Florida Naturally.com

In 1823 hostilities ended temporarily when the tribe agreed to live on a reservation stretching from Ocala to Lake Okeechobee, but peace did not last; in 1835 the fighting began again when the government decided the best place for the Seminoles was another reservation—in Oklahoma! Fierce and fervent tribal chief Osceola responded to that idea by tossing his long knife into the center of the proposed treaty papers.

When the Maskókî tribes in Alabama, whom English speakers erroneously called “Creeks,” rose up against the white settlers in the Creek War of 1813-14, the brutal repression and disastrous treaty forced upon them by General Andrew Jackson sent thousands of the most determined warriors and their families migrating southward.

But Spain could not afford enough soldiers to patrol the long frontiers of Florida. Its choice lands were openly coveted by white settlers who regularly moved across its borders. English war ships anchored off its Gulf coast and English agents encouraged the Seminoles, Creeks, and Mikisúkî to resist US settlement openly. US officials, angry that the Spaniards could not oust the English or control the Indians, were particularly incensed by the protection and shelter the Seminoles offered to African slaves.

These freedom seekers had been finding refuge in Spanish Florida for over a century, but the new US government was determined to stop this practice. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, conflicts, skirmishes, and ambushes erupted and racial hatred flared into violence more and more frequently on the new frontier. First Seminole War. During 1814 and 1818,