Second Seminole War

Another cause for poor relations between Native Americans and European Settlers was the constant push for acquiring new land by the Colonists. The Native Americans did not just want to give up their land and this resulted in war between the Indians and the Colonists. During this time Native Americans were sold into slavery belittled and removed from their land, due to the fact that the Colonists had more advanced technology and weapons. One of the major wars was the French and Indian War which resulted in the removal of Native Americans from their land and many casualties on both sides. Over time many battles were fought over land, even after America was an established country with presidents, laws, and court systems. Native Americans were continually pushed out of their land for hundreds of years while they were forced to move west. The constant push of Native Americans out of their land would cause an event known as the Trail of Tears where thousands of Indians were removed from their land by the Indian Removal Act. “In 1830 the Congress of the United States passed the "Indian Removal Act." Although many Americans were against the act, most notably Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett, it passed anyway. President Jackson quickly signed the bill into law. The Cherokees attempted to fight removal legally by challenging the removal laws in the Supreme Court and by establishing an

In 1832 gold was found on the land of Native American tribes. The government wanted to get the gold for themselves, so that pains many Native Americans for their land. One group of Native Americans, the Cherokees, refused to give up their land. There was a court ruling in the case Worcester vs. Georgia which officially made it unconstitutional to remove the Cherokees from their land. After the ruling Jackson was quoted in saying "John Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it." Jackson then brought military forces into the Native Americans land and force them to walk to reservations. The trail that they walked to get to their reservations is now called the trail of tears because an estimated 7,000 to 13,000 Cherokees died along the path.

In order to understand the significance of the events preceding the Second Seminole War, one must first examine the First Seminole War. Frustrated with Seminole protection of runaway slaves, Andrew Jackson and more than three thousand men entered northern Florida in 1816 and began to decimate Seminole populations. Despite most of these campaigns being unsanctioned by the United States government and protested by the British and the Spanish, Jackson was received as a war hero throughout the nation and protected from punitive measures. The refusal of the government to punish Jackson for the injustices led to foreign hostilities with both Britain and Spain. The Adam-Onis Treaty of 1819

Before the Eastern World knew that the America’s were there, natives to the American lands were already here and thriving. As the land was discovered, more and more people from the European side of the Hemisphere traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to stake a claim for land in this newfound world. Throughout these Europeans settling in, and making new homes and lives for themselves these natives stayed to their own ways, and were slowly pushed westward. The problems between the Indians and now Americans were brought to the forefront as the population of the states grew, and there was a need for expansion. When the Louisiana Purchase was struck between the United States and France, the land previously inhabited by the natives were now under the control of the United States government. As the population continued to climb in numbers, individuals along with the United States government decided to take actions for the removal of these natives. Throughout the book, The Long, Bitter Trail, Andrew Jackson and the Indians by: Anthony F.C. Wallace, the events leading up to, during, and the effects of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Individuals such as Andrew Jackson along with the government used different methods to remove these Indians from the southeastern lands of the United States. Starting in the beginning of the 1800’s,

Once the white men decided that they wanted lands belonging to the Native Americans (Indians), the United States Government did everything in its power to help the white men acquire Indian land. The US Government did everything from turning a blind eye to passing legislature requiring the Indians to give up their land (see Indian Removal Bill of 1828). Aided by his bias against the Indians, General Jackson set the Indian removal into effect in the war of 1812 when he battled the great Tecumseh and conquered him.

With the discovery of the New World came a whole lot of new problems. Native American Indians lived in peace and harmony until European explorers interrupted that bliss with the quest for money and power. The European explorers brought with them more people. These people and their descendants starting pushing the natives out of their homes, out of their land, far before the 1800s. However, in the 1800s, the driving force behind the removal of the natives intensified. Thousands of indians during this time were moved along the trail known as Nunna dual Tsung, meaning “The Trail Where They Cried” (“Cherokee Trail of Tears”). The Trail of Tears was not only unjust and unconstitutional, but it also left many indians sick, heartbroken, and dead.

In order to understand the significance of the Second Seminole War, one must first examine the First Seminole War. Frustrated with Seminole protection of runaway slaves, Andrew Jackson and more than three thousand men entered northern Florida in 1816 and began to decimate Seminole populations. Despite most of these campaigns being unsanctioned by the United States government and protested by the British and the Spanish, Jackson was received as a war hero throughout the nation. The Adam-Onis Treaty of 1819 officially transfesrred ownership of Florida from Spain to the United States (a major political victory for the United States at the time), and the deportation of the Seminoles out of the newly acquired land became of the utmost importance in 1821.

The First Seminole War was the first of three conflicts in the early 19th century that involved the United States Army and the Seminole population in Florida. At the time, Florida was still under the control of Spain. Most of its population consisted of the Seminole Native Americans and African Americans. The dates of the First Seminole War are debated but most believe that it occurred between 1816 and 1818. This war took place after the War of 1812 and tensions were still high between the United States, Spain, and Great Britain. Spain still had control of Florida, but they didn’t do a good job of enforcing the borders (Mahon, 1998). In 1812, a fort was built near the Apalachicola River in Florida. This was used as a strategic point during the conflict and tried to recruit Seminoles into the American army.

The Market Revolution adversely affected the liberty of Native Americans residing within the United States because they were seen as an obstacle to the country’s economic progress. As the Market Revolution ideas of commerce and expansion took hold in the minds of the people, these white citizens shared the view that Native Americans were hindering the goal of expansion. It was the United State’s God-ordained right to occupy and settle the land westward (Manifest Destiny), and the Native Americans were in the way. The conflicts with Native Americans has existed in America since the first settlers, but with the increased emphasis on commerce and development brought by the Market Revolution, the relations worsened. In 1823, during the case of Johnson v M’Intosh, the Supreme Court claimed that Native Americans only had the “right of occupancy” on their land, and that they did not own it. In 1830, under Jackson’s administration, the Indian Removal Act was created which tried to move the 5 Civilized Tribes out of their lands. Finally, in the Trail of Tears during 1838-1839, 18,000 Cherokee men, women, and children were forcibly removed from their lands and relocated to Oklahoma by federal soldiers. Soon

When Andrew Jackson was in presidency, he attempted to take action against the native Indian tribes that inhabited the land that he wanted for his own settlers to claim. For settlers on the land, who were mostly Christian, brought up the concept of Manifest Destiny, in which they believed that it was God’s will to inhabit all of america in westward expansion, and to kill if they needed to in order to get their land. With that started, Jackson created the Indian Removal Act, in which allowed Jackson to offer the native Indian tribes land west of the Mississippi River, which wasn't good land, in return for their own land. Most tribes refused this offer. However, after a while, they were forced out of their homes violently with no time to pack their things by the army, who even they thought it was too violent of a thing to do.

The Second Seminole War followed the refusal of most Seminoles to abandon the reservation that had been established for them north of Lake Okeechobee and to relocate west of the Mississippi. The Seminoles were forced off their traditional lands in Florida and into the Indian Territory (near present day Oklahoma). The Treaty of Payne's Landing stated that the Seminoles had 3 years to relocate to Mississippi. In the Second Seminole war the Seminole leader died in prison because he was captured.

The Second Seminole War ended in 1842. Shortly thereafter, Fitzpatrick’s nephew, William English, acquired the former’s Miami River possessions and reconstituted the slave plantation, adding new buildings to the complex. A man of large ambitions and vision, English platted the “Village of Miami” on the south bank of the river. He sold several lots in that development before leaving the area, at the beginning of the 1850s, for California and the gold rush.

There are several historical events and issues that have impacted the contemporary political development among American history. In the history of America one of these groups are the Native Americans. The white man throughout the South called for a removal of the Indian peoples. They wanted the Native Indians to be resettled to the west because their presence created a problem for the white man who needed additional land for settlement. “The status of Native American peoples posed an equally complex political problem” (Henretta, Edwards, Self 2012, 302). Therefore, Andrew Jackson posed the Indian Removal

They could not understand how such people could live so harmoniously with the land. Their only goal was to exploit these lands of their riches by farming, ranching, and mining. The whites were extremely selfish as they dismissed the needs of the Native Americans and put their own as a priority. They acquired new lands at the expense of the Native Americans. These Americans did not care about the damage they were causing and sought no remorse in openly-stealing the Native American’s title to their lands. As the US Congress took up the confrontation over Indian Removal, the contentions of those favoring proceeded with US extension concentrated on issues of the rights and needs of states such as Georgia and the need and advantages of Removal to the US rather than the perils of existing conditions. The advocates contended that it was essential to bolster the privileges of the subjects and conditions of the US ought to overrule the rights held by Indian groups; that 51 US states' rights and pilgrim exceptionally invalidated contracted commitments and vows to Indian countries. Further they contended that Removal would advantage the US, and too, the Indians, while its thrashing would be tragic to

Because of the immense need to expand cotton production, the US turned to the appropriation of Indian lands to satisfy their needs. In the process of acquiring these lands, Indians were forcibly removed and pushed towards unwanted territory westward. Those Indians who resisted were savagely annihilated by the colonists. The frontrunner of this movement was Andrew Jackson. To the public, Jackson would claim that the Indian removal was “advancing civilization and progress” (Takaki, 81); he made this unwarranted expulsion seem like a benevolent cause, when in reality the removal was depriving Indians of their liberty and happiness. Jackson didn’t view the Indians as equals, instead he depicted them as an inferior kind of humans, a group of “savages”, he did not believe that these men, Indians, were created equal to white men. Jackson would proceed to modify laws in order to make the Indian removal simpler, and would turn a blind eye to those laws, such as the 1802 Indian Tribe and Intercourse Act, which would stall the process. U.S. society became convinced that