Patriot War (Seminole Wars)

Seminole Wars
Part of American Indian Wars
A U.S. Marine boat expedition searching the Everglades during the Second Seminole War
Date 1816–1858 Location Pensacola, Spanish Florida, Florida Result Military stalemate ca. 1816: 1st Seminole War begins; United States attacks Seminole forts and settlements in northern Spanish Florida. 1819: Spain agrees to cede Florida to the U.S.; transfer occurs in 1821. 1823: Seminoles moved to central Florida per Treaty of Moultrie Creek. 1835: 2nd Seminole War begins; Seminoles forcibly resist removal to Indian Territory. Raids and skirmishes take place throughout Florida. 1842: Fighting ends; most Seminoles leave or are killed; some remain in southwest Florida. 1855: 3rd Seminole War begins; consists mainly of small raids in southwest Florida. 1858: By late 1850s, most Seminoles forced to leave; a few hundred remain deep in the Everglades on land unwanted by white settlers
Belligerents
United States	Seminole Choctaw Freedmen  Spain (1816–1819) United Kingdom (1816–1819)
Commanders and leaders
Andrew Jackson (1816-19, 1835-37) Martin Van Buren (1837-41) William Henry Harrison (1841) John Tyler (1841-42) Duncan Lamont Clinch Edmund P. Gaines, Winfield Scott (1836) Thomas Jesup (1836-38), Richard Gentry  † (1837) David Moniac  † (1836), Francis Langhorne Dade  † (1835), Zachary Taylor (1838-40), Walker Keith Armistead (1840-41) William J. Worth (1841-42) Franklin Pierce (1856-57) James Buchanan (1857–1858) William S. Harney	Alexander Arbuthnot  † Robert Ambrister  † Josiah Francis  † Homathlemico  † Osceola John Horse Billy Bowlegs
Strength
Peak: 40,000 Expeditionary: 8,000	1,500
Casualties and losses
1,500-2,000	heavy

Military stalemate

The Seminole Wars, also known as the Florida Wars, were three conflicts in Florida between the Seminole, a Native American tribe that formed in Florida in the early 18th century, and the United States Army. Taken together, the Seminole Wars were the longest and most expensive (both in human and monetary terms) of the Indian Wars in United States history.

The original indigenous peoples of Florida declined significantly in number after the arrival of European explorers in the early 1500s, mainly because the Native Americans had little resistance to diseases newly introduced from Europe. Spanish suppression of native revolts further reduced the population in northern Florida until the early 1600s, at which time the establishment of a series of Spanish missions improved relations and stabilized the population.

Raids from the newly- established English Province of Carolina beginning in the mid-1600s began another steep decline in the indigenous population. By 1707, English soldiers and their Yamasee Indian allies had killed, carried off, or driven away most of the remaining native inhabitants during a series of raids across the Florida panhandle and down the full length of the peninsula. In the first decade of the 18th century. 10,000 – 12,000 Indians were taken as slaves according to the governor of La Florida and by 1710, observers noted that north Florida was virtually depopulated. The Spanish missions all closed, as without natives, there was nothing for them to do. The few remaining natives fled west to Pensacola and beyond or east to the vicinity of St. Augustine. When Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the majority of surviving Florida Indians took passage with the Spanish to Cuba or New Spain.

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Wikipedia