Seminoles

a tribe of American Indians related to the Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws. They took possession of the peninsula of Florida about the time of the American Revolution. The name is Creek, signifying renegades or separatists, in allusion to their seceding from the parent Creek stock. They are known in American history chiefly by reason of the Seminole War, one of the longest, bloodiest, most fiercely contested, and expensive Indian wars on record. It was brought about in the usual way. The whites encroached on the red men, scaring away their game and driving them farther back into the forests. A preliminary contest broke out in 1817-18. The settlers overwhelmed Congress and the president with complaints of petty depredations and accounts of the risk they ran of massacre. In 1834 the representatives of the government succeeded in exacting a treaty by which the Seminole chiefs yielded their country and agreed to migrate to a new home beyond the MISSISSIPPI.

When the actual work of removal was attempted, trouble began. The Seminoles were led by a skillful chief named Osceola. The United States troops were commanded by General Wiley Thompson. When summoned to a conference, Osceola bore himself haughtily. Thompson ordered him put in irons for a day. This affront the offended savage never forgave. He bowed his head in apparent acquiescence. He agreed to bring in all the horses and cattle belonging to his people to be exchanged for others to be delivered in their new home. Thompson, evidently a man who had little knowledge of Indian nature, even advertised the stock for sale. In the meantime, runners and messengers in swift canoes summoned the warriors to council. On the date when the stock was to be brought in, scalping parties fell on the settlements bordering the everglades, burned cabins, murdered the inhabitants, and drove off cattle into the swamps. Young Major Dade, hastening from Tampa Bay with 100 men for the relief of the settlers, was cut off at Wahoo Swamp, only four men escaping. On the same day, and only a few hours before, Osceola and a band of his warriors surprised General Thompson and five brother officers who were dining at a store near Fort King. Osceola had the savage satisfaction of killing and scalping the general with his own hand. The band escaped into the woods before the attack was known at the fort. For seven years this able chieftain baffled the troops of the United States, though led by such commanders as General Scott and Zachary Taylor. There were forced marches into the swamps, surprises, attacks, and counter attacks. The Indians would disappear only to reappear elsewhere with brand, rifle, and tomahawk. Finally the spirit of the Indians was broken. October 21, 1837, Osceola appeared at the Camp of Colonel Jesup with several chiefs and seventy warriors to consider terms of peace. Though protected by a flag of truce, Osceola and his companions were seized and imprisoned at Fort Moultrie, where the indomitable chief died of a fever.

The Seminoles had lost their leader. They protracted the war bravely, but in vain. In 1842, 3,824 men, women, and children turned their backs on their once happy hunting grounds and migrated to Indian Territory. Their descendants to the number of 2,757 still form one of the so-called five civilized tribes. About four hundred Seminoles, descendants of Indians who secreted themselves from the troops, still live in the Everglades of Florida. They are a harmless, inoffensive people, subsisting by hunting and fishing, raising patches of corn, by selling berries and fish, and by guiding parties of hunters or fishermen.

See Creeks; Choctaws; Indian Territory; Osceola