Review of
The Seminole Wars,
by Henrietta Buckmaster
Five out of five stars
Some points of history not often stated
The history of Florida
relative to the United States is not a pleasant one and some of the darker
aspects are emphasized in this book. When the territory known as Florida was
under Spanish control after the American War of Independence, that governance
was tenuous at best. Many in the southern United States considered the border
to be at most a minor inconvenience.
What was
considered the most annoying from the perspective of the slave owners was that
many escaped slaves crossed into Florida and formed communities with the native
Seminoles. In the early years of the nineteenth century, slavery was a booming
business in the United States, the largest domestic slave market was in fact in
Washington D. C. within sight of the Capitol building.
This put great
pressure on the U. S. Government, and it was considered a major diplomatic coup
when Spain ceded control of Florida to the United States. This removed the last
impediment to the slave catchers going into Florida and claiming any black
person that they encountered as a runaway slave. The native Seminoles coexisted
very well with the black communities and they formed a common armed front
against the encroaching whites.
As is made
clear in this book, that common front was solid, the Seminoles were one of the
few Native American tribes that supported the “free” blacks in their struggles.
That is a historical fact that is rarely mentioned. They fought together
against the inevitable takeover of their land
by whites.
A second point
made in this book is that large numbers of the Creek tribes eagerly joined the
efforts of the U. S. Army in conquering Florida. They were offered booty in the
form of captured blacks to be taken as slaves. From that perspective, much of
the fighting could be considered a civil war between the Native Americans. This
was after many of the Creeks had been transported to land out west. Large
numbers of Native Americans fighting other Native Americans is a fact not often
mentioned in the study of history.
The war to
subjugate Florida was a nasty, brutal one. There were several occasions when U.
S. commanders violated a stated truce when Seminole leaders met them under an
agreed upon sign of peace. At times, the U. S. Army was reduced to being a gang
of slave catchers, so much so that there were significant tensions up the chain
of command all the way to Washington. In classic scorched Earth warfare, the
Army destroyed crops in the fields, confiscated grain and cattle so the blacks
and Seminoles had to either surrender or starve.
The war against
the Native Americans was always a brutal and unprincipled one. However, unlike
in the west, the war in Florida was intertwined with slavery. One of the few
good things that came from it was that it triggered the beginning of the anti-slavery
movement in the United States.
