WEST VOLUSIA AND THE ST. JOHNS RIVER - 6 - Many
of the settlers who drifted down from Georgia and Alabama didn’t have enough money to
start plantations.They planted crops on small farms and rounded up wild hogs and cattle.
These white settlers became known as Crackers, from the sound of whips that they used to
drive cattle. There was little law enforcement in the area. Guerrillas who had grown used to raiding and taking what they wanted from Georgia and the Carolinas during the Revolution saw no reason to stop just because the war ended. As the 1700s faded into the 1800s, various border disputes and military operations throughout Northern Florida encouraged folks in this area to keep their powder dry. One prolonged military raid, led by Andrew Jackson in 1818, has gone down in history as the First Seminole War. A bit of law, order and peace came in 1821, when Spain ceded Florida to the United States. The trickle of Cracker settlers from Georgia and Alabama became a flood after the U.S. took control. West Volusia went through its first economic boom. Several wealthy landowners came from the Carolinas and established thriving plantations in the area. But the prosperity was not to last. It came to a sudden, tragic and bloody halt in January, 1836. Seminoles struck the West Volusia plantations, isolated farms and settlements. Within a month, practically every white in the area was either run off or dead. That was early in the Second Seminole war, which grew into the longest, bloodiest and most expensive campaign waged by the U.S. Army against Native Americans. It lasted from 1835 to 1842. Seven years of small raids and major pitched battles that cost the United States $20 million and the lives of 1,500 soldiers. Nobody knows how many civilians and Seminoles were killed. But 3,824 Seminoles and blacks were forcibly moved from Florida to what now is Oklahoma by the time it was all over. Fictional stories about the war give the impression that it
was fought in the Everglades. Wrong. The war ended in the Everglades area, but much of it
was fought within what now is Volusia County. Most of the Seminoles that weren’t More white settlers came and Florida became a state in 1845. There was a brief flare-up of hostilities in 1858, led by a Chief called Billy Bowlegs. This fight, which involved mainly local militia against a few warriors, is called the Third Seminole War.
|
evicted to the West hunkered down in the southern part
of the state, around the Everglades. 