Sunday Favorites: The Seminole Wars, Part 1

MILL CREEK – They say the last American Indian killed in this area died at Pope Gully on a sandy embankment. He was camouflaged, hiding in an oak tree. The oak tree was left there as a kind of corner stone – wherever the war was being fought, that oak marked the end of an era of trepidation that had lasted over forty years. The old oak rotted down then sprouted up again, where it stayed and stayed.

But before I describe the end of the wars in Manatee County, I have to start from the beginning. When the Seminole Wars began, Florida was not yet part of the United States. Manatee County was not formed until 1856, and while theoretically the only Seminole War that could have been fought within its geographical boundary was the Third Seminole War (1855-1858), the land of Manatee is rich in the association of accounts preceding that native conflict. Much earlier, the area was briefly shaken in a struggle of blood, tears and toil.

The Seminole Nation -- the collective name given to the combination of various groups of native Americans and Black people who settled in Florida in the early 18th century – was first associated with Alachua County (of which Manatee County was part of). A colony became the first cow hunters, domesticating herds of cattle and riding Spanish ponies. But when the first Seminole Wars started in 1817, the tribe was pushed farther south and the area that would one day become Manatee County befell a temporary sanctuary for Seminoles and runaway slaves.

A group of Seminole natives. Photo: Manatee County Historical Society

From the late 17th century, the Spanish crown had welcomed fugitive slaves to Florida, but with a catch – they must fight against the U.S. to obtain freedom. During a brief period of British rule from 1763-1783, Seminole and Creek natives, as well as free blacks and escaped slaves, received British support to construct a fort on the Apalachicola River. Whites called it Negro Fort, and the U.S. considered it a threat. In July of 1816, American naval forces, led by Andrew Jackson, destroyed it -- killing all but a few of its inhabitants. 

From the ordeal, the remaining Seminoles and blacks formed a union and integrated. A group of Black Seminoles eventually took refuge along the Manatee River, calling their village Angola. Others fled elsewhere and found sanctuary along the Florida coastline.

Jackson eventually drove British Forces out of Florida. Early white families from northern territories, one being the Richards family, began to settle in pre-territorial Florida, which was still owned by Spain. They too homesteaded on the Apalachicola River at a landing called Ochesse. They built chinked log houses and cultivated the land. They were known as ”squatters.“ At that time, their relationship with the natives was friendly. But in 1819 the U.S. signed a treaty taking possession of the land. The white ”squatters“ were permitted to file land claims – but the American Indians were not. Tensions began to brew.

Near the close of the First Seminole War in 1818, Jackson, who would become the first Military Governor of Florida, and later President of the U.S., recommended a fort be built on Tampa Bay. His vision would become a reality in 1824 with the establishment of Fort Brook at what is now Tampa.

For years, Seminoles were living peacefully on the Manatee River without much threat or distress. The village of Angola integrated with a fishing ranchero and became a village of Spanish speaking half-breeds living an aquatic lifestyle and selling their seasonal catches in the Havana market.  In 1834 a Baltimore-born captain named William Bunce became one of the first white settlers to enter the fishing trade on the Gulf Coast.  Bunce was a U.S. Customs inspector prior to his migration to the Manatee River. When he came to the area, he acquired the fishing ranchero at Shaw’s Point.

A fishing ranchero. Photo: State Archives of Florida

Bunce employed the Spanish-speaking natives that first inhabited the fish camp. Many of them had spent their entire lives at the camp. Bunce became acquainted with the native lifestyle and embraced it, but that peaceful existence was interrupted shortly after.

Two events far away from the fish camp ignited the longest and most costly of any Native American war in history. The U.S. made a decision to enforce the Treaty of Payne’s landing. Certain chiefdoms had agreed to move west to Arkansas territory and join the Creek Indians in exile, but the greater majority violently opposed this migration. Then, a small group of natives were surprised in the midst of dressing a beef hide. They were seized, whipped and one man was killed in the skirmish. The Seminole Nation was outraged. Thus was the start of the Second Seminole War, or the Seven Year War, which lasted from 1835-1842.

Soon an outcry arose against the Spanish fisherman. Their colonies were the home of part-Indians and they were believed to be aiding the Seminoles. The government pressured Bunce to deport his employees with the rest of the Seminoles, but Bunce resisted. He was torn. As a former customs agent, he felt obliged to serve his country. But his bonds with the fisherman people ran deep. He pleaded General Wiley Thompson, the Indian agent for Florida, to spare his people from deportation. He wrote:

"At my ranchero, our fishing place, I have about 10 Spaniards and 20 Spanish Indians. Most of the latter have been born and bred at one of the many rancheros along the coast. My white Spaniards have Indian families, some with children and grandchildren, others with wives from the Nation."

To learn what became of the Spanish Indians and the Seminole Nation, tune in next Sunday.

Sources:

1. Millitary Forts from Spanish to Civil War by David Paterno, address given to the Manatee Historical Society Jan. 21, 2004
2. The Seminole Wars in Manatee County by Theodore Lesley, address given to the Manatee County Historical Society March 23, 1967
3. Interview with Lardner C. Pope by Joe and Libby Warner Jan. 13, 1983
4. The Singing River by Joe and Libby Warner, Copyright 1986
5. The Lures of Manatee by Lillie McDuffee, Copyright 1961