Brass Bowl

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War’s End

“They are taking us beyond Miami,

They are taking us beyond the Caloosa River,

They are taking us to the end of our Tribe,

They are taking us to Palm Beach,

Coming back beside Lake Okeechobee,

They are taking us to an old town in the West.”

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“We are going with Washington [government].

What boat do we get in?”

Seminole laments

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The years following 1858, the end of the 3^rd, & last, of the Seminole Ware were time of sad reorganization for Florida’s Indians. Their families had been torn apart, their ceremonial cycles had been disrupted, & their agricultural base had been destroyed. In their main objective, however, they had been successful. Those few hundred of the people who had fought so valiantly to remain had found refuge in the wild & harsh Everglades, where no others dared venture. They were profoundly weary, but they were alive, & still in their homeland. By the 1880′s they would once again return to Tampa, to the Cotanchobee of their ancestors. They would meet white settlers in peace asking, once again, only to be left alone to live their lives. This time, they would find understanding.

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Note:  The bronze plaques are no longer there.  The raised wall is no longer there.  It was bulldozed shortly after I took the pictures, and now construction trailers sit on the spot.  I can only hope that the plaques are installed in the new History Museum being built.

In the near future I hope to be able to move the series of posts to a separate page for easier viewing in its entirety.  There will be a few more items I will add to the story, and hopefully I can report good news on these plaques.

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The U.S. & the Indians.

 The 19^th-century conflicts recorded in U.S. history as the 1^st, 2^nd, & 3^rd Seminole Wars were, in reality, part of a much larger & longer clash of cultures.  Since its own birth, in conflict, the U.S. has wrestled the “the Indian problem.”  Although the tribes were recognized as sovereign nations &, therefore, independent actors in this international drama, the continuous population growth & ever-expanding settlement of the new “Americans” spawned almost a century of Wars Of Indian Removal that were destined to end, finally, at Fort Brooke, Florida, the Indians’ Cotanchobee, in 1858.  From the Iroquois in the north, to the Cherokees in the Carolinas &, finally, to the Seminoles in Florida, the U.S. fought the Indians over control of land.  In 1813 U.S. soldiers had crossed an international border to burn Indian towns in Spanish-Florida.  In 1817-18, Andrew Jackson entered Spanish-Florida & destroyed Indian towns, crops, & livestock, in the 1^st Seminole War.  By the Treaty of Moultrie Creek (near St. Augustine), in 1823, the Florida tribes were confined to a reservation in the interior of the peninsula, but getting them to go there was another problem entirely.  Supplying them with promised foodstuffs was yet another.  A military fortification, to be constructed on Tampa Bay, would permit the U.S. government to get promised supplies to the Indians & also would defend against Cuban Spaniards who might supply their old Indian friends with arms and ammunition.