The Scott Battle of 1817 was a dramatic victory by Native American forces and the U.S. Army's first defeat of the Seminole Wars. The engagement took place on the upper Apalachicola River in North Florida. The outcome of the battle led the administration of President James Monroe to order Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson's 1818 invasion of Spanish Florida and soon led to the transfer of the colony from Spain to the United States.

On November 30, 1817, a combined force of Creek and Seminole Indian warriors attacked a U.S. Army boat carrying a party of around 50 people. The battle was quick and fierce and by the time it ended, only seven of the boat passengers remained alive. The Scott Massacre of 1817 was the bloodiest day of the First Seminole War and was the event that triggered the United States government to authorize General Andrew Jackson's invasion of Spanish Florida. In the first book length study of the battle, writer and historian Dale Cox unveils new source material and offers new conclusions about the first U.S. defeat of the four decade long Seminole Wars.

The year is 1817, and Florida is on the brink of war. A young woman stands on the deck of a flatboat, anxiously watching the banks of the Apalachicola River. Not far away stands a Seminole warrior, eyeing the vessel from behind his concealment, choosing his targets carefully. Neither the woman nor the warrior can imagine how much their worlds are about to change. Inspired by the true story of Elizabeth Stuart, a young army wife taken captive by the Seminole during the Scott Massacre of 1817, Elizabeth s War takes the reader through the clash of empires that became known as the First Seminole War. The war is seen not only through Elizabeth s eyes, but those of her Indian captors, and of her husband and father, who are part of an avenging army bent on destroying the Seminole people. To stay alive among the Indians, Elizabeth will have to fight for her life, hoping she can survive long enough for Andrew Jackson s army to rescue her. Written by Seminole War historians, Elizabeth's War is a prequel to Hollow Victory, winner of the 2012 Patrick D. Smith Award for Fiction from the Florida Historical Society. Based on years of research into the Scott Massacre, Elizabeth's War concludes with a detailed history of the event and an overview of the First Seminole War.

The Seminole Wars were comprised of three separate clashes between the United States and the Seminole Indians of Florida between 1817 and 1858. The first touched off when the US Army invaded Seminole territory in order to capture fugitive slaves living among the native people. The Seminoles were pushed farther and farther south into Florida. Ultimately, the Seminoles lost their land and Florida became American territory opened up for white settlers. This well-researched narrative provides essential facts about an important chapter in the history of Native Americans in the growing United States.

When we published our initial work on the Seminole Wars in 2004, we lamented the fact that such an important series of events was widely unknown to the American public in general and to the majority of Floridians. Not that we should have been surprised: The war was fought in one small corner of the nation and therefore of little concern to Americans as a whole, and most Floridians weren’t born in the state and would have had little opportunity to learn about the wars. Yet it shouldn’t have been that way. The Seminole Wars were a major conflict for the nation and arguably one of the most formative events for the State of Florida. The Indian Wars of the American West are famous worldwide, yet the Seminole Wars were bigger than any western Indian war. The foundations for most of Florida’s great cities are a result of the Seminole Wars, yet few of those cities’ residents are aware of the fact. It was an historical oversight we felt was in need of correction.

This definitive account of the final war between the US government and Florida’s Seminole tribe “brings to life a conflict that is largely ignored” (San Francisco Book Review). Spanning a period of over forty years (1817–1858), the three Seminole Wars were America’s longest, costliest, and deadliest Indian wars, surpassing the more famous ones fought in the West. After an uneasy peace following the conclusion of the second Seminole War in 1842, a series of hostile events, followed by a string of murders in 1849 and 1850, made confrontation inevitable. The war was also known as the “Billy Bowlegs War” because Billy Bowlegs, Holata Micco, was the central Seminole leader in this the last Indian war to be fought east of the Mississippi River. Pushed by increasing encroachment into their territory, he led a raid near Fort Myers. A series of violent skirmishes ensued. The vastness of the Floridian wilderness and the difficulties of the terrain and climate caused problems for the army, but they had learned lessons from the second war, and, amongst other new tactics, employed greater use of boats, eventually securing victory by cutting off food supplies. History of the Third Seminole War is a detailed narrative of the war and its causes, containing numerous firsthand accounts from participants in the conflict, derived from virtually all the available primary sources, collected over many years. “Any reader interested in learning more about Indian wars, Army history, or Florida history will profit from reading this book,” as well as Civil War enthusiasts, since many of the officers earned their stripes in the earlier conflict (The Journal of America’s Military Past).

Discover the remarkable history of the Seminole Wars... The Europeans who came to the New World did not land upon a continent devoid of people. Yet to the Spanish, French, and English who traveled from their countries in search of gold and land, the native populations already living on the North American continent were an inferior race. Enslavement, eradication, and imprisonment were the just fates, they felt, for any who could keep them from attaining the wealth they sought. The Seminole Wars, which took place in modern-day Florida in three different phases of the first half of the nineteenth century, were at first glance the battle between the Native Americans who lived in Florida and the settlers who wanted that land for themselves. However, the settlers from Georgia and the Carolinas were also furious because the Seminoles provided a haven for African-American slaves who sought freedom. Andrew Jackson, the military leader and future president of the United States, supported the Indian Removal Act which would force the native peoples to leave their homes to live west of the Mississippi, in the Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma. The Seminoles refused to leave without resistance, and as a result, they were at war with the United States government. In the end, of course, most of them were relocated to the Indian Territory, but a remnant remained behind and their descendants had the hard-won satisfaction of being recognized, in 1957, as the Seminole Tribe of Florida by the U.S. federal government. Discover a plethora of topics such as Origin of the Seminole Tribe A Sanctuary for Slaves The First Seminole War The Second Seminole War The Third Seminole War The Legacy of the Seminole Wars And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on the Seminole Wars, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!

"Sketch of the Seminole War" is an informative first-hand account of the early stages of the Second Seminole War, told by a young South Carolina volunteer serving in Winfield Scott's campaign of early 1836. William Wragg Smith was a keen observer, not only of the war, but of the world around him. Besides giving a detailed account of his own participation in the war, Smith explains the causes of the war as seen from the perspective of a Southern Planter. Scientifically inclined, Smith also took notes on the flora and fauna of Florida, and was able to compile an extensive vocabulary of Seminole words and phrases. For students of the Seminole Wars, this book is a must-have.Long out of print, this new edition edited by Debra K. Harper contains features not found in facsimile editions. These include an Introduction, Index, Table of Contents, and Endnotes, all designed to aid researchers studying this important but long-forgotten conflict. Sketches of the Seminole War is published by the Seminole Wars Foundation, Inc., a non-profit institution dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of knowledge about America's longest and costliest Indian war. For more information about the Foundation, please visit us at www.seminolewars.us.

The books in the Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series demonstrate the University Press of Florida?s long history of publishing Latin American and Caribbean studies titles that connect in and through Florida, highlighting the connections between the Sunshine State and its neighboring islands. Books in this series show how early explorers found and settled Florida and the Caribbean. They tell the tales of early pioneers, both foreign and domestic. They examine topics critical to the area such as travel, migration, economic opportunity, and tourism. They look at the growth of Florida and the Caribbean and the attendant pressures on the environment, culture, urban development, and the movement of peoples, both forced and voluntary. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series gathers the rich data available in these architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical works, as well as the travelogues and naturalists? sketches of the area prior to the twentieth century, making it accessible for scholars and the general public alike. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, under the Humanities Open Books program.

Among the most well known of Florida's native peoples, the Seminole Indians frustrated troops of militia and volunteer soldiers for decades during the first half of the nineteenth century in the ongoing struggle to keep hold of their ancestral lands. While careers and reputations of American military and political leaders were made and destroyed in the mosquito-infested swamps of Florida's interior, the Seminoles and their allies, including the Miccosukee tribe and many escaped slaves, managed to wage war on their own terms. The study of guerrilla warfare tactics employed by the Seminoles may have aided modern American forces fighting in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and other regions. Years before the first shots of the Civil War were fired, Florida witnessed a clash of wills and ways that prompted three wars unlike any others in America's history, although many of the same policies and mistakes were made in the Indian wars west of the Mississippi.