Tensions grew between the Seminoles and American 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.

Instead of continuing to pursue these small bands, American commanders eventually changed their strategy and focused on seeking out and destroying hidden Seminole villages and crops, putting increasing pressure on resisters to surrender or starve with their families.

A majority of these refugees were Muscogee (Creek) Indians from Georgia and Alabama, and during the 1700s, they came together with other native peoples to establish independent chiefdoms and villages across the Florida panhandle as they coalesced into a new culture which became known as the Seminoles.

Hundreds of Black people escaped slavery to Florida over the ensuing decades, with most settling near St. Augustine at Fort Mose and a few living amongst the Seminole, who treated them with varying levels of equality.

[10] The war preceded with the destruction of the Negro Fort in July 1816, and subsequently Jackson's forces destroyed several Seminole/Creek and Miccosukee settlements including Fowltown pursuing them and Black Seminoles and allied Maroons across northern Florida in 1818.

But as was made clear by several local uprisings and other forms of "border anarchy",[11] Spain was no longer able to defend nor control Florida and eventually agreed to cede it to the United States per the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, with the transfer taking place in 1821.

[14] General Jesup clearly violated the rules of war, and spent 21 years defending himself over it, "Viewed from the distance of more than a century, it hardly seems worthwhile to try to grace the capture with any other label than treachery.

An estimated 200 to 500 Seminoles in small family bands still refused to leave and retreated deep into the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp to live on land considered unsuitable by American settlers.

[2] The original indigenous peoples of Florida declined significantly in number after the arrival of European explorers in the early 1500s, mainly because the Native Americans had little resistance to diseases newly introduced from Europe.

By 1707, settlers based in Carolina and their Yamasee Indian allies had killed, carried off, or driven away most of the remaining native inhabitants during a series of raids across the Florida panhandle and down the full length of the peninsula.

[25] In order to obtain a port on the Gulf of Mexico with secure access for Americans, United States diplomats in Europe were instructed to try to purchase the Isle of Orleans and West Florida from whichever country owned them.

[27]p 118 In 1805, Monroe's last proposition to Spain to obtain West Florida was absolutely rejected, and American plans to establish a customs house at Mobile Bay in 1804 were dropped in the face of Spanish protests.

This alliance raised fears in the United States that the British would establish military bases in Spanish colonies, including the Floridas, and as such potentially compromise the security of the southern frontiers of the U.S.[32] By 1810, during the Peninsular War, Spain was largely overrun by the French army.

On 27 October 1810, U.S. President James Madison proclaimed that the United States should take possession of West Florida between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers, based on the tenuous claim that it was part of the Louisiana Purchase.

On 16 March 1812, this force of "Patriots", with the aid of nine U.S. Navy gunboats, seized the town of Fernandina on Amelia Island, just south of the border with Georgia, approximately 50 miles north of St.

[43] The next day, a detachment of 250 regular United States troops were brought over from Point Peter, Georgia, and the Patriots surrendered the town to Gen. George Mathews, who had the U.S. flag raised immediately.

David Brydie Mitchell, former governor of Georgia and Creek Indian agent at the time, stated in a report to Congress that the attack on Fowltown was the start of the First Seminole War.

[86] Two Indian leaders, Josiah Francis (Hillis Hadjo), a Red Stick Creek also known as the "Prophet" (not to be confused with Tenskwatawa), and Homathlemico, had been captured when they had gone out to an American ship flying the Union Flag that had anchored off of St. Marks.

[citation needed] In the village, they found Elizabeth Stewart, the woman who had been captured in the attack (the Scott Massacre) on the supply boat on the Apalachicola River the previous November near modern Chattahochee, Florida.

Over the next few months Generals Clinch, Gaines and Winfield Scott, as well as territorial governor Richard Keith Call, led large numbers of troops in futile pursuits of the Seminoles.

In his journal he wrote of the discovery and expressed his discontent: The government is in the wrong, and this is the chief cause of the persevering opposition of the Indians, who have nobly defended their country against our attempt to enforce a fraudulent treaty.

On Jesup's orders, Brigadier General Joseph Marion Hernández commanded an expedition that captured several Indian leaders, including Coacoochee (Wild Cat), John Horse, Osceola and Micanopy when they appeared for conferences under a white flag of truce.

In February 1838, the Seminole chiefs Tuskegee and Halleck Hadjo approached Jesup with the proposal to stop fighting if they could stay in the area south of Lake Okeechobee, rather than relocating west.

With reduced forces, Taylor concentrated on keeping the Seminole out of northern Florida by building many small posts at twenty-mile (30 km) intervals across the peninsula, connected by a grid of roads.

The dead included Dr. Henry Perrine, former United States Consul in Campeche, Mexico, who was waiting at Indian Key until it was safe to take up a 36-square mile (93 km2) grant on the mainland that Congress had awarded to him.

[136][137] In the last action of the war, General William Bailey and prominent planter Jack Bellamy led a posse of 52 men on a three-day pursuit of a small band of Tiger Tail's braves who had been attacking settlers, surprising their swampy encampment and killing all 24.

The War Department began a new buildup in Florida, placing Major General David E. Twiggs in command, and the state called up two companies of mounted volunteers to guard settlements.

In 1885, the now redeemer dominated legislature passed a new constitution abolishing the seats reserved for Seminoles and establishing barriers to voter registration and electoral practices that essentially disfranchised most African Americans and minorities.

Flood control and drainage projects beginning in the late 1800s opened up more land for development and significantly altered the natural environment, inundating some areas while leaving some former swamps dry and arable.

[165][166] The Miccosukee branch of the Seminoles held to a more traditional lifestyle in the Everglades region, simultaneously seeking privacy and serving as a tourist attraction, wrestling alligators, selling crafts, and giving eco-tours of their land.