Why go
The locations of Tallahassee and Fort Myers become clearer through the territorial period, while the Everglades carries the history of communities resisting removal. This account also connects Cape Florida with Black Seminole escape routes to the Bahamas. It offers a more complete reading of the landscape than a story centered only on American expansion.
The full story
After Florida passed from Spain to the United States, Tallahassee became the territorial capital between the former centers of St. Augustine and Pensacola. Settlers expanded plantation agriculture and pressed the government to remove Native communities. Seminoles and Black Seminoles faced both loss of land and the threat posed by a slaveholding society. Some escaped from Cape Florida to the Bahamas. The Treaty of Payne's Landing in 1832 proposed relocation west of the Mississippi. Many Seminoles rejected removal, and the Second Seminole War began in 1835. Resistance continued despite prolonged Army campaigns. A later conflict included the military post renamed Fort Myers. Some Seminoles remained in the Everglades after the wars. Florida became a state in 1845, but its political struggles continued through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Understanding these events changes the meaning of frontier place names: military posts and new settlements were part of contested occupation, with lasting consequences for Native and Black communities.