Frontier Wars

Frontier Wars. . Between 1817 and 1819 the Seminole Indians engaged in sporadic raides and murders retreating after each foray into Florida where they came under the protection of the Spanish Flag. Under the command of Andrew Jackson, American forces defeated the Sminoles and captured Pensacola. While the campaign itself was rather insignificant, it nearly caused a war with Spain and Great Britan, and did result in the acquisition of Florida. The second Seminole War began in 1836 when the Seminole's refused to leave lands given up by the treaty. After six years of trying to drive them out, a campaign of extermination succeeded in routing the Seminoles from the swamps., Further west, forced to move beyond the Mississippi River in 1823, many members of the Sac and Fox tribes followed a chief, Black Hawk, to their ancestral lands in Illinois in 1832. After many encounters, the followers of Black Hawk were defeated. After the capture of Black Hawk and his two sons, the uprising ended. It was during this war that a militiaman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, would gain his only military experience., During the quarter century following the Civil War, the Native American was forced ever westward. As the Civil War ended, improved routes of travel led to vastly increased settlements and white Americans in increaseing numbers headed west seeking land, gold and commerce. The Army was tasked with providing security for the new settlers, and at the same time reconiling conflicts with the Indians. The result has been referred to as the Indian Wars. Representatives of the skirmishes that occured was the Battle of Prairie Dog Creek on August 21, 1867. The Amercan force combined an element of the Army's famous black "Buffalo Soldiers" 10th Calvary and the 18th Kansas Volunteer Calvary, a forerunner to the Kansas National Guard. This Battle ended in a victory for the Army, and the fall of the year, treties were signed with the tribes of the Southern Plains.