There are few books that detail so extensively the battles and conflicts in the Florida swap s from the eighteen thirties on withe the US government a tons against the Seminole. Most of these battles have been lost to the swamp and tme but in researching I came across an excellent piece that gives many dates and places of conflicts between the Red and White man. There was also many free blacks in Florida this time that operated under the Spanish fleeing settlements in Carolina and living prosperous lives.
Virginia Bergman Peters booked called "Florida Wars " is the only reading if you need one on the Seminole wars. She shows how the wars started a gang of Georgians calling themselves "Patriots" tried to spread dissent among the American planters in fertile Northern Florida. It was undoubtedly the fear of slave revolts after Haiti's slave revolution and independence in 1804 that put the fear of God into these Anglo-Saxon slave masters who knew a strong Seminole area would only draw more spaces for the Souths plantations into a possible force along with Southern Indians. This is really what lead to the immediate move to destroy the Seminoles in Florida and other Indians of the South East to be forced to move into Oklahoma. This book goes through the costly campaigns of American generals such as Jesup, Zachary Taylor, Armistead, and Winfield Scott's campaign that slowly deceived and tricked many Natives into surrendering and then finding themselves to be deported of their beloved homelands.
The successful emergence of a improved American navy to be able to maneuver the sticky swamps of Florida also proved to be successful into finally getting the elusive and stubborn Seminoles to start to come in as many Native villages and fields were put to the torch in warfare that resembled more the Vietnam war than traditional wars we have in minds with Western Hollywood imagery. The deceived Osceola and his capture dimmed the light for the Seminoles but many great Indian leaders carried the fight and continued this war well into the 1840s and 50s including Coacoochee,alligator, Arpeika,Octiarche,Halleck-Tustenuggee, and billy bowlers and their story of residence to last possible hidden outpost is told luminously told in this heart telling tale of the Seminole Indian wars of Florida.
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