Florida Territory
Beginning in late 1835, Osceola and the Seminole allies began a guerrilla war against the U.S. forces. Numerous generals fought and failed, succumbing to the heat and disease as well as lack of knowledge of the land. It was not until General Thomas Jesup captured many of the key Seminole chiefs, including Osceola who died in captivity of illness, that the battles began to die down. The Seminoles were eventually forced to migrate. Florida joined the Union as the 27th state on March 3, 1845. By this time, almost all of the Seminoles were gone, except for a small group living in the Everglades.
Polk County, Florida
For around 250 years after Ponce De Leon arrived on the peninsula, the Spanish nominally ruled Florida but established few settlements. In the late 17th century, Florida went through an unstable period in which the French and British ruled the peninsula. By this time, the remnants of early Native Americans joined with refugee Creek Native Americans from Georgia and The Carolinas to form the Seminole Indian Tribe, through a process of ethnogenesis.After the American Revolution, the peninsula briefly reverted to Spanish rule. In 1819, Florida became a U.S. territory as a result of the Adams-Onis Treaty. From the 1830s until 1842, the US conducted the Seminole Wars in an effort to remove the Seminole from the territory. Some were removed to Indian Territory, but others retreated to the Everglades and never surrendered.