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.

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.

What We Have Endured tells the story of the Seminole Wars through the eyes of Aheedja, a Seminole woman who suffers through nearly a half-century of brutal warfare, forced displacement, and painful deprivation. Determined to remain in the land of their birth, she and her people struggle against the unforgiving Florida climate and the overwhelming military might of the United States government. Written by noted Seminole War historians and a senior tribal member, What We Have Endured faithfully follows the history of America's longest and costliest war against a Native American nation. Although Aheedja is a fictional character, the sufferings depicted are typical of what many Seminole people experienced at the hands of a nation determined to drive them from their homes and destroy their way of life.

John and Mary Lou Missall are authors of The Seminole Wars: America's longest Indian Conflict, and Hollow Victory: A Novel of the Second Seminole War. They are editors of This Miserable Pride of a Soldier: The Letters and Journals of Col. William S. Foster in the Second Seminole War and This Torn Land: Poetry of the Second Seminole War. They are also editors-in-chief of the State of Florida's Seminole Wars Heritage Trail Guide.

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 British left, and Spain returned to Florida, after the American Revolution. A short river called Wakulla offered direct trading routes to the North American interior and the Caribbean. The fertile Muskogean lands west of the United States boundary in what were known as the Spanish borderlands lured white squatters and British and American traders. Their interactions with the Creek Indians and the role of two Creek intermediaries called William and John Kennard with a trading outpost on the Wakulla River fed a rivalry that split the Creeks into two. Who would survive?

A man of abiding honor, tested by a woman of ruinous passion. A woman of unspeakable sins, pursued by a God of unquenchable mercy. Spanish Florida once sheltered Lillian McGirth from her fears. Now, it feeds them. Mercy is for the deserving; for Lillian, an unwed mother accused of treason, there is only battering and defeat, but her fall breaks softly in the arms of an unexpected arrival, a man too beautiful of soul to stain with her lost character. Captain Marcus Buck sails in on a pledge to save Miss McGirth from herself and from her child's father, a ruthless don. All the while, he’s to regard her as virtuous and worthy of protection and to guard said virtue from pilfering. But the terms are flawed since he must first guard her from himself. Regardless, he is determined. He will free her, repair her name—simple labor compared to dodging the army’s noose, mending wounds three years deep, and navigating a host of rebel Natives bent on inflicting more. Through the steady crumble of his pledge, their friendship becomes a consolation, for she knows his pain as no other can or will. Their scars are one; their paths, however, might irrevocably become two… Bitter Eyes No More is a single, complete story and is for those who enjoy saga-length Christian historical romance.

Synthesizes the archaeology of the Apalachicola-lower Chattahoochee Valley region of northwest Florida, southeast Alabama, and southwest Georgia, from 1,300 years ago to recent times

This volume provides an examination of the Black Seminoles: their history in Florida, the Indian Territory, Mexico and Texas, and their important contribution to the pacification of the Rio Grande frontier. The study places them against the backdrops of African slavery, Indian wars and frontier violence, and, using a host of archival and secondary sources, provides an up-to-date synthesis of these largely unknown people. In addition, the book provides new information, particularly about the scouts' activities in the Big Bend. Working closely with historians employed at the Ft. Clark Historical Society, Britten retraced the scouts' steps along the Rio Grande frontier. It is a major resource for those in frontier-western history, military history and the complex interaction of minority peoples in the west.