1800-1850 OFFICIAL INDIAN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES
from U.S. Army Center for Military History
Tippecanoe, 21 September - 18 November 1811. In 1804 Tecumseh, a Shawnee, & his medicine man brother, the Prophet, with British backing, began serious efforts to form a new Indian confederacy in the Northwest. Governor William Henry Harrison 1778-1860 of the Indiana Territory rejected Tecumseh's demand that settlers be kept out of the region. In the summer of 1811 Harrison, with the approval of the War Department, undertook to break up the confederacy before it could organize a mayor attack against the settlements.
In September 1811 Harrison moved from Vincennes up the Wabash with a well-trained force of 320 Regular infantry & 650 militia. After building Fort Harrison at Terre Haute as an advanced base, Harrison marched with 800 men toward the main Indian village on Tippecanoe Creek, bivouacking in battle order on the north bank of the Wabash within sight of the village on 6 November. Tecumseh being absent, Harrison conferred with the Prophet who gave the impression that he would not attack while a peace proposal was under consideration. Nevertheless, just before dawn on 7 November 1811, the Indians attacked Harrison's forces. In a wild hand-to-hand encounter the Indians were routed & their village destroyed. Harrison lost 39 killed & missing, 151 wounded; the Indians suffered a similar loss. This indecisive victory did not solve the Indian problems in the Northwest. The tribes of the area were to make common cause with the British in the War of 1812.
Creeks, 27 July 1813- 9 August 1814 & February 1836 - July 1837. The first of the Creek campaigns constitutes a phase of the War of 1812. The Upper Creeks, siding with the English, sacked Fort Mims in the summer of 1813, massacring more than 500 men, women, & children. These same Indians, grown to a force of about 900 warriors, were decisively beaten at Horseshoe Bend (Alabama) late in March 1814 by Andrew Jackson & his force of about 2,000 Regulars, militia, & volunteers, plus several hundred friendly Indians. In 1832 many Creeks were sent to the Indian Territory, & most of those remaining in the Southeast were removed there in 1836-37 when they went on the warpath during the Second Seminole War.
Seminoles, 20 November 1817 - 31 October 1818, 28 December 1835 - 14 August 1842 & 15 December 1855 - May 1858. This conflict began with the massacre of about 50 Americans near an army post in Georgia‹climax to a series of raids against American settlements by Seminoles based in Spanish Florida. Brig. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, Indian commissioner of the area, attempted countermeasures but soon found himself & his force of 600 Regulars confined to Fort Scott (Alabama) by the Seminoles. War Department instructions to Gaines had permitted the pursuit of Indians into Florida but had forbidden interference if the Indians took refuge in Spanish posts. Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, who was ordered to take over the operation, chose to interpret Gaines' instructions as sanctioning a full-scale invasion of the Spanish colony. He organized a force of about 7,500 volunteers, militia, subsidized Creeks, & Regulars (4th & 7th Infantry & a battalion of the 4th Artillery), & invaded Florida with part of thin force in the spring of 1818. Jackson destroyed Seminole camps, captured Pensacola (capital of Spanish Florida) & other Spanish strongholds, & executed two British subjects, Alexander Arbuthnot & Robert Ambrister, accused of inciting & arming the Indians. These activities threatened American relations with Great Britain & jeopardized negotiations with Spain pertinent to cession of Florida (Adams-Onis Treaty, 1819). Eventually the British were mollified & a compromise agreement was reached with the Spanish under which American forces were withdrawn from Florida without repudiating the politically popular Jackson. As for the Seminole problem, it was temporarily allayed but by no means solved.
In the Treaties of Payne's Landing (1832) & Fort Gibson (1833) the Seminoles had agreed to give up their lands, but they refused to move out. Following the arrest & release of Osceola, their leader, in 1835 Seminole depredations rapidly increased. These culminated 28 December in the massacre of Capt. Francis L. Dade's detachment of 330 Regulars (elements of the 2d & 4th Artillery & 4th Infantry) enroute from Fort Brooke (Tampa) to Fort King (Ocala)‹a disastrous loss for the small, Regular force of 600 men in Florida. Brig. Gen. Duncan L. Clinch, commanding Fort King, took the offensive immediately with 200 men & on 31 December 1835 defeated the Indians on the Withlacoochee River.
The War Department, meanwhile, had ordered Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott, commander of the Eastern Department, to Florida to direct operations against the Seminoles. Most of the hostilities had occurred in General Gaines' Western Department, but the War Department expected impending troubles in Texas to keep Gaines occupied. Nevertheless, Gaines had quickly raised about 1,000 men in New Orleans &, acting on his own authority, embarked for Florida in February 1836. Even after learning of Scott's appointment, Gaines seized supplies collected by Scott at Fort Drane & pressed forward until heavily attacked by Seminoles. He succeeded in extricating his force only with help from Scott's troops. Shortly thereafter Gaines returned to New Orleans.
Completion of preparations for Scott's proposed three-pronged offensive converging on the Withlacoochee were delayed by Gaines' use of Scott's supplies, expiration of volunteer enlistments, & temporary diversion of troops to deal with the Creeks who were then on the warpath in Georgia & Alabama. (See Creek Campaigns.) Before the campaign could get underway, Scott was recalled to Washington to face charges of dilatoriness & of casting slurs on the fighting qualities of volunteers. Beginning in December 1836, Maj. Gen. Thomas S. Jesup carried out a series of small actions against the Seminoles, & in September 1837 Osceola was captured. Colonel Zachary Taylor decisively defeated a sizeable Indian force near Lake Okeechobee in December 1837.
After Taylor's expedition no more large forces were assembled on either side. Numerous small expeditions were carried out chiefly by Regular troops commanded successively by Jesup, Taylor, & Brig. Gen. Walker A. Armistead, & many posts & roads were constructed. Col. William J. Worth finally conceived a plan which consisted of campaigning during the enervating summer seasons with the object of destroying the Indian's crops. This plan was successful in driving a sufficient number of Seminoles from their swampy retreats to permit official termination of the war on 10 May 1842.
During the long & difficult campaign some 5,000 Regulars had been employed (including elements of the 1st, 2d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, & 8th Infantry) with a loss of nearly 1,500 killed. Nearly 20,000 volunteers also participated in the war which cost some thirty-five million dollars & resulted in the removal of some 3,500 Seminoles to the Indian Territory.
The final campaign against the remnants of the Seminoles in Florida consisted mainly of a series of skirmishes between small, roving Indian bands & the 4th Artillery which was stationed at Fort Brooke.
Black Hawk, 26 April - 30 September 1832. A faction of Sauk & Fox Indians, living in eastern Iowa & led by Black Hawk, threatened to go on the warpath in 1832 when squatters began to preempt Illinois lands formerly occupied by the two tribes. The faction held that cession of these lands to the Federal Government in 1804 had been illegal. Black Hawk asserted he would remove the squatters forcibly & attempted without success to organize a confederacy & make an alliance with the British. Finally, when Black Hawk's followers, including some 500 warriors, crossed the Mississippi into Illinois in early 1832 & refused to return, the 1st & 6th Infantry under Brig. Gen. Henry Atkinson, together with Illinois militia, set out in pursuit up the Rock River. A volunteer detachment suffered heavy losses in a skirmish on 14 May 1832 near present-day Dixon, Illinois, & Atkinson had to pause to recruit new militia. On 21 July a volunteer force severely chastised Black Hawk's band at Madison, Wisconsin, & Atkinson completely defeated what remained of it at the confluence of the Mississippi & Bad Axe on 2 August 1832, capturing Black Hawk & killing 150 of his braves.
