The Seminole Wars
The history of the indigenous peoples of Florida is a profound narrative of resilience and resistance, marked by the tumultuous encounters with European colonizers. This episode elucidates the initial contact between indigenous tribes and European explorers, detailing how the arrival of these outsiders catalyzed a series of violent conflicts, notably the Creek Wars and the subsequent Seminole Wars. The Seminole tribe, emerging as a formidable force, not only resisted colonization but also provided refuge to enslaved Africans, thus complicating the socio-political landscape of the region. Through an examination of the three Seminole Wars, we will explore the tenacity of the Seminole people in maintaining their autonomy against overwhelming odds. Ultimately, their legacy as the "Unconquered People" underscores a poignant chapter in the broader narrative of native resistance within the annals of American history.
https://linktr.ee/remedialscholar
Remember to Follow, Rate and Share everywhere possible!!
Visit our:
Website: https://the-remedial-scholar.captivate.fm/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/RemedialScholar
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theremedialscholarpodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/remedial_scholar/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/remedialscholar
Merch Store: https://www.remedialmerch.art/
Support our friends:
West of Knowhere: https://open.spotify.com/show/1p7Lc7kOaFyXeCfeGVnFPK?si=19c44b96e5694025
Macabre Emporium: https://open.spotify.com/show/6jb0W9zgb23V0RKjvU5UOx?si=5991c6e0c7804fde
A Real Creature Feature: https://open.spotify.com/show/3rEwRTfTNIdBxJ3ZAqbQ4F?si=932aec3893784eaa
Dark Windows Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4AhkiNYlhjSJlOlNjIfN2N?si=5cac1cdf276f49a0
Transcript
We are all aware of the outcome of European colonization of the United States.
Speaker A:We know that over time, disease, expansionism and full on treachery led to the forced relocation of indigenous people who called this land now known as the United States.
Speaker A:Hundreds of different tribes, maybe even thousands, populated the United States.
Speaker A:And most of them found themselves at odds with an enemy who had superior weapons, funding and a natural immunity to diseases that they carried with them.
Speaker A:This ultimately put the native people in a tough spot where they either felt forced to sign treaties that gave the land they and their ancestors had hunted and survived on for thousands of years, or they felt that they should fight to the end.
Speaker A:Today we will be looking into a glimpse of this fight at the people who to this day still claim to be the unconquered tribe whose actions in giving runaway slaves a new home may have caused the actions against them to be even more drastic than they already were going to be.
Speaker A:The Seminole People of Florida and a brief history of Florida as well.
Speaker A:All that and a little extra on another episode of the Remedial Scholar.
Speaker A:Holy smokes.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Remedial Scholar.
Speaker A:I am your host, Levi and I've missed you.
Speaker A:I know I made this big declaration of things are going to be different.
Speaker A:I'm going to stay on top of this.
Speaker A:And then I went and got a job where I have to be up at 4am so my schedule has been walked and it has prevented me from finishing this episode specifically in a timely manner.
Speaker A:But you know, excuses, excuses.
Speaker A:I'm just, I'm trying to get better.
Speaker A:That's all I'm trying to do.
Speaker A:But you know, I'm ready to get going.
Speaker A:Once again.
Speaker A:I hope you have been having a good year so far and if you are new here, welcome a little reintroduction because my multi hiatus nature makes me feel like I need to explain the show and mission before we get too far ahead.
Speaker A:I have an obsession for all things history.
Speaker A:Always have, always will.
Speaker A:This show allows me to look into some of the lesser known topics, but sometimes more known topics in history.
Speaker A:But I do try to find connections and details that are unique.
Speaker A:Do I always succeed?
Speaker A:Per chance, you be the judge.
Speaker A:But if you like history of any kind, then you're probably going to like this show.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:So with that out of the way, this is a topic that was not a direct request.
Speaker A:But you know, I have been asked previously to cover more indigenous topics, which can be hard considering many of the tribes in the United States relied on oral traditions of, excuse me, of storytelling.
Speaker A:So there's a Lot of detail that has been lost.
Speaker A:But luckily for us, we're in the 21st century and there is a resurgence in documenting about as much of these things as we possibly can, along with other things.
Speaker A:So I like this topic because it covers a wide range of things and all of them are important.
Speaker A:Stories like this are, I feel, seldom discussed, as evident by the fact that it was so hard for me to find any up to date videos or anything.
Speaker A:This topic also follows along a few key components of the United States history and showcases why this country is so intriguing and rich.
Speaker A:With diverse stories across the board, we have an umbrella of this topic, a tale of resilience, cultural fusion and freedom, minus the Mel Gibson.
Speaker A:It also spans across European history, briefly, kind of specifically the Spanish and Brit British colonies in North America, the indigenous cultures.
Speaker A:But we are going to focus mostly on the Florida ones and also the history and subjugation of Africans into slavery and their resistance to that plight.
Speaker A:This, I believe, is a very important topic to share.
Speaker A:Stories such as these, I believe, are, you know, only going to be more and more important as time goes on.
Speaker A:So this episode has a few pieces, so I want to share with you the direction we're going to be going.
Speaker A:Firstly, a little refresher on indigenous people in North America.
Speaker A:Then we're going to discuss the first encounters with Europeans, how that changed life for the indigenous people, and then eventually get to the birth of the Seminole tribe.
Speaker A:So to give a little historical preamble for this episode, we are once again going to travel back to early nomadic people.
Speaker A: he bearing land Bridge around: Speaker A:So this is kind of a refresher.
Speaker A:We talked a little bit about this in the the Maya episode, but there's, you know, blood typing and DNA evidence that links the two separate migrations of indigenous people in North America to those of Eastern Siberia, heck, even, maybe even link some of them with the Manzi people.
Speaker A:The Dyatlov Pass episode as the last ice Age waned and the tribes that migrated changed their patterns of habitation more and more becoming sedentary, semi nomadic.
Speaker A:Not the case across the board.
Speaker A:Obviously those in like the Great Plains region still relied heavily on following hunting herds, right?
Speaker A:Various game, like the bison, a big chunk, especially on the coasts, started to make farming a habit.
Speaker A:By the 5th century BCE still there was a lot of, a lot of hunting going on even in modern day Florida.
Speaker A:With some.
Speaker A:Like in what would be modern day Florida.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:With some mammoth bones and carvings depicting hunting from around 12,000 BCE found in Florida.
Speaker A:Florida back then, very different from today.
Speaker A:Almost zero people eating each other's faces or throwing a live alligator through a drive through window.
Speaker A:Florida man trademarking jokes aside, Florida mantm, the climate at the time was very different.
Speaker A:Different enough to enable the survival of a relative of the mammoths we discussed recently, the mastodon.
Speaker A:Other fun creatures and critters involved in the food chain of these early Florida residents were things like the giant armadillos, which sounds pretty awesome.
Speaker A:It turns out that they are currently around though.
Speaker A:But I imagine just huge armadillos.
Speaker A:Just, you know, they could have used the shells as roofs for their houses or something as.
Speaker A:Because my brain's dumb.
Speaker A:They also had camels.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker A:And horses, which is a surprise because, you know, since the stories always told that the Spanish brought horses and the natives love them.
Speaker A:Turns out horses actually evolved in North America millions of years ago and migrated to Eurasia from the Bering Land bridge.
Speaker A:They did a little reverse of what the indigenous people did.
Speaker A:Horses did eventually die out in the changing landscape in North America and also were hunted.
Speaker A:Like the people living there did eat them.
Speaker A:Which is why, you know, maybe that's why they were such a big hit to indigenous people when they came back.
Speaker A:You know, they, we, we, we recognize these things through some sort of like DNA or something.
Speaker A:But anyway, super interesting, but we have humans entering the Americas from anywhere 12 to 20,000 years ago.
Speaker A:And then we have horses having been introduced into Asia and Europe beginning around 8,000 to a million years ago.
Speaker A:Around 8,000 BCE or roughly 10,000 years ago, they die out.
Speaker A:But you know, they would have been around for pretty much the entire time native people were in North America to that point.
Speaker A:So maybe they did recognize them.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Aside from the interesting animals across the land, the shape of Florida was actually quite different back then.
Speaker A:Instead of the iconic yet phallic peninsula currently in observance, the shape of the Sunshine State was more of a thimble.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:The climate's also very different, as I discussed, with the wider land being much colder.
Speaker A:And the biggest difference to me, much more dry, which is surprising.
Speaker A:Aside from the ocean water surrounding it, the only water sources stemmed from sinkholes deep inland, which native people began to settle around around 8,000 BCE.
Speaker A:The same time horses left America, the glaciers began to melt.
Speaker A:This caused a few things One, rising sea levels, and two, the land became wet, real wet.
Speaker A:I don't know if I needed to emphasize it like that, but I did.
Speaker A:So anyway, here we are.
Speaker A:Many of these prehistoric locations of indigenous people, you know, they could have been lost to the sea, like their habitats and things, but still some are found, which helps understand this period a little bit.
Speaker A:People back then also lived inland near freshwater sources like the sinkhole water pits that I talked about.
Speaker A:Around 600 years after the great pyramids were finished, fired pottery was beginning to become a thing for the indigenous people.
Speaker A:This is a little after the first settlements began to pop up around the coast and water filled sinkholes.
Speaker A:But as mentioned a moment ago, the settlements on the coast are now submerged.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:As these early Floridians near settled near reliable water sources, their way of life began to shift from just purely hunting and gathering to something somewhat more stable.
Speaker A:By around 500 CE, communities began to form in ways that suggest sense of permanence and organization.
Speaker A:People were still hunting and fishing, of course.
Speaker A:Florida's waters were rich with fish, you know, shellfish, manatees, stupid, sexy manatees and, and even alligators, which they would ride, of course.
Speaker A:No, but farming was beginning to take hold.
Speaker A:Land, especially in northern and central parts of the region, was well suited for crops like corn, obviously beans and squash, often referred to as the three sisters because they were grown together in a symbiotic way that benefited all three plants.
Speaker A:Farther south you went, the harder it was to sustain large scale agriculture due to the marshy, sandy terrain, subtropical climate.
Speaker A:This is why the groups in the southern tip of Florida remain mostly semi nomadic, relying more on fishing and forging and seasonal migration rather than farming.
Speaker A:During this time, we see complex societies become more, more and more complex.
Speaker A:You know, they weren't just scattered families eking out a living in the wilderness.
Speaker A:Instead, they were organized communities with clear leadership structures, trade networks, large scale construction projects.
Speaker A:Some groups, like the Calusa on the Gulf coast built entire villages on massive shell mounds, essentially creating their own high ground in a state that never had much of it.
Speaker A:These mounds, called middens, were constructed using discarded oyster and clam shells, or the shell of the giant armadillo, which they formed raised platforms that protected them from flooding and provided vantage points for defense.
Speaker A:The Calusa were unique in that they thrived without relying on farming, instead mastering fishing and waterway control, using dugout canoes to navigate the intricate maze of Florida's rivers and coastline.
Speaker A:For the north, the Appalachian and the Panhandle developed the sophisticated agricultural systems and built ceremonial centers that resembled temple mounds of the Mississippian cultures.
Speaker A:Further inland, the Apalachee, known for their warrior society and organized governance, cultivated vast corn fields and engaged in ritual ball games that were important both socially and religiously.
Speaker A:They lived in large circular houses with central council houses that could hold hundreds of people and reinforcing.
Speaker A:They had this structured society over in the Tampa Bay area.
Speaker A:The Tokabanga.
Speaker A:Tokabaga.
Speaker A:I don't know why I threw an end in there.
Speaker A:Tocobaga built their own distinct villages, often centered around a main plaza and large temple mounds where their leaders lived.
Speaker A:The Tokabaga were known for their use of wooden bows and powerful long way long range arrows, making them formidable opponents in battle.
Speaker A:They also harvested coontine plants which which was processed into a starchy flower, providing them with an important food source.
Speaker A:Beyond hunting and fishing, trade between these groups was extensive, Moving through Florida's rivers, coasts, and even overland routes.
Speaker A:Shells, pottery and other goods made their way far beyond Florida's borders, With evidence suggesting that trade networks stretch as far as the Great Lakes in the Mississippi River Valley.
Speaker A:Pretty impressive.
Speaker A:This means that Florida's native people were far from isolated.
Speaker A:They were part of a vast web of exchange that linked them to distant cultures across North America.
Speaker A:Goods such as copper from the Midwest, mica from the Appalachian.
Speaker A:Appalachian.
Speaker A:I tried to combine both pronunciations and once.
Speaker A:The Appalachian mountains and exotic stones from as far as the Southwest have all been found in Florida archaeological sites showing just how interconnected these societies truly were.
Speaker A:And while they may not have built pyramids like the Egyptians, they engineered impressive complexes.
Speaker A:They had intricate canal systems, crafted sophisticated tools, pottery, ceremony objects that still give us a glimpse into their world.
Speaker A:You know, they weren't just surviving, they were thriving.
Speaker A:And I think it is important to note because, you know, media portrayal doesn't always like to showcase this.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:All right, loose summary of native Floridians up to just before the Spanish landing on the shores to give another brief summary of the expedition that led to that.
Speaker A:The Columbus expedition, which then led to the Ponce de Leon who went to Florida.
Speaker A:And this was before Jack Sparrow was in search of his treasure and the Fountain of youth, which is.
Speaker A:I could.
Speaker A:It's weird because a lot of sources describe this as a rumor and a myth attributed to him.
Speaker A:But then a few sources just be like, yeah, no Ponce de Leon.
Speaker A:He really was into that.
Speaker A:So I don't really know.
Speaker A:The jury's out anyway.
Speaker A:Columbus, Christopher J.
Speaker A: across the Atlantic Ocean in: Speaker A:But those of you who are new, this is important information in my opinion.
Speaker A:Anyway, at the time, the oceans of the world, known world, had been split up between dominant powers in Europe.
Speaker A: imed a route around Africa in: Speaker A:Only way by ship to get to Asia via chartered waters.
Speaker A:All right, this is important to note because there's this myth, and I talked about it in the pirate episode for so long that Columbus was sailing west to prove that the earth was round, that nobody went west because it was surmised that there was a cliff that they were going to fly off of.
Speaker A:And this is nonsense.
Speaker A:They knew there was something over there, they just didn't know what.
Speaker A:And nobody had charted it at this point.
Speaker A:So Spain and Portugal were the two dominant naval powers at the time, and Portugal beat Spain and claiming a route to Asia around Africa.
Speaker A:So then Spain decided, decided to hire some explorers to be the first to go and figure out find a way to Asia that didn't encroach on Portugal's route.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:The seafaring route was the most logical as the Ottoman Empire presented a difficult roadblock in any attempts to reach Asia by land.
Speaker A:So either had to buy things marked up crazy high by the middlemen who could actually travel that way, or.
Speaker A:Well, actually, that was kind of it.
Speaker A:So they did.
Speaker A:Columbus had advocated for a westward route to Asia and told the Spanish ground that he could do it.
Speaker A:So they let him.
Speaker A:He actually did pitch this idea to the Portuguese, but they told him that his estimated travel mileage was super duper low and that his voyage would be four times the length of his proposal.
Speaker A:Which is true.
Speaker A:They were right.
Speaker A:His queen.
Speaker A:He asked Queen Isabella and her advisors and they came to the same conclusion, but she paid him a year's salary not to tell anyone, which is kind of weird.
Speaker A:Like, all right, anyway, eventually they reached an agreement and away he went.
Speaker A:First voyage, he traveled reached the Bahamas, then Cuba, then Hispaniola.
Speaker A: Second voyage from: Speaker A:He got to the other side of Cuba, but then looped back around to Hispaniola again, bouncing around various islands in the Caribbean.
Speaker A: Voyage number three in: Speaker A:He actually made landfall in South America first, which is exciting.
Speaker A:Finally got to a continent.
Speaker A: ain and then back to Spain in: Speaker A: His westward voyage in: Speaker A:Yet somehow we're supposed to be excited about him once a year in the United States and never step foot on the future American soil Anyway, while not ever being successful in anything that he set out to do, he did lead the way for follow up expeditions.
Speaker A:A lot of copycats, if you will.
Speaker A:This is also a good spot to inform you that the etymology of the new world.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:The feminine twist on it is in reference to the land, as in Asia, Africa, Europa.
Speaker A:So, yeah, anyway, back to the explorers.
Speaker A: who traveled to the region in: Speaker A:Such as most of these explorative tales, there's strong belief that someone did beat him to the punch.
Speaker A:There's a map from Portugal that actually shows Florida and it predates his expedition by 10 years.
Speaker A:I looked at the map, who knows, it's hard to tell because it's such a vague map.
Speaker A:But the thing that is really interesting though is that Ponce de Leon recognized that when he encountered the native people, they kind of understood what he was saying.
Speaker A:So he's like, well, maybe somebody was here before.
Speaker A:Which obviously somebody had to have been there before if they, if some of them knew roughly what he was saying.
Speaker A:Anyway, regardless, Ponce de Leon is one of the most notable explorers of the time, largely credited with being the first European to explore Florida.
Speaker A:He was the one who named it as well.
Speaker A:He arrived in the spring during Easter time and saw this island and he's like, oh, this is a lovely island and it's blooming with the flowers.
Speaker A:And this kind of tied in with Easter.
Speaker A:So he decreed the land La Pasca de la Florida, the Feast of the Flowers.
Speaker A:So, yeah, yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker A:Pretty.
Speaker A:You know this.
Speaker A:It's kind of not as exciting as I thought it was going to be.
Speaker A:If I'm being honest, I'm a little let down, but it's okay.
Speaker A:When Pasta Leone and his friends arrived, their first interactions with the indigenous people was not one that is comparable to the tales around Thanksgiving with the pilgrims.
Speaker A:Spanish were not entirely sure what was happening and were still under the impression that they were in the islands near Asia and must have been surprised when they got very hostile reactions that they did because they probably thought that these people had interacted with the Portuguese at the very least.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And this was also why the moniker Indians.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Was given by the people, by the Spanish people, to the native people in the region since, you know, they had completely screwed up their mission and refused to believe they were wrong.
Speaker A:So this also feels like a good time to let you know that the term American Indian interchangeably can be used interchangeably with Native Americans.
Speaker A:Super common American Indian.
Speaker A:Every now and then I'll be saying Indian just because that's what it said in the source, but also, by and large, it's not necessarily that abhorrent of a thing to say.
Speaker A:When appropriate, I will try to use the tribal names or just native or indigenous, whatever those.
Speaker A:These are all the things that I'm going to be saying, so don't be shocked if you hear them.
Speaker A:Anyway, another little sidetrack here, but you know the North Sentinel island, the island near India where there are this indigenous people who throw spears at anyone trying to approach and, you know, have killed various missionaries trying to send them the word of Jeebus there.
Speaker A:There aren't really any documented interactions from outside the.
Speaker A:From outside cultures to this group before the 18th century, but this is probably the, like, the best modern example I can think of that parallels what it must have been like to have the Spanish arrive in the Americas.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Anyway, back to Ponce de Leon, the father of kings of Leon.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A: Juan came back to Florida in: Speaker A:He traveled with livestock, settlers and priests, as well as.
Speaker A:As well as supplies to establish that colony should they not be able to forage what they need.
Speaker A:The group landed in what is now known as Charlotte Harbor.
Speaker A:And yeah, they pretty quickly realized this was a bad move.
Speaker A:The settlers were driven off by the Calusa people who we discussed a little bit ago.
Speaker A:And, you know, they'd been around in this area for a hot minute.
Speaker A:And the Calusa were Florida's original power players.
Speaker A:Fierce warriors, skilled engineers, masters of the sea.
Speaker A:Unlike most of the indigenous groups, they hadn't.
Speaker A:They didn't farm.
Speaker A:We talked about that.
Speaker A:You know, their entire societies around fishing and water stuff.
Speaker A:So pretty impressive, very organized.
Speaker A:They had a heretical.
Speaker A:Not a heretical hereditary chief.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's passed down through lineage.
Speaker A: en Ponce de Leon showed up in: Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's who he interacted with.
Speaker A: And then in: Speaker A:They remembered he got wounded with a poisoned arrow and then he died.
Speaker A:So, yeah, for the next two centuries they fiercely resisted Spanish rule.
Speaker A: But by the: Speaker A:But the Spanish nobden trying, right?
Speaker A:They, they, they really wanted Florida.
Speaker A:The hard headed never learn, I guess.
Speaker A: who arrived near Tampa Bay in: Speaker A:He showed up thinking military might was enough to force the native people he encountered to giving him golden food.
Speaker A:They looted villages, camps and found the Tokabaga and Apalachee tribes he met.
Speaker A:You know, they didn't appreciate this at all.
Speaker A:Soon, soon Panfilo found himself and his 300 men hungry and unable to find the support ships that were supposed to come for them.
Speaker A:The two tribes both utilize guerrilla warfare, quick hit and run attacks, ambushes and superior understanding of the territory to terrorize these guys, these attempted conquistadors.
Speaker A:The Spanish fled trying to reach me, the Arrafs, but they were all lost at Sea.
Speaker A:Only four men survived this expedition out of 300.
Speaker A:That's rough.
Speaker A:That's, that's Magellan.
Speaker A:Levels of embarrassing good news is the failed attempts continued.
Speaker A: The next main one from: Speaker A:Hernando de Soto landed near Tampa Bay as well.
Speaker A:This time the Spanish were not messing around.
Speaker A:More than 600 soldiers arrived bringing horses and artillery.
Speaker A:Big time invasion.
Speaker A:And I realize that I undermine their intensity when I say horsies, but it's funny to me, so deal with it.
Speaker A:He took his predecessor's intensity and brutality and kicked it up several notches.
Speaker A:He attacked villages, kidnapped leaders and ransom them.
Speaker A:You know, normal stuff for the Spanish.
Speaker A:He fought his way through the southeast region, but he also used some trickeration to appease native people.
Speaker A:Had did the old party trick of pretending to be a God of sorts to pacify some of the people he encountered.
Speaker A: but he did die of a fever in: Speaker A:They were in search of golden treasure and found none.
Speaker A:They also lost a good chunk of their men because they were constantly fighting local tribes everywhere they went.
Speaker A:Eventually the survivors fled down the Mississippi river and this trip did a little did little to solidify any standing Spanish foothold in the New World.
Speaker A:The next attempt was one that is now is landed in what is now known as Pensacola, former brief home of mine.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Also how horrific a hurricane must have been back then.
Speaker A:Scary enough now and we have, you know, very advanced engineering techniques and things to combat such strenuous way like this.
Speaker A:Just crazy amounts of power in this weather thing and it's somewhat unpredictable, especially back then.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, unaware or just ignorant to the failures of the Spanish, the French explorers Rene Goyan the Laudonniere nailed it.
Speaker A: in modern day Jacksonville in: Speaker A:The difference between the two countries attempts is that these guys actually kind of tried to live amicably with local tribes.
Speaker A:They traded peacefully, working on defensive alliances of sorts.
Speaker A:I believe that part of this is the fact that many of these settlers were Protestant refugees fleeing religious persecution.
Speaker A:These Kino.
Speaker A:I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.
Speaker A:Refugees had a much more peaceful nature to them compared to the less than a century removed from the, the Catholic in from the Spanish Inquisition.
Speaker A:Catholics, right.
Speaker A:They were like that wasn't that long ago for the Spanish.
Speaker A:So it's not like they're going to be nice.
Speaker A:The Spanish were not pumped by this, by the French trying to sneak into their land.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Quote unquote, their land.
Speaker A:Thinking that their numerous failed ventures granted them some sort of claim to, to this land.
Speaker A:Which I would disagree.
Speaker A:I would say since the French managed to make peaceful landings and interactions with the local people, they kind of probably had more right to continue to live there than the people who continued to repeatedly get killed and chased out.
Speaker A: Now in: Speaker A:St.
Speaker A:Augustine, if you remember from the Pirates episode, St.
Speaker A:Augustine is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the United States.
Speaker A:Later that same year the Spanish attacked and pretty much annihilated the French fort.
Speaker A:Can't win, you know, can't.
Speaker A:They can't win against the local tribes but good golly, they can fight some French religious refugees.
Speaker A:The Spanish victory was short lived as French privateer Dominique de Juan George attacked and recaptured the fort with no quarter given.
Speaker A:AKA everybody died.
Speaker A:Nervous laughter don't.
Speaker A:I'm not laughing at their death, but I kind of am anyway.
Speaker A:St.
Speaker A:Augustine became a hub of activity both economic and militarily.
Speaker A:With an actual surviving colony established.
Speaker A:There was a rush to grow it and defend it.
Speaker A:Missionaries flock to the New World hoping to convert the native Indians which you know, while various trades arrive hoping to establish their own network.
Speaker A:St.
Speaker A:Augustine itself was also attacked by various things we discussed.
Speaker A: hit the city in the same year: Speaker A:Still it expanded.
Speaker A:More Europeans traveled to the New World and this put them at odds with the, you know, the native people living there.
Speaker A:There was a heavy effort to convert native population over the next century.
Speaker A:Between conversions and the diseases carried by the or not by the United States, by the otherwise immune Europeans.
Speaker A:I don't even know where I got United States in that sentence.
Speaker A:There's no, in my notes.
Speaker A:There's United States is not even on this page.
Speaker A:I don't know what's happening.
Speaker A:The numbers of the indigenous people began to drop drastically.
Speaker A:So the New World had many fruits to be had in St.
Speaker A:Augustine was somewhat a gateway to that for Europeans.
Speaker A:Whoa.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:To Spain, it was a strategic foothold for controlling Florida and protecting its treasure fleets.
Speaker A:But to the indigenous people of the region, it was, you know, an unwelcome invasion, I'll say, that disrupted their lands, traditions and way of life.
Speaker A:From the very beginning, the Timuca, Apalachee, Guale those those tribes fought back, attacking Spanish forces and resisting conversion efforts.
Speaker A:While some indigenous leaders tried to form an alliance, most saw the Spanish as hostile occupiers and their fears obviously not misplaced.
Speaker A:Disease, forced labor and cultural suppression would soon follow.
Speaker A:As Spanish settlements expanded across Florida, Georgia, Texas, California, New Mexico.
Speaker A:Resistance from Native American groups only intensified.
Speaker A:The Spanish missionaries who accompanied these expeditions were determined to convert indigenous people to Catholicism.
Speaker A:But conversion was rarely voluntary.
Speaker A:Missions were established near native villages, offering food, tools and protection to lure people in.
Speaker A:Once inside the mission systems, and it is converts were expected to abandon their traditional beliefs, work the fields and adopt European customs.
Speaker A:Some accepted these changes, hoping to gain favor or trade benefits.
Speaker A:But others resisted.
Speaker A:In Florida, the Apalachee and Timuca, Timucoa, ah periodically revolted, burning churches, killing Spanish priests.
Speaker A: uthwest, the Pueblo Revolt of: Speaker A:But nothing was more devastating than European diseases.
Speaker A:Smallpox, measles, influenza swept through all of the communities faster than any army ever could, wiping out entire villages before the Spanish, French or British even arrived.
Speaker A:With no natural immunity, indigenous populations plummeted.
Speaker A:Some estimates suggest that it was around 80 to 90% of Native Americans in North America died due to diseases within the first 200 years of European contact, which is crazy.
Speaker A:For many tribes, this meant not just losing their people, but also their histories, leaders, traditions.
Speaker A:Like I said, a lot of this stuff is oral Tradition and you have a good chunk of your tribe gone, how are you supposed to learn anything?
Speaker A:Survivors had to rebuild their communities in a world that was rapidly changing over time.
Speaker A:As European settlements spread in the United States emerged, Native Americans were increasingly pushed off of their their lands.
Speaker A:In one podcast I listened to while doing research for this episode, a show called Bear Grease, which is, it's great, great show, definitely recommend it.
Speaker A:But in particular I listened to a few episodes on the Seminoles and Osceola and anyway, they were discussing Native Americans and early fights with Europeans and early Americans.
Speaker A:And the host, I can't remember his name, but he interviewed a woman named Dr.
Speaker A:Patricia Wickman who's written several books on the Seminoles and stated that the arrival and colonization of Florida by the Europeans affected the tribes of the region in a similar manner to breaking the like the break in a game of pool, right?
Speaker A:And billiards.
Speaker A:So you have the cue ball, the European settlers makes contact with the racked balls, right?
Speaker A:And then they go all over the place, all these different directions.
Speaker A:And that's kind of what happened to the tribes in the area.
Speaker A:You know, the.
Speaker A:Well all over the continent, the Europeans, when they showed up, the tribes scattered all over the place.
Speaker A:And you know, while I'm focusing on Florida in this episode, it should be obvious that the occurrences to the tribes in North America were pretty similar across the board.
Speaker A:Each area had its own varying outcomes.
Speaker A:But for now, until we dive down the rest of the regions and other topics, I going to be generalizing a little bit now.
Speaker A:As England began to seek a foothold in the New World, the Spanish and British both tried to get local tribes to help them with their efforts to expel the other.
Speaker A:This is similar to what the United States government would do later on while they work to remove the American Indians to the dedicated reservations.
Speaker A:The Spanish had an upper hand in this pseudo proxy battle as they had been established for some time, right.
Speaker A:They had to began repairing some of the relations with the tribes that, you know, didn't move away from the carnage that they brought earlier.
Speaker A:They utilized their Catholic missions to give food and built shelter to these guys.
Speaker A:They proselytized, converting quite a few in the process.
Speaker A:They then utilized to utilize this to encourage them to defend Spanish property while the British armed other tribes and encouraged them to attack the Spanish.
Speaker A:Over time, the native tribes in Florida succumbed to the attacks and the dwindling populations from various illnesses and enslavement.
Speaker A:The main tribes the Spanish had brought on as defenders were the Appalachian, the Timuca.
Speaker A:And they were all but Wiped out from this.
Speaker A:So the Spanish actually leaned on more than just the American Indian as well.
Speaker A:They were also willing to grant a safe haven of some sort to escape slaves from the north, even giving them a settlement of their own.
Speaker A:Fort Mosey.
Speaker A:Sidebar on this.
Speaker A: the Crown issued a decree in: Speaker A:This, along with a mandatory service of four years and a militia, granted the asylum seeker safe haven.
Speaker A:And this is anybody, right?
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Augustine.
Speaker A:This would be the place that all runaway slaves were directed to go.
Speaker A:Once they accepted a baptism Christian name, accepted the military militia terms, they were free citizens in the eyes of Spain.
Speaker A:Not the best circumstances, but infinitely better than what they were at word of this place, this mythical grass, real de Santa Teresa de Mose, offered sanctuary to escaped slaves.
Speaker A:Many would think that this many would make this journey.
Speaker A:And I think that it is a testament to the harshness of their previous circumstances that they were willing to run from like all the way up in Virginia to Florida at a chance of freedom, even at the cost of their heritage and culture.
Speaker A:And this is going to tie in a little bit later.
Speaker A:But the British, ever the gents to people who aid them in war, then began to force the tribes that helped them, mainly the Creek and the Yamasee, into Florida to take land for their own.
Speaker A:The Spanish foothold that lasted close to 200 years had come to an end following the Seven Years War.
Speaker A:The Seven Years War was largely fought outside of the scope of our story.
Speaker A:But, you know, key part of this is that Britain had pushed Spain into ceding Florida to them.
Speaker A:The Seven Years War actually did have its first rumblings in the United States, though the.
Speaker A:No, the term we know it as is the French and Indian War, which is essentially a part of the overarching Seven Years War.
Speaker A:Now, the French and native tribes fought together against the British up in the northern colonies and like in Canada and Ohio.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, eventually the animosity shared between the French and the English expanded into Europe.
Speaker A: And then the war ended in: Speaker A:Colonial power in North America had shifted pretty drastically.
Speaker A:While Britain, you know, they did technically win this war.
Speaker A:Might notice the year it ended, right?
Speaker A:1763.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:You might be wondering if it had any effect on the Revolutionary War.
Speaker A:And well, you would Be correct.
Speaker A:Britain won, securing Canada from the French, which led to the most confused country there ever was.
Speaker A: ench under British rule until: Speaker A:And that's not a typo.
Speaker A:I didn't actually write that.
Speaker A: Instead of: Speaker A:That was just the other day, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:Like, anyway, Britain also took control of French lands east of the Mississippi and anything west the French gave to Spain for helping fight Britain.
Speaker A:Spain gave up Florida and essentially England had control of over half of the explored United States.
Speaker A:Now this sounds all good and well, but the war became a major financial strain, basically doubling their national debt in the process of winning.
Speaker A:They also were limited in their westward expansion, which the colonists were eager to explore.
Speaker A:But with Spain being in control, and I use that term loosely, they had nowhere to go.
Speaker A:The financial burden was taken on and put on the American colonists, heavily taxed and also given zero representation for the massive taxation that they were paying.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:These are the things that led to the Revolutionary War, which is obviously a topic for another day.
Speaker A:But basically, up until the American independence, Florida was not really a focus for anyone.
Speaker A:Life for those in Florida did not really change as the powers that be changed hands outside of their bubble.
Speaker A:Flags may have changed on the polls in St.
Speaker A:Augustine or in Pensacola, but little population outside of those places had any desire to care who was in charge.
Speaker A:Okay, Seven Years War did affect the American indigenous population.
Speaker A:The French would often leaned into synchronicity in their cultures and had no desire to push for forced conversions to Christianity were no longer around.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Britain, who had their scheming ways, now had control of Florida.
Speaker A:However, like I said, there was not a big focus on the Sunshine State.
Speaker A:After the Revolutionary War, however, things began to change.
Speaker A:The Treaty of Paris following the war granted Florida back to Spain.
Speaker A:And if you thought that Spain was incapable of growing a colony in Florida before the Seven Years War, well, you're in for a shock to know that they really didn't do anything here either.
Speaker A:This did enable more of the same safe haven style government things that the American Indians had and runaway slaves had encountered before.
Speaker A:I would say it was probably less safe haven and more really like nobody's paying attention, which is, you know, fair.
Speaker A:This would be the destination for any native people who did not care to assimilate into Europe or the European lifestyle.
Speaker A:Now, stepping back in time a little bit, with the European encroachment in full effect, various tribes opted to form a confederacy of sorts, to protect their lands and themselves.
Speaker A:One such confederacy was the Creek Nation, which had two main sections.
Speaker A:They had the Upper Creek, which is modern day Alabama, and the Lower Creek in Florida.
Speaker A:And these tribes banded together in part because they had already had this established trade network and all spoke a Muskogean dialect.
Speaker A:The Creek Nation, other times referred to as the Mushkogee or Muskogee, consisted of a few different tribes, none of which called themselves Muscogee.
Speaker A:This is actually a.
Speaker A:It's not a.
Speaker A:I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's from Cherokee.
Speaker A:The Cherokee called these people the Mushkogee, which is essentially like swamp people.
Speaker A:This, which I feel like is rude, but okay.
Speaker A:Creek is actually also kind of a weird word.
Speaker A:It's not a weird word.
Speaker A:We know what the word is, but it's Creek in terms of like the, the tribe, Creek people.
Speaker A:The etymology of that is it's derived from European traders who then encounter groups along these two specific creeks and they would, you know, when they would tell people where they're going, oh, we're going to go see the Indian on those creeks over there.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And eventually it just turned into we're going to go down to trade with the Creek.
Speaker A:Like, like it spiraled down so far.
Speaker A:Pretty crazy.
Speaker A:Anyway, after the Revolutionary Revolution, Revolutionary War, whatever, however you want to describe it, George Washington began to do his average amount of US Indigenous relations.
Speaker A:His view was essentially that the American Indians were just as equal as their European counterparts.
Speaker A:Their society was just not as good.
Speaker A:So like the people themselves.
Speaker A:Love you.
Speaker A:You're great.
Speaker A:Beautiful.
Speaker A:Wish I could be you.
Speaker A:The way you live, we're a little concerned by.
Speaker A:So I guess there's worse ways to view them.
Speaker A:According to the wealthy tobacco plantation owner anyway, you know, what does he know?
Speaker A:He offered a six point plan in which he decided the Native people in America would receive impartial justice.
Speaker A:The regulation of buying of their lands, promotion of commerce, promotion of experiments to civilize or improve their society.
Speaker A:Presidential authority to give them gifts and punish anyone who violated their rights.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:This is though of course hinging on the people who signed.
Speaker A:If you signed it, you're good.
Speaker A:If you didn't, the Upper Creek were the first to sign and subsequently be assimilated into the culture of the new nation.
Speaker A:Definitely some parallels here between the Creek adaptation into American life and the escaped slaves converting to Catholicism in Spanish controlled Florida.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I can't speak on the decision.
Speaker A:I'm sure there's a lot of inner turmoil to decide to convert into American life.
Speaker A:The thought of being able to keep your land, to learn new ways to take, take care of it, take to care for it, to, you know, have a stable life, to not rely on migration of animals, you know, this kind of thing.
Speaker A:It had its appeal to them for sure.
Speaker A:And there was probably this hope that they could prosper under these conditions.
Speaker A:But, you know, others definitely had their doubts.
Speaker A:There were also several treaties that were signed on behalf of all Creek people which ceded lots of land and essentially took away any autonomy that many had, which would, you know, lead to some infighting between the Upper and Lower Creek.
Speaker A:This would evolve into what is known as the Red Stick War or the Creek Civil War, getting its name from the use of red clubs to show hostility by the Creek, whereas a white stick would show peace.
Speaker A:And then this came to a head after a famous Native American man, Tecumseh, a Shawnee man who once united several tribes in the Ohio region to fight against any colonizers, gave a series of speeches.
Speaker A:He would travel across the Southeast and inspired Native traditionalists into not only rejecting many of the modern ways of living, but also shunned their fellow people for siding with the settlers.
Speaker A:This war caused a major division in those who believed in the best course of action for the survival of their people would be assimilation and those who would rather die than lose their ways.
Speaker A:Ultimately, as we know, there's no real good decision because the settlers and government would do basically whatever they felt necessary to grow their land, either by diplomacy, conquest, or a combination of the two.
Speaker A:The fighting between indigenous people eventually spilled into a fight against the United States government, which, as you can guess, was a bad move.
Speaker A: the massacre at Fort Mims in: Speaker A:That attack shocked the American public and triggered a full scale military response from the United States.
Speaker A:Enter Andrew Jackson.
Speaker A:If you know anything about indigenous history, you know things are about to not be great for them.
Speaker A:Andrew Jackson, a general at the time, led a coalition of United States forces, Tennessee militiamen, the Tennessee Volunteers, and eventually some Cherokee and Creek allies and launched a brutal campaign against the Red Sticks.
Speaker A: g Battle of Horseshoe Bend in: Speaker A:There, Jackson's forces overwhelmed the Red Stick stronghold, killing hundreds and effectively breaking their resistance.
Speaker A:In the aftermath, the United States demanded a staggering land cession over 22 million acres, much of it taken not just from the Red Sticks, but also all of the Creek, even the ones who had signed the treaties right the Ones who had fought with the Americans.
Speaker A:So, yeah, this betrayal deepened existing fractures in the Creek nation and pushed many traditionalists survivors to flee south into Spanish Florida, where they would regroup, form alliances with other displaced natives, runaway slaves, and eventually become the Seminoles.
Speaker A:All right, but this is kind of the best spot I found to put this.
Speaker A:But, you know, this.
Speaker A:This is something that I.
Speaker A:That does not get talked about in textbooks or in a lot of culture, cultural conversation.
Speaker A:But, you know, I discussed enslaved Africans running for their lives to earn their freedom through labor, military service, converting Catholicism under Spanish law.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Or eventually just becoming slaves once again with native tribes or just allowed to live near them.
Speaker A:A lot of white settlers actually chose to leave their own communities to live with Native American tribes.
Speaker A:I first learned about this while reading Sebastian Younger's book Tribe, which is, you know, it kind of reframed the way I thought about early colonial life.
Speaker A:These weren't people fleeing persecution or slavery.
Speaker A:They were walking away from the rigid, hierarchical, and often isolating structure of European society.
Speaker A:Life in the tribal communities offered them something else, you know, belonging, equality, freedom.
Speaker A:Once they experienced that, many didn't want to go back.
Speaker A:Some of them even forcibly returned, labeled as traitors, refused to stay in their old world, you know, as a powerful reminder that indigenous communities weren't just, you know, they weren't a refuge for the oppressed, but they were a compelling alternative for a lot of people and a big part of the history of this country in general.
Speaker A:All right, so talk about the Seminole.
Speaker A:The Seminole.
Speaker A:The word itself stems from a few variations of different words, but largely pointed to from Cimarron, which is Spanish for either wild or untamed.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of places online that point that is for being the namesake for escaped people.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Untamed, meaning they were rebellious.
Speaker A:Not and, you know, wouldn't surrender.
Speaker A:Not necessarily that they were, you know, viewed as some sort of wild beast.
Speaker A:There's also speculation that the R sound was one that was not part of some tribal dialect.
Speaker A:So it was turned into Seminole, which because of that, in regard to Seminoles becoming a group of a few different tribes in Florida that came together to fight against the newly established Americans.
Speaker A:So now you have the amalgamation of a few different tribes who are very anti colonization, as well as a healthy amount of runaway slaves who were either brought into life sometimes as slaves, albeit treated massively better than they were by the European owners or European ancestor having owners.
Speaker A:There's also groups of former slaves who had just had their own tribe, so to speak, like they were Allowed to live on their own.
Speaker A:But there's.
Speaker A:So there's a.
Speaker A:A lot of.
Speaker A:I wouldn't say it's misinformation.
Speaker A:I would say it's slightly incorrect because there's a narrative that, about this topic that the Seminoles were super anti slavery and they brought in all these slaves.
Speaker A:You fight the white man with us, right?
Speaker A:That's not how it happened.
Speaker A:They had slaves, they bought slaves.
Speaker A:They, the southern colonists tried to buy slaves from them.
Speaker A:But you know, they, since they hated the white people, they weren't going to do that.
Speaker A:But like I said, they did treat their slaves way better, but still they were slaves.
Speaker A:So I wanted to put a pause on that and expand on that a little more because I feel like that is something that people like to romanticize in a way about this topic.
Speaker A:Like it's this beautiful harmony of these cultures to fight the good fight, but not, not necessarily.
Speaker A:Anyway, if you remember, I've said it a few times, there's a long history of slaves running away to what is now Florida when it was controlled by Spain, right?
Speaker A:And Spain converted them to help defend their territory.
Speaker A:And that story of this land so far near the ocean persisted and spread and slaves would run to make their journey.
Speaker A:And even if they weren't free with the Seminole people, they were massively taken care of.
Speaker A:In comparison, Seminole people treated them in a more similar way to like medieval serfdom or like land, land workers.
Speaker A:And in a.
Speaker A:I can't even think of the term, but like medieval, like peasants.
Speaker A:You're working land, you have to pay a tributary of sorts to the lord, right?
Speaker A:That, that owns the land, but you get to work there and you get to keep most of the crops, right?
Speaker A:And that's how it was.
Speaker A:They, you know, they, they made a deal with them.
Speaker A:They said, hey, we're going to give you these lands.
Speaker A:In some cases as much as like 20 acres.
Speaker A:You farm it, you give us some of the crops.
Speaker A:Since you're better at farming than we are.
Speaker A:You have all these, you know, European methods of farming and agricultural techniques that are really good.
Speaker A:You give us some of that and we'll just kind of leave you alone.
Speaker A:Which is basically what happened.
Speaker A:But at the end of the day, they were slaves.
Speaker A:So these, these food techniques had allowed the Seminoles to have way more food than they had before.
Speaker A:And it was kind of a mutually beneficial situation for the most part.
Speaker A:Now this angered the United States slave owners more than just having the slaves having a run away and not be found, because now this group of people were Unwilling to give the slaves back.
Speaker A:And in the early 19th century, this was a big issue for the United States agricult community and thus made them even more of an enemy to the government than they already were.
Speaker A:And then, like I said, this is kind of where a lot of the confusion stems from because there's stories of Seminoles assimilating freed slaves, merging the cultures into this big enemy United States.
Speaker A:While former and maybe still current slaves did fight with the Seminole, like I said, they were not welcomed in.
Speaker A:And I'm.
Speaker A:I'm imagining there were some Seminoles that did end up, you know, producing offspring with some of the former slaves.
Speaker A:And there's this big population of black Seminoles that I don't want to ignore, but I want to make it very clear that the Seminole people were still like, they utilized these people, but they were still slave owners.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Anyway, okay, so first Seminole War actually has some overlap with the Creek War, the Creek Civil War.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Which led to splitting of the Creek nation, transitioned into the first Seminole War with the Seminole people at the time being majorly made up of the Red Sticks who fled from.
Speaker A:Fled to Spanish Florida.
Speaker A:Andrew Jackson argued and ultimately convinced the United States to let him go to Florida and invade and attack these Red Sticks who had been harboring, quote, harboring slaves and raiding United States settlements.
Speaker A:Like I mentioned before, Spain did not really have a successful hold on Florida.
Speaker A:So it's not like Jackson was making this major international issue by invading another country's land.
Speaker A:But it was still not.
Speaker A:Not totally accepted.
Speaker A: The first battle was in: Speaker A:This would lead to what is called the Scott Massacre, where a group of Seminoles ambushed and ambushed a supply boat on the Appalachian Apalachicola River.
Speaker A:I've never seen that word before.
Speaker A:Usually it's Appalachian.
Speaker A:Appalachian, whatever.
Speaker A:Appalachicola, okay.
Speaker A:And they killed around 40 soldiers and civilians combined.
Speaker A:And this was enough for Jackson to retaliate, even though there was no official declaration of war.
Speaker A:He went through and burned a lot of villages, fields, buildings alike, capturing Spanish forts like St Mark's and Pensacola.
Speaker A:He had two British citizens who had been living amongst the Seminole on the grounds of.
Speaker A:Executed on the grounds of inciting resistance.
Speaker A:All of this done without any oversight or permission from the government.
Speaker A:He's just doing this.
Speaker A:Overall, this ended up leading to the United States trading territories, kind of the United States claimed and well, didn't claim.
Speaker A: nced their claims to Texas in: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:With the Alamo, which I definitely remember, and we got to talk about that for sure.
Speaker A:Anyway, this is around the time that the first Seminole War is noted to have ended.
Speaker A:There's not like a hard end, but historians have a consensus this is where it ends.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A: and Second Seminole War, from: Speaker A: n of the Adams onis treaty in: Speaker A:And the United States government wasted little time in encouraging white settlement and preparing the land for development.
Speaker A:For the Seminoles, many of whom were displaced Creek warriors, Maroons, which is the escaped slaves, the Black Seminoles and descendants of earlier Native groups, this meant being pushed even further south into less desirable lands.
Speaker A: Moultrie Creek was signed in: Speaker A:It required the Seminoles to give up claim to most of northern Florida and moved to a reservation in central Florida.
Speaker A:In return, the United States promised food and farming equipment and protection from encroachment.
Speaker A:But these promises unraveled pretty quickly.
Speaker A:Settlers ignored boundaries of reservation and government aid was inconsistent or outright neglected.
Speaker A:On top of that, the presence of the Black Seminoles, the escaped slaves of or their descendants living amongst the tribes or near the tribes in infuriated these plantation owners in the south who increasingly pressured the federal government to do something about it.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson's star was rising, largely due to his hardline stance against Native resistance and pro slavery.
Speaker A:His brutal success in the Creek War, where he defeated the Red Stick faction like I mentioned, and his controversial but effective campaign in the first Seminole War where he invaded Spanish Florida without permission, made him a national hero.
Speaker A:To many in the United States, Jackson represented strength, order and expansion.
Speaker A: m wide public support, and in: Speaker A:Once president, Jackson made Indian Removal a central policy, and he argued that it was the only way to protect both Native Americans and white settlers.
Speaker A:Though in practice it was pretty much just to make room for growth of the Americas American expansion, right, no matter the cost.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Now, this wasn't 100% accepted across the United States.
Speaker A:In fact, I learned that one of Jackson's own former soldiers, a man you may know named Sir Davy Crockett, who fought in the Red Stick and Creek wars, was so disturbed by the cruelty that Jackson had during those wars in this campaign that he witnessed firsthand that when he became president and signed the Indian Removal Act, Crockett, like, risked his entire future political.
Speaker A:Like, he could have been a president at some point, but he risked all of that to just be so outspoken against Andrew Jackson.
Speaker A:So that's pretty awesome.
Speaker A:I got to tell you, I did not see Davy Crockett being a hero in this story of sorts.
Speaker A:Yeah, we really got to talk about the Alamo.
Speaker A:That podcast that I talked about, Bear Grease, told a story about Davy Crockett in the war.
Speaker A:And they had burnt a city down, and they were a village, not a city.
Speaker A:They had burnt a Native American village down with, you know, the bodies and everything there.
Speaker A:And they were looking for food, and they were told to eat the potatoes that were stored under one of the houses.
Speaker A:And the grease from the burning bodies ran down the hill underneath the house and mixed with the potatoes, and that's what they had to eat.
Speaker A:And it was at that moment that Davy Crockett said, you know what?
Speaker A:This probably isn't.
Speaker A:Isn't good.
Speaker A:Good for me, good for anybody.
Speaker A:And famously had been outspoken about this kind of thing ever since and also even went as far to say as he was comfortable with where he would be on his judgment day with his decision about this.
Speaker A:So pretty interesting, right?
Speaker A:All right, so anyway, the Indian Removal act marked a major shift from negotiated removal to forced removal.
Speaker A:The pressure on the Seminoles escalated pretty quickly.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:That inspection came back with mixed reviews, and many leaders, most notably Osceola, rejected the treaty outright, claiming it was signed under pressure or misrepresented entirely.
Speaker A:There's also a myth that Osceola stabbed this treaty.
Speaker A:He said, nope, not having it put his knife in it.
Speaker A:Whether or not that happened, who knows?
Speaker A:But it's just.
Speaker A:It's a fun story.
Speaker A:The United States, however, considered the treaty binding and began preparing for forced relocation regardless.
Speaker A: By: Speaker A:Osceola, who had already been briefly imprisoned after being imprisoned by the United States, was able to return to his people.
Speaker A: In December: Speaker A:Now, Osceola, super fascinating part of the story.
Speaker A:His name is used in cities, places all across the country.
Speaker A:He was admired by Native American people and, you know, white settlers all across the board.
Speaker A:He has statues all over the place.
Speaker A:His tenacity, fighting spirit was one that people loved, even though he was fighting against their government.
Speaker A:Like, people thought this was this, like a great story.
Speaker A:And especially after his death, they're like, man, that guy really had it right.
Speaker A:This David and Goliath story made him famous to the point where when he was in prison, dozens of artists were outside his cell trying to paint his likeness.
Speaker A:The most interesting part of his history to me is that he was outside of modern government limits.
Speaker A:To be considered a member of a tribe like modern limits, he is largely accepted by both historians of European descent and Native tribal historians to have been around 1/8 Muscogee Creek, but one quarter is required to be considered a part of a tribe today.
Speaker A:But back then, that was not a requirement that you had to be half full, whatever, any percentage.
Speaker A:It varied from tribe to tribe.
Speaker A:But big part of it was being raised by a mother in the tribal traditions.
Speaker A: Osceola Billy Powell, born in: Speaker A:Osceola and his family were inspired by the speeches given by Tecumseh, which I mentioned before.
Speaker A:And this would have happened in some of his most formative years.
Speaker A:Osceola would have learned about or heard or seen it himself, which inspired where he was destined to go.
Speaker A:The second.
Speaker A:The second Oliver.
Speaker A:The second Seminole War was one which had a lot more balance to it.
Speaker A:Not in terms of numbers, as the Seminoles were drastically outnumbered, but in terms of, like, tactics, grit, knowledge of the terrain.
Speaker A:The Seminoles held their own and then some.
Speaker A:This, you know, wasn't a war fought with, like, front lines and sweeping cavalry charges.
Speaker A:It was ambushes, hit and run raids, survival in one of the harshest environments in the United States, right?
Speaker A:These swamp wars, like the Seminoles, along with their black Seminole allies, knew the swamps.
Speaker A:You know, they knew the dense forests.
Speaker A:They knew this area.
Speaker A:And they used that knowledge as an advantage.
Speaker A:Time and again, slipping through these thickets, launching surprise attacks, vanishing before troops could mount a proper Counter attack, or even knew what was happening.
Speaker A:The United States army, for all its resources and manpower, was not prepared for this kind of war.
Speaker A:Soldiers fell not just to seminal attacks, but heat exhaustion, malaria, dysentery, McGill's POP, and just plain bad luck.
Speaker A:Supply lines were unreliable, Morale was often low.
Speaker A:And the deeper into Florida that they pushed, the more the army realized just how difficult it would be to root out people who had every reason to never surrender.
Speaker A:Osceola remained a key figure during the early years of the war, rallying support and refusing to back down.
Speaker A: eola under a flag of truce in: Speaker A:They said, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna talk true stuff.
Speaker A:And then they captured him and threw him in jail.
Speaker A:Super shady, super duper shady.
Speaker A:Yeah, people even, like I said, even American people were like, yeah, that's not okay.
Speaker A:You can't do that.
Speaker A:He was imprisoned after the supposed peace negotiation and then died a few months later in South Carolina, likely from illness.
Speaker A:His death was a big blow to the resistance, but the war continued.
Speaker A:Now his body was desecrated, his head removed, and his body buried without it, which is still lost, you know, the skull's still gone.
Speaker A:People were grabbing things off, like clothes off of his body after he had died, like taking mementos.
Speaker A:Like I said, super famous guy.
Speaker A:What followed was a years long grind.
Speaker A:The United States employed more aggressive tactics, burning villages, destroying crops, and even using bloodhounds to track the Seminole in the swamps, which is callback to the very first episode right there.
Speaker A:Yet despite these efforts, total victory never came.
Speaker A:Some Seminoles were captured or agreed under pressure to be relocated to the Indian Territory in present day Oklahoma.
Speaker A:But a determined group refused to go, retreating deeper into the Everglades, into the swamps.
Speaker A: e War dragged on until around: Speaker A:In the end, the United States simply decided it wasn't worth it anymore.
Speaker A:The war had cost over $40 million at the time, which is in contrast to around the $20 million the GDP had, which is crazy.
Speaker A: Taken more than: Speaker A: Second Seminole War ended in: Speaker A:We had removed most of you guys, so I guess this is we're going to call it a dub.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So there's.
Speaker A:They were.
Speaker A:They pretty much gave up, but.
Speaker A:But there's still a little bit of people in the Everglades.
Speaker A:Like I said, the United States knew they were still there.
Speaker A:But the sheer cost and frustration of chasing them through Florida swamps just didn't seem worth it to them, at least for a while.
Speaker A:For about a decade, things were relatively quiet.
Speaker A:The remaining Seminoles were constantly monitored and government officials tried from time to time to persuade them to leave voluntarily.
Speaker A:Some groups, you know, small groups, agreed to relocate.
Speaker A:But the core group, led by figures like Chief Sonic Mikko, AKA Billy Bowlegs, love that name, stood firm.
Speaker A:They weren't interested in any more negotiations or broken promises.
Speaker A:They had learned by then that the treaty with the United States government often came with an unexpected expiration date, which, yeah, you know, very true.
Speaker A: asy peace eventually broke in: Speaker A:A group of United States surveyors, company by soldiers, deliberately went into Seminole land to provoke a response.
Speaker A:They destroyed crops and property near Billy Bow Legs camp hoping it would force a confrontation that would justify another removal campaign.
Speaker A:It worked.
Speaker A:Bolegs and his warriors retaliated and the Third Seminole War began.
Speaker A:Unlike the second Seminole War, this one was much smaller in scale, but it still played out in the same grueling terrain with similar guerrilla tactics.
Speaker A:US Troops.
Speaker A:U of the US Sent troops.
Speaker A:But by this point the Seminole population had dwindled and their ability to mount sustained resistance was limited.
Speaker A:Billy Bow Legs and his people fought a smart, stubborn campaign.
Speaker A: But by: Speaker A:That year, the United States offered Bowlegs a significant sum of money, reportedly around $7,000 at the time, for himself and thousands more of his followers to finally relocate to Oklahoma in the Indian Territory.
Speaker A:Reluctantly, he accepted.
Speaker A:Along with around 160 of his people, he made their journey west.
Speaker A:And that kind of essentially ended the Seminole Wars.
Speaker A:But not everyone left.
Speaker A:A small group refused to go, choosing instead to vanish into the depths of the Everglades.
Speaker A:These are the ancestors of the modern Seminole tribe of Florida, which to this day proudly identifies as the Unconquered People.
Speaker A:In total, the Seminole wars, three separate conflicts over four decades, cost the United States millions and millions of dollars and thousands of lives.
Speaker A:No decisive military victory ever declared.
Speaker A:The government may have removed most of the tribe, but it never broke them completely.
Speaker A:Their legacy is one of fierce resistance, cultural preservation and a refusal to bend to the weight of an empire.
Speaker A: e Third Seminole War ended in: Speaker A:Most of the Seminole population had been removed to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.
Speaker A:And those who remained in Florida were assumed to be few and scattered, living deep in the Everglades where the government officials and settlers largely couldn't reach and often didn't care to try.
Speaker A:But Florida and the Seminole story, far from over.
Speaker A:For the Seminoles who stayed, life became about survival, secrecy, cultural preservation.
Speaker A:They avoided contact with outsiders, but built chickies, which are open sided huts elevated over swampy ground and lived off the land, farming small plots, hunting, gathering.
Speaker A:For decades they essentially lived off the grid.
Speaker A:They didn't send their kids to public schools, didn't register with the government and often denied any involvement with, quote, the American life.
Speaker A:And this was their way of maintaining autonomy.
Speaker A:Their political stance was simple.
Speaker A:They never signed a final treaty of surrender and therefore they were still free.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, in Florida, the other side of that story if you will, Florida was changing.
Speaker A: The: Speaker A:Though the war didn't impact the Seminoles much directly, it did shape the region around them.
Speaker A:After the war, Reconstruction, railroads and real estate began transforming Florida.
Speaker A:Swamps were drained, cities like Tampa, Miami started to grow and outsiders began eyeing South Florida as as tourist destinations.
Speaker A:By the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Seminoles started having more contact with the outside world, often through tourism.
Speaker A:Some began selling crafts, participating in fairs, exhibitions and working as guides.
Speaker A:Even then, you know, most stayed fiercely independent, wary of assimilation and deeply committed to their culture.
Speaker A:It wasn't until the mid 20th century that Seminoles began forming formal institutions.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A: That's right,: Speaker A:It's like 100 years after the last war ended.
Speaker A:This recognition gave them certain legal rights, access to federal support and the ability to self Govern.
Speaker A: Later, in: Speaker A:Both tribes still active today and operate independently, but they share cultural roots and collaborate pretty often.
Speaker A: Starting in the: Speaker A:This time in the business world.
Speaker A:They were one of the first tribes to open tribal casinos.
Speaker A:Beginning with high stakes bingo halls and eventually expanding to full scale resorts.
Speaker A:Today the Seminole Tribe of Florida owns the Hard Rock Art Hard Rock International brand, including casinos, restaurants and hotels around the world, which I didn't know that's pretty fascinating that success has helped fund healthcare, education, housing and cultural preservation for the tribe.
Speaker A:Tribe.
Speaker A:It's a ironic but powerful, twisted and seminal story.
Speaker A:People once pushed to the brink of extinction.
Speaker A:Extinction.
Speaker A:Extinction.
Speaker A:There we go.
Speaker A:By settler greed.
Speaker A:Now thrive economically using the tools of capitalism to support a legacy of resistance.
Speaker A:So what came next for the Seminoles and Florida for Florida?
Speaker A:Growth, development, Seminoles, survival, sovereignty.
Speaker A:You know, these, these things evolve simultaneously.
Speaker A:Today there are three federally recognized Seminole entities.
Speaker A:The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, comprised of those who were forcibly removed after the second Seminole War.
Speaker A:There's the Seminole tribe, right?
Speaker A:And then the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida.
Speaker A:Total upwards of 20,000 in all locations.
Speaker A:And their influences beyond that with I think the most famous one for me, the Florida State University.
Speaker A: male collegiate sports until: Speaker A:It was at that point before then a.
Speaker A:It was not a co ed university, it was a women's college.
Speaker A: And then in: Speaker A:So it was now a co ed facility.
Speaker A:And they had a vote on what should be their symbol.
Speaker A:And the Seminole was voted like unanimously.
Speaker A:Super popular and they said it was that.
Speaker A:And then I think like the next one was like the Statesman or something like that.
Speaker A:So I think they chose correctly.
Speaker A:The Seminole Tribe actually gave their permission and gave their permission for the name and also to use their likeness for their.
Speaker A:What is widely known as a mascot, but Florida State calls it a symbol because, you know, a mascot implies some sort of demeaning name.
Speaker A:And today their symbol is Chief Osceola, which is pretty, pretty cool, right?
Speaker A:His depiction approved by the tribe, which I really appreciate.
Speaker A:You know, there's a lot of dialogue today about, well, why can't we call the Washington team by their former name, the Redskins or the Cleveland Indians.
Speaker A:But we can have the Chiefs, Blackhawks, Seminoles, you know, those guys.
Speaker A:I feel like the difference is pretty obvious in my mind.
Speaker A:But you know, maybe it's not to everybody but these like the Seminoles, the Chiefs, the Blackhawks is like, it's an appreciation for the tribes that are connected to where they're located.
Speaker A:Like it's not, I don't know, it's not a stereotype and it's not meant to be a caricature of these real people.
Speaker A:It's like we're appreciating the past and who lived here before and we think the names are cool and the heritage is cool.
Speaker A:But yeah, anyway, so that's the story of the uncon, Unconquered Seminole people and the Seminole wars.
Speaker A:And I Think this was a nice topic to do because there's a lot of information on it since, you know, it's on the more recent end of Native history.
Speaker A:But it's also pretty important.
Speaker A:Stories like this, you know, really shine a light on the darker side of how this country came to be.
Speaker A:These stories, you know, aren't meant to rag on the United States and make it sound like it's the worst place ever.
Speaker A:But I do think stories like this are a good way to understand how we got to where we are.
Speaker A:I also.
Speaker A:This is something.
Speaker A:This is just a me thought, but it annoys me that the Anabaptist movement, which began in the late 17th century, early 18th century, the.
Speaker A:The Amish, right, they wanted to live outside of techno technology.
Speaker A:They wanted to live on their own land.
Speaker A:They wanted to be ignored and they're respected.
Speaker A:But the native tribes that tried to do that, not so much which is.
Speaker A:Which is wild to me.
Speaker A:I wonder why that is.
Speaker A:Anyway, you know, so to completely ignore things like this story, I think, think, you know, it's kind of foolish.
Speaker A:And I'm glad I got to dive into this a little bit because I learned a lot from this and I'm hopeful that stories like this inspire people to learn more about Native cultures that predated this country.
Speaker A:I was speaking with a co worker of mine recently who is of Native descent, and I was telling him that despite growing up in the Great Plains, being able to visit museums that showcased indigenous life before the settlers and pioneers in that there's still so much like that.
Speaker A:I just don't know.
Speaker A:And it's hard because a lot of these cultures, like I said, had a largely oral tradition and a lot of that got lost when people were dying off and being killed off and things.
Speaker A:So it's hard to find a lot of written information.
Speaker A:I want to thank specifically the places I could find information from the Bear Grease podcast that I told you about.
Speaker A:Really great interviews throughout that and regarding.
Speaker A:That's where I got a lot of the information about the Seminole tribe specifically, and Osceola as well.
Speaker A:Also a book that I listened to was titled the Seminal Wars.
Speaker A:A History from Beginning to End by Hourly history.
Speaker A:Like it.
Speaker A:It was an hourong audiobook, which was pretty cool.
Speaker A:And then there was a bunch of videos on YouTube on the subject.
Speaker A:Not like any super modern ones, but, you know, a lot of good ones.
Speaker A:And I think that, that, you know, if you have an interest in this topic, definitely go check them out.
Speaker A:If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends.
Speaker A:Review us wherever possible.
Speaker A:If you're on YouTube, drop the like, subscribe, do all that stuff.
Speaker A:Those are things you can do to help out, you know, help the show out, help us find more people, help more people find us.
Speaker A:And doing all that without spending any money, you know, if you want to spend some money, check out the merch store.
Speaker A:I got the hat, I got the shirt on, you know, that's in the description.
Speaker A:You'll find links to all the social media there as well in the description.
Speaker A:There's a link tree in the description which also has all the links on it.
Speaker A:And you can go through that and click on topic suggestion.
Speaker A:If you want to suggest a topic for me to do, you can do it through that or you could email me remedial scholarmail.com and until next time, keep questioning the past.
Speaker A:The future will thank you.
Speaker A:Bye now.
