The result of Seminoles responding to settlers and US Army scouting
parties encroaching on their lands, perhaps deliberately to provoke a
violent response that would result in the removal of the last of the
Seminoles from Florida. After an army surveying crew found and destroyed a Seminole plantation west of the Everglades in December 1855, Chief Billy Bowlegs led a raid near Fort Myers,
setting off a conflict which consisted mainly of raids and reprisals
with no large battles fought. American forces again strove to destroy
the Seminoles' food supply, and in 1858, most of the remaining
Seminoles, weary of war and facing starvation, agreed to be shipped to
Oklahoma in exchange for promises of safe passage and cash payments to
their chiefs. An estimated 100 Seminoles still refused to leave and
retreated deep into the Everglades to live on land that was unwanted by
white settlers.
