was signed by several heads, including Micanopy, who determined that Seminole could be accompanied by their allies and their "their negro, bona fide property", in their transfer to the West. In late May, many leaders, including Micanopy, surrendered. Two prominent leaders, Osceola and Sam Jones (a.k.a. Abiaca, Ar-pi-uck-i, Opoica, Arpeika, Aripeka, Aripeika), have not surrendered, and are known to be fiercely opposed to relocation. On 2 June two of these leaders with some 200 followers entered the guarded camp were not well guarded at Fort Brooke and brought along 700 Seminoles who surrendered. The war was on again, and Jesup decided not to believe the Indians anymore. On the orders of Jesup, Brigadier General Joseph Marion HernÃÆ'¡ndez ordered an expedition that captured several Indian leaders, including Coacoochee (Wild Cat), John Horse, Osceola and Micanopy when they appeared for the conference under the banner of a white truce. Coacoochee and other captives, including John Horse, fled from their cell at Fort Marion in St. Louis. Augustine, but Osceola did not come with them. He died in prison, probably because of malaria.
Jesup organized a sweep of the peninsula with several columns, pushing the Seminoles further south. On Christmas Day in 1837, Colonel Zachary Taylor's column of 800 men found the bodies of about 400 warriors on the northern shore of Lake Okeechobee. Seminole is led by Sam Jones, Alligator and Coacoochee who just fled; they are positioned well in hammocks surrounded by grass saws with half a mile of swamp in front of it. On the far side of the hammock is Lake Okeechobee. Here the grass stood five feet tall. Mud and water as high as three feet. Horses will not be useful. Seminole has chosen their battlefield. They had cut the grass to provide an open fire field and cut down trees to stabilize their rifles. Their spies are perched on the treetops to follow every troop movement that comes. When Taylor's troops climbed into this position, he decided to attack.
Around half past noon, with the sun shining directly overhead and the air still calm, Taylor moved his army right into the middle of the swamp. The plan was to attack directly instead of trying to besiege the Indians. All his men are on foot. On the first line there are volunteers in Missouri. Once they come within reach, Seminoles fired. The volunteers broke out, and their commander Colonel Gentry, who was badly wounded, could not rally them. They went back across the swamp. Battle in the deadliest sawmill for five Sixth Infantry companies; every officer but one, and most of their noncom members, were killed or wounded. When the units were retired within a short distance to be re-established, they found only four people from these companies who were not hurt. The US eventually piloted the Seminoles from the hammocks, but they escaped across the lake. Taylor lost 26 dead and 112 injured, while the victims of the Seminoles were eleven dead and fourteen wounded. The US claims the Battle of Lake Okeechobee as a major victory.
At the end of January, Jesup troops managed to overtake a large number of Seminoles east of Lake Okeechobee. Originally positioned in a hammock, the Seminoles were pushed across the great river with cannons and rocket fire, and made other stands. They faded, having caused more victims than they suffered, and the Loxahatchee Battle ended. In February 1838, the chiefs of the Seminole Tuskegee and Halleck Hadjo approached Jesup with a proposal to stop the battle if they could live in the southern region of Lake Okeechobee, rather than moving west. Jesup liked the idea but had to get approval from officials in Washington for approval. Their leaders and followers camped near the Army while waiting for an answer. When the war secretary rejected the idea, Jesup captured 500 Indians at the camp, and asked them to be transferred to the Indian Territory.
In May, Jesup's request to be released from order was granted, and Zachary Taylor took command of the Army in Florida. With reduced strength, Taylor concentrated on keeping Seminole out of northern Florida by building many small posts at a distance of twenty miles (30 km) across the peninsula, linked by a road network. Winter is calm, without great action. In Washington and across the country, support for the war has eroded. Many people began to think that Seminoles have earned the right to live in Florida. Far from ending, war becomes very expensive. President Martin Van Buren sent the Army's General Commander, Alexander Macomb, to negotiate a new deal with the Seminoles. On May 19, 1839, Macomb announced an agreement. In return for a reservation in southern Florida, Seminoles will stop fighting.
As the summer passes, the agreement is likely to be held. However, on July 23, about 150 Indians attacked a trading post on the Caloosahatchee River; it was guarded by a detachment of 23 soldiers under the command of Colonel William S. Harney. He and several soldiers flee by the river, but Seminoles kill most of the garrisons, as well as some civilians at the post. Many blame the "Spanish" Indians, led by Chakaika, for the attack, but others suspect Sam Jones, whose band Mikasuki has agreed a deal with Macomb. Jones, when asked, promised to change the men responsible for the attack to Harney in 33 days. Before that time, two soldiers who visited the Jones camp were killed.
The Army turned to sniffer dogs to track down the Indians, with poor results. Taylor's defense and patrol system in northern Florida made Seminoles move but could not clean them. In May 1839, Taylor, after serving longer than previous commander in the Florida war, was granted his appeal for transfer and was replaced by Brig. General Walker Keith Armistead. Armistead immediately attacked, actively campaigning during the summer. Looking for a hidden camp, the Army also burned the fields and drove the cattle: horses, cows and pigs. By mid-summer, the Army had destroyed 500 hectares (2.0 km km 2 ) of Seminole plants.
The Navy sends sailors and marines to rivers and streams, and to the Everglades. In late 1839, Navy Lieutenant John T. McLaughlin was commanded a combined Navy amphibious force to operate in Florida. McLaughlin set up his base at the Tea Table Key in the upper Florida Keys. Traveling from December 1840 to mid-January 1841, McLaughlin's troops crossed the Everglades from east to west in canoe canoe, the first white group to complete the crossing. The Seminoles keep getting out of their way.
Indian Key
Indian Key is a small island in the upper Florida Keys. In 1840, it was the county seat of the newly created County Dade, and the harbor was broken. Early in the morning of 7 August 1840, a large group of "Spanish" Indians sneaked into the Indian Key. Coincidentally, one person stood up and raised the alarm after seeing the Indians. Of the approximately fifty people living on the island, forty people managed to escape. The dead include Dr. Henry Perrine, a former US Consul in Campeche, Mexico, who waited at Indian Key until it was safe to take a grant of 36 square miles (93 × kmÃ, ²) on the land that Congress had given him.
The naval base at Key is manned by doctors, patients, and five sailors under a cadet. They boarded several cannons on barges to attack the Indians. The Indians fired on the sailors with gun balls loaded into cannons on the beach. The withdrawal of the cannon released them from the barge, sent them into the water, and the sailors had to retreat. The Indians looted and burned buildings in Indian Key. In December 1840, Colonel Harney at the head of ninety men found Chakaika camp deep inside the Everglades. His power killed his head and hung several people in his band.
Wind war down
Armistead received US $ 55,000 to be used as a bribe chief to surrender. Echo Emathla, a leader of Tallahassee, surrendered, but most of Tallahassee, under Tiger Tail, did not. Coosa Tustenuggee finally received US $ 5,000 for bringing in 60 of them. Small tribes receive US $ 200, and each soldier gets US $ 30 and a rifle. In the spring of 1841, Armistead had sent 450 Seminoles to the west. The other 236 are in Fort Brooke waiting for transportation. Armistead estimates that 120 soldiers have been sent to the west during his tenure and no more than 300 soldiers are left in Florida.
In May 1841, Armistead was replaced by Colonel William Jenkins Worth as commander of the Army forces in Florida. Worth should reduce the unpopular war: he freed nearly 1,000 civilian and joint commandos. Worth instructing his men to "seek and destroy" missions during the summer, and drive Seminoles out of most of northern Florida.
Army action becomes a war of attraction; some Seminole surrendered to avoid starvation. Others were arrested when they came to negotiate surrender, including, for the second time, Coacoochee. Great bribes help coacoochee in convincing others to surrender.
In the last act of the war, General William Bailey and a prominent planter Jack Bellamy led a group of 52 men in a three-day pursuit of a small group of Tiger Tail wolves who had attacked the settlers, stunned their swamp camp and killed all 24 William Wesley Hankins, at the youngest of sixteen of the posse, was responsible for the latest murder and was admitted to have fired the last shot of the Second Seminole War.
After Colonel Worth recommended in early 1842 that the remaining Seminoles were left in peace, he received the authorization to leave the remaining Seminoles at an informal reservation in southwest Florida and to declare an end to the war, he announced it on August 14, 1842. That same month, Congress passed the Armed Forces Act, which provides free land for settlers fixing the land and is ready to defend itself from the Indians. At the end of 1842, the remaining Indians in Florida living outside the shelter in southwest Florida were collected and sent to the west. By April 1843, the presence of the Army in Florida had been reduced to one regiment. In November 1843, Worth reported that only about 95 Seminole men and about 200 women and children lived in the remaining reservation, and that they were no longer a threat.
Aftermath
The Second Seminole War might cost $ 40,000,000. More than 40,000 regular US military, militia, and volunteer members are served in the war. The Indian war cost about 1,500 soldiers, mostly from illness. It is estimated that more than 300 US Army, Marine, and Marine Corps personnel died in action, along with 55 volunteers. There is no record of the number of Seminole killed in action, but many homes and souls of Indians are missing. Lots of Seminole died of Florida sickness or hunger, on their way west, and after they reached the Indian Territory. A number of unknown but apparently great white civilians were killed by Seminole during the war.
Second Interbellum
Peace has come to Florida. The Indians mostly live in reservations. Groups of ten or more people will visit Tampa to trade. The wilds moved closer to reservation, however, and in 1845 President James Polk established a 20-mile (32 km) wide buffer zone around the reservation. No land can be claimed in the buffer zone, no titles will be issued for the land there, and US Marshal will remove squatters from the buffer zone upon request. In 1845, Thomas P. Kennedy, who operated a shop in Fort Brooke, turned his fishing rod in Pin Island into a trading post for Indians. However, the post did not go well, because white people selling whiskey to Indians told them they would be confiscated and shipped west if they went to Kennedy's shop.
The Florida authorities continue to press for eliminating all Indians from Florida. The Indians in their section try to limit their contact with whites as much as possible. In 1846, Captain John T. Sprague was assigned to Indian affairs in Florida. He had great difficulty in getting the leaders to meet him. They strongly disbelieved in the Army for often seizing their temporary heads under the banner of a truce. He managed to meet all the leaders in 1847, while investigating reports of raids on a farm. He reported that the Indians in Florida later consisted of 120 warriors, including seventy Seminoles in the band Billy Bowlegs, thirty Mikasukis in Sam Jones' band, twelve Creeks (Muscogee speakers) in Chipco bands, 4 Yuchis and 4 Choctaws. He also estimated that there were 100 women and 140 children.
Indian Attack
The trading post on Pine Island burned in 1848, and in 1849 Thomas Kennedy and his new colleague, John Darling, were given permission to open a trading post in what is now Paynes Creek, the tributary of the Peace. One Indian band is staying out of the reservation at the moment. Called an "outsider," it was made up of twenty soldiers under Chipco, and included five Muscogees, seven Mikasukis, six Seminoles, one Creek and one Yuchi. On July 12, 1849, four members of the band attacked a farm on the Indian River north of Fort Pierce, killing one person and injuring another and a woman. News of the attack has caused many of the coastal residents of Florida to escape to St. Petersburg. Augustine. On July 17, four of the "outsiders" who attacked the farm on the Indian River, plus a fifth man not yet on the Indian River, attacked the Kennedy and Darling stores. Two shop workers, including Captain Payne, were killed, and another worker and his wife were injured as they escorted their son to hiding.
The US Army is not ready to involve Indians. It has several people stationed in Florida and there is no way to move them quickly to where they can protect the white settlers and catch the Indians. The War Department started a new buildup in Florida, placing Major General David E. Twiggs as commander, and the state called two volunteer companies that were kept to guard the settlements. Captain John Casey, in charge of moving the Indians to the west, can arrange a meeting between General Twiggs and some Indian leaders in Port Charlotte. At the meeting, Billy Bowlegs promised, with the consent of other leaders, to release the five men responsible for the assault on the Army within thirty days. On October 18, Bowlegs drove three men to Twiggs, along with wounded hands who were killed while trying to escape. The fifth man has been arrested but has run away.
After the Bowlegs sent the three assassins, General Twiggs told the Indians, which made them anxious, that he had been ordered to move them from Florida. The government will implement three tactics to dismiss. The Army in Florida has grown to 1,500. A hundred thousand dollars adjusted to bribe Indians to move. Finally, a Seminole chief delegation was brought from the Indian Territory to negotiate with their Florida counterparts. Eventually a head sub-head Mikasuki, Kapiktoosootse, agreed to lead his men to the west. In February 1850, 74 Indians boarded the ship for New Orleans. They are paid a total of US $ 15,953 in bribes and compensation for abandoned properties in Florida. There were several incidents that worsened relationships after that. A Muskogee and a Mikasuki who went to trade at the same time as Kapiktooootse and his surrendering band were accidentally sent to New Orleans with them. Then, in March a detachment installed from the Seventh Infantry penetrated deep in the reservation. As a result, other Indians broke with negotiators. In April, Twiggs reported to Washington that there was no hope of convincing more Indians to move.
In August 1850, an orphan living on a farm in northern central Florida was apparently murdered by an Indian. Finally enough complaints about the incident have reached Washington to cause the war secretary to order the surrender of responsible Indians, or the president will assume the whole tribe is responsible. Captain Casey can deliver the news to Bowlegs and arrange a meeting in April. Bowlegs promises to send those responsible, even though they are apparently members of the Chipco band, who have no authority over the Bowlegs. Chipco decided to hand over three men as possible killers, and they were arrested when they appeared to trade in Fort Myers. After being arrested, all three protested their innocence, saying that Chipco did not like them and that others in the Chipco band were the real killers, and Captain Casey trusted them. The three men tried to escape from prison in Tampa but were arrested and chained in their cells. They are then found hanging from the bars in their cells. One is alive when found but not cut down until the next day, after he dies. It was recorded in the community that the police who had chained the three men in their cell were the brother-in-law of a man from one of the men killed at Kennedy and Darling's shop in 1849 (Paynes Creek Massacre).
Further Indian removal
In 1851, General Luther Blake was appointed by Interior Secretary Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan to move the Indians to the west. Blake has managed to get rid of Cherokee from Georgia and allegedly able to get rid of Seminole. He has the funds to pay every $ 800 adult man and every woman and child $ 450. He goes to the Indian Territory to find a translator and returns to Florida in March 1852. Traveling to the field to meet with all Indian leaders, in July he has found sixteen Seminole to send to the west. Finding Billy Bowlegs insisted on living in Florida, Blake took the Bowlegs and several other heads to Washington. President Millard Fillmore presents Bowlegs with a medal, and he and three other tribal chiefs are persuaded to sign an agreement promising to leave Florida. Leaders were taken on a tour that included Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City. After returning to Florida, the leaders rejected the agreement they had signed in Washington. Blake was sacked in 1853, and Captain Casey was returned responsible for the removal of India.
In January 1851, the Florida Legislature had created the position of the Florida Militia commander, and Governor Thomas Brown appointed Benjamin Hopkins to him. For the next two years, the Florida Militia pursued Seminole outside the boundaries of the reservation. During this period, the militia suspected
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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