The Tenuous Black-Indian Alliance In Florida During The 1820s

Many people remain unfamiliar with the biological and cultural ties that exist between African Americans and Native Americans. European colonial expansion and racial constructs led to slavery, expulsion, and wars that brought three different races to collide and compete for the same limited space. With European colonial expansion, free and enslaved Africans ran away to Native American lands for refuge. These encounters led to an increased population of mixed-race people attempting to redefine a new identity for the Americas. Africans, Indians, and some Europeans would form alliances that for decades contributed to fighting colonial domination. In Florida, there was an African and Indian collaboration that fought and defended themselves from Spanish and British colonial rule, and later American intrusion into their

But the reality was that the Black Seminoles and Seminole Indians outnumbered the low number of fugitive slaves in Florida. And within two years, most of these slaves would be returned to their owners thus limiting their role in influencing the Seminoles or the outcome of the war. But more importantly, the actions of the escaped slaves and their contribution did signal a significant argument for a slave rebellion concurrent with the War. The alliance among the Freedmen, the escaped slaves, and the Seminoles, though, was solidified at the beginning of the War, when they collectively attacked plantations in Northeast Florida in late