Brass Bowl

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Fort Brooke & the Indians

 When the U.S. acquired Florida, in 1821, the policy of the U.S. government still favored making treaties & attempting to buy Indian lands.  Within a decade, however, the situation changed dramatically.  Gen. Andrew Jackson became President Jackson.  The Indian Removal Act (1830) made it official policy that any future treaties would require the Natives to move to the newly created “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi River.  The situation of the Florida Indians already had been worsened significantly by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823), which restricted them to poor, wet & unproductive lands in the center of the peninsula.  The military authorities tried to restrict liquor dealers from the reservation, but with little success.  Some settlers, desirous of Indian lands & the economic upturn that a military presence would bring, disguised themselves as Indians & attacked their own neighbors in order to justify a call for a military buildup.  Promised supplies did not arrive on time; the Indian’s planting & harvesting cycles were disrupted; & starvation became a real possibility.  The Treaty of Payne’s Landing (on the St. John’s River), forced upon the Florida Indians in 1832, was strictly a Removal treaty.  The determination of the U.S. government to enforce this treaty would precipitate the longest & most costly Indian war in U.S. history.  The entire fighting system of the U.S. Army, Navy, & Marine Corp would change because of the experiences of the soldier at Fort Brooke & other Florida forts during the Seminole Wars of Removal.