Early history of The Seminole Tribe
After the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, the indigenous people of Florida were
decimated by disease, and it is believed that the few survivors were evacuated by the
Spanish to Cuba when Florida fell under British rule in 1763.
In the early 18th century, members of the Lower Creek Nation began migrating into Florida
to remove themselves from the dominance of the Upper Creeks, and intermingled with the few
remaining indigenous people there, including the Yuchi, Yamasee, and others. They went on
to be called "Seminole", a derivative of the Mvskoke (a Creek language) word
simano-li, an adaptation of the Spanish "cimarrón" which means "wild"
(in their case, "wild men"), or "runaway" [men]. The Seminole were a
heterogeneous tribe made up of mostly Lower Creeks from Georgia, Mikasuki-speaking
Muskogees, and escaped African American slaves, and to a lesser extent, white Europeans
and Indians from other tribes. The unified Seminole spoke two languages, Creek and
Mikasuki (a modern dialect similar to Hitchiti), two different members of the Muskogean
Native American languages family, a language group that also includes Choctaw and
Chickasaw. It is largely on linguistic grounds that the modern Miccosukee Tribe of Indians
of Florida maintain their separate identity today.
The Seminole were apparently on good terms with both the Spanish and the British. In 1784,
the treaty ending the American Revolutionary War returned all of Florida to Spanish
control. However, the Spanish Empire's decline allowed the Seminole to settle deeper into
Florida.
The Seminole Wars
After attacks by Spanish settlers on Indian towns, Indians based in Florida began raiding
Georgia settlements, purportedly at the behest of the Spanish. The U.S. Army led
increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory to recapture escaped slaves,
including the 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole Indians by Andrew Jackson that
became known as the First Seminole War. Following the war, the United States effectively
controlled East Florida.
The Adams-Onís Treaty [1] was signed between the United States and Spain in 1819 and took
effect in 1821. According to the terms of the treaty, the United States acquired Florida
and, in exchange, renounced all claims to Texas. Andrew Jackson was named military
governor of Florida. As American settlement increased after the treaty, pressure grew on
the Federal government to remove the Indians from their lands in Florida. Many Indian
tribes harbored runaway black slaves, and the settlers wanted access to Indian lands.
Georgian slaveowners also wanted the maroons and fugitive slaves living among the
Seminoles, known today as Black Seminoles, returned to slavery.
In 1832, the United States government signed the Treaty of Paynes Landing with a few of
the Seminole chiefs, promising them lands west of the Mississippi River if they agreed to
leave Florida voluntarily. The remaining Seminole prepared for war. White settlers
pressured the government to remove all of the Indians, by force if necessary. In 1835, the
U.S. Army arrived to enforce the treaty. Seminole leader Osceola led the vastly
outnumbered resistance during the Second Seminole War. Drawing on a population of about
4,000 Seminole Indians and 800 allied Black Seminoles, the Seminoles mustered at most
1,400 warriors (Andrew Jackson estimated they had only 900) to counter combined U.S. Army
and militia forces that ranged from 6,000 troops at the outset to 9,000 at the peak of
deployment, in 1837. To survive, the Seminole allies employed hit-and-run guerrilla
tactics with devastating effect against U.S. forces. Osceola was arrested when he came
under a flag of truce to negotiations in 1837. He died in jail less than a year later.
Other warchiefs such as Halleck Tustenuggee continued the Seminole resistance against the
army. The war only ended, after a full decade of fighting, in 1842. The U.S. government is
estimated to have spent about $20,000,000 on the war, at the time an astronomical sum.
Many Indians were forcibly exiled to Creek lands west of the Mississippi; others retreated
into the Everglades. In the end, the government gave up trying to subjugate the Seminole
in their Everglades redoubts and left the remaining Seminole in peace. About 1,500
American soldiers in federal uniform and an unrecorded number of militiamen had died, but
no formal peace treaty had been forced on the independent Seminole who never surrendered
to the U.S. government.
Seminole
Florida Tribe |
