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| A man named Osceola, with hatred in his dark eyes, drove a knife through a treaty paper while US army officers sputtered in shock and disbelief. That was the beginning of the Seminole War which lasted from 1835 to 1842. Osceola was infuriated by the prospect that the US government wanted the Seminoles to give up their reservation in Florida, and move to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. If anyone had been paying attention, they would have known that the Seminoles would not go bow down to the white man, all they had to do was look back on the history of the proud natives. The Seminoles came about when during the 1860's, several hundred Creeks fled from British controlled Georgia and Alabama into Spanish ruled Florida. They intermarried with runaway slaves and the few remaining survivors of other Florida Indian tribes. In 1818 when the Seminoles were accused of murdering white settlers in Georgia and harboring runaway slaves, General Andrew Jackson led an expedition into Florida that left hundreds of Seminoles laying slaughtered in their burned out little towns. In 1819, Spain turned over Florida to the US, and officials persuaded the Seminoles to settle on a reservation in the swampland of Florida. In 1835, the Indian removal treaty was proposed, and Osceola sprang into action. For two years he conducted hit and run warfare that had the US army completely frustrated. Even in 1837 when Osceola was wrongfully trapped and put in prison, his warriors continued fighting. Osceola died in 1838, his warriors were a few thousand men against 10,000 US army regulars and close to 30,000 volunteers. The only man to ever defeat the mighty Seminoles was a man named Colonel Zachary Taylor. He forced them out by burning Seminole crops and towns, causing total disruption and finally winning the long battle in 1842. The few Seminoles who remained live on or near the reservations within the Florida everglades. |
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