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Article: Seminole Wars
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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SEMINOLE WARS
SEMINOLE WARS.
In the first decades of the nineteenth century, Seminole Indians in the Spanish colony of Florida faced numerous pressures. With the Spanish and then the French expelled from Louisiana, interior southeastern Indians no longer had European allies for protection or as markets for their goods. Everywhere, Americans were turning Indian lands into farms
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particularly along the fertile rivers of the South, where cotton plantations mushroomed. Many Seminole communities increasingly incorporated runaway African American slaves into their societies, in which the escapees became productive community members. Meanwhile, as southern plantation owners became more ...