Editing Seminole Wars (section)

==Overview==
===Background===
{{main|Seminole#Origins}}
[[Spanish Florida]] was established in the 1500s, when Spain laid claim to land explored by several expeditions across the future southeastern [[United States]]. The [[Columbian exchange|introduction of diseases]] to the [[indigenous peoples of Florida]] caused a steep decline in the original native population over the following century, and most of the remaining [[Apalachee]] and [[Tequesta]] peoples settled in [[Spanish missions in Florida|a series of missions]] spread out across north Florida. [[Spain]] never established real control over its vast claim outside of the immediate vicinity of its scattered missions and the towns of [[St. Augustine, Florida|St. Augustine]] and [[Pensacola]], however, and [[British subject|British settlers]] established several colonies along the Atlantic coast during the 1600s. After the establishment of the [[Province of Carolina]] in the late 17th century, a series of raids by British settlers from the [[Carolinas]] and their Indian allies into Spanish Florida devastated both the mission system and the remaining native population.

British settlers repeatedly came into conflict with Native Americans as [[Thirteen Colonies|the colonies]] expanded further westward, resulting in a stream of refugees relocating to depopulated areas of Florida. A majority of these refugees were [[Muscogee|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.<ref name="brief">{{cite web |title=A Brief History of the Seminole People of Florida |url=https://museumoffloridahistory.com/explore/exhibits/previous-exhibits/seminole-people-of-florida/seminole-history/ |website=museumoffloridahistory.com |publisher=Florida Museum of Natural History |access-date=2023-01-03 |archive-date=2023-01-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230103002726/https://museumoffloridahistory.com/explore/exhibits/previous-exhibits/seminole-people-of-florida/seminole-history/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Beginning in the 1730s, Spain established a policy of providing refuge to [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|runaway slaves]] in an attempt to weaken the [[British America|British]] [[Southern Colonies]]. 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.<ref>Mahon p. 19</ref> Their numbers increased during and after the [[American War of Independence]], and it became common to find settlements of [[Black Seminole]]s either near Seminole towns or living independently, such as at [[Negro Fort]] on the [[Apalachicola River]].<ref>Mahon p. 19, 20</ref> The presence of a nearby refuge for free Africans was considered a threat to the institution of [[chattel slavery]] in the southern United States, and settlers in the border states of [[Mississippi]] and [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] in particular accused the Seminoles of inciting slaves to escape and then stealing their human property.<ref name="Mahon p. 20">Mahon p. 20</ref> In retaliation, plantation owners organized repeated raids into Spanish Florida in which they captured Africans they accused of being escaped slaves and harassed the Seminole villages near the border, resulting in bands of Seminoles crossing into U.S. territory to stage reprisal attacks.<ref>Mahon p.20</ref>

===First Seminole War (overview)===
The increasing border tensions came to a head on 26 December 1817, as the U.S. War Department wrote an order directing General [[Andrew Jackson]] to take command in person and bring the Seminoles under control, precipitating the First Seminole War.<ref>Mahon p. 25</ref>  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 [[Battle of Fowltown|Fowltown]] pursuing them and Black Seminoles and allied Maroons across northern Florida in 1818. Jackson's expedition culminated in April 1818 with the [[Arbuthnot and Ambrister incident]].  The Spanish government expressed outrage over Jackson's "punitive expeditions"<ref name="Mahon p. 24">Mahon p. 24</ref> into their territory and his brief occupation of Pensacola the capital of their colony of West Florida. But as was made clear by several local uprisings and other forms of "border anarchy",<ref name="Mahon p. 24"/> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Landers |first1=Jane |title=Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions |date=2010 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=London |page=193 }}</ref> According to the terms of the [[Treaty of Moultrie Creek]] (1823) between the United States and Seminole Nation, the Seminoles were removed from Northern Florida to a [[Indian reservation|reservation]] in the center of the Florida peninsula, and the United States constructed a series of forts and trading posts along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts to enforce the treaty.<ref name="FLMEM"/>

===Second Seminole War (overview)===
{{Main|Second Seminole War#Background}}

The [[Second Seminole War]] (1835–1842) began as a result of the United States unilaterally [[Void (law)|voiding]] the Treaty of Moultrie Creek and demanding that all Seminoles relocate to [[Indian Territory]] in present-day [[Oklahoma]] under the [[Indian Removal Act]] (1830). After several ultimatums and the departure of a few Seminole clans per the [[Treaty of Payne's Landing]] (1832), hostilities commenced in December 1835 with the [[Dade battle]] and continued for the next several years with a series of engagements throughout the peninsula and extending to the [[Florida Keys]]. Though the Seminole fighters were at a tactical and numerical disadvantage, Seminole military leaders effectively used [[guerrilla warfare]] to frustrate United States military forces, which eventually numbered over 30,000 regulars, militiamen and volunteers.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Seminole-Wars |title=Seminole Wars {{!}} United States history |work=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=3 August 2017 |language=en |archive-date=11 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190411164903/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Seminole-Wars |url-status=live }}</ref> General [[Thomas Sidney Jesup]] was sent to Florida to take command of the campaign in 1836. Instead of futilely pursuing parties of Seminole fighters through the territory as previous commanders had done, Jesup changed tactics and engaged in finding, capturing or destroying Seminole homes, livestock, farms, and related supplies, thus starving them out; a strategy which would be duplicated by [[General]] [[W. T. Sherman]] in his [[Sherman's March to the Sea|march to the sea]] during the [[American Civil War]]. Jesup also authorized the controversial abduction of Seminole leaders [[Osceola]] and [[Micanopy]] by luring them under a false flag of truce.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Osceola and the Great Seminole War |last=Hatch |first=Thom |publisher=St. Martin's Press |year=2012 |location=New York |pages=219 }}</ref> 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 ''[[wiktionary:treachery|treachery]].''"<ref>Mahon p. 217</ref> By the early 1840s, many Seminoles had been killed, and many more were forced by impending starvation to surrender and be removed to Indian Territory. Though there was no official peace treaty, several hundred Seminoles remained in central and southern Florida after active conflict wound down.<ref name="FLMEM"/>

===Third Seminole War (overview)===
The Third Seminole War (1855–1858) was precipitated as an increasing number of settlers in central and southern Florida led to increasing tension with Seminoles and Miccosukees living in the area. In December 1855, U.S. Army personnel located and destroyed a large Seminole plantation west of the [[Everglades]], perhaps to deliberately provoke a violent response that would result in the removal of the remaining Seminole citizens from the region. [[Billy Bowlegs|Holata Micco]], a Seminole leader known as Billy Bowlegs by whites, responded with a raid near [[Fort Myers]], leading to a series of retaliatory raids and small skirmishes with no large battles fought. Once again, the United States military strategy was to target Seminole civilians by destroying their food supply. By 1858, most of the remaining Seminoles, war weary and facing starvation, acquiesced to being removed to the Indian Territory in exchange for promises of safe passage and cash payments. 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.<ref name="FLMEM"/>