Seminole Wars

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the... east by the Atlantic Ocean. Florida is the 22nd most extensive, the 4th most populous, and the 8th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state capital is Tallahassee, its largest city is Jacksonville, and the South Florida metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the southeastern U.S. Much of Florida is situated on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. Its geography is marked by a coastline, by the omnipresence of water and the threat of hurricanes. Florida has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, encompassing approximately 1,350 miles , and is the only state to border both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the state is at or near sea level and its terrain is characterized by sedimentary soils. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south.
more

American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and... the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who continuously sought to expand their territory, pushing the indigenous populations westwards. The wars were spurred by ideologies such as Manifest Destiny, which held that the United States was destined to expand from coast to coast on the American continent, and which resulted in the policy of Indian removal, by which indigenous peoples were removed from the areas where Europeans were settling, either forcefully or by means of voluntary exchange of territory through treaties. Today Native Americans make up between 0.9 and 1.5 percent of the U.S. population. No conclusive evidence exists to determine how many native people lived in North America before the arrival of Columbus. David Stannard notes that more conservative demographers cite a figure of about 7 or 8 million inhabitants.
more

The Battle of Negro Fort was an 1816 military engagement in which forces of the United States attacked African American militia and their native... American allies in the frontier of northern Spanish Florida. It was the first major battle of Seminole Wars period and marked the beginning of Andrew Jackson's Conquest of Florida. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British Royal Marines established what was known as the Negro Fort on Prospect Bluff along the Spanish side of the Apalachicola River. The garrison initially included around 1,000 Britons and several hundred African-Americans who were recruited as a detached company of the Corps of Colonial Marines. But shortly after the end of the war in 1815, the British withdrew from the post and left the black population. Over the next few years the fort became a colony for escaped slaves from Pensacola and Georgia. By 1816 over 800 freedmen and women had settled around the fort, there were also friendly natives in the area.
more