Through Swamp and Glade

A Tale of the Seminole War

The principal incidents in the story of Coacoochee, as related in the following pages, are historically true. The Seminole War, the most protracted struggle with Indians in which the United States ever engaged, lasted from 1835 to 1842. At its conclusion, though most of the tribe had been removed to the Indian Territory in the far west, there still remained three hundred and one souls uncaptured and unsubdued. This remnant had fled to the almost inaccessible islands of the Big Cypress Swamp, in the extreme southern part of Florida. Rather than undertake the task of hunting them out, General Worth made a verbal treaty with them, by which it was agreed that they should retain that section of country unmolested, so long as they committed no aggressions. From that time they have kept their part of that agreement to the letter, living industrious, peaceful lives, and avoiding all unnecessary contact with the whites. They now number something over five hundred souls, but the tide of white immigration is already lapping over the ill-defined boundaries of their reservation, while white land-grabbers, penetrating the swamps, are seizing their fertile islands and bidding them begone. They stand aghast at this brutal order. Where can they go? What is to become of them? Is there nothing left but to fight and die? It would seem not.