The name given to the Native Americans of Florida is thought to have two origins- one is the idea that the word "Seminole" is a corruption of the Spanish word "cimarron" which means "wild"; the other is that it comes from the Creek words "ishti semoli" meaning "wildmen". By the early 19th century, the term "Seminole" was used to indicate the Native Americans of Florida. Due to rapidly expanding colonization of the Eastern Sea Board, a number of bloody wars broke out between the settlers and the Native Americans. The last Creek War of the early 1700's drove a number of "bands" from the Creek Tribe south, out of the Carolinas and into southern Georgia and Florida. These bands included the Miccosukees. By 1800, the Seminoles were prospering, raising cattle and growing crops.

Upon coming to Florida in the early 19th century, the settlers were eager to claim land, and pressure from the slave owners from the north wishing to reclaim their lost slaves resulted in a series of bloody battles between the Seminoles and the Whites. 1814 saw the joining of the Red Stick faction of the Upper Creeks with the Seminoles. The first war, called the Fist Seminole War, erupted when some 300 men were sent to respond to reports of violence between Indians and settlers. These troops burned Fowltown, a Native American and Black town. The Seminoles responded to this by firing on a barrage of soldiers.

The Second Seminole War, by far the most important war, started in 1835. Beginning back in 1817, when Andrew Jackson (Sharp Knife) invaded Seminole territory and killed and burned settlements. The Treaty of Payne's Landing was signed in 1832, requiring the Indians to move west by 1835. However, when troops arrived to enforce the treaty, they were faced with an attacking Seminole front. This war was fought guerrilla style, in the swamps and hammocks. The American government, under Andrew Jackson, spent some $20 million trying to remove the Seminoles. Seminole Osceola, whose fighting ability and fiery spirit made him the symbol of resistance, was captured in 1837. The Third Seminole War broke out in 1849, when a white man was killed by Indians. This one ended in 1858. Today, there are Native American reservations at Immokalee, Hollywood, Brighton and along the Big Cypress Swamp. Florida's Miccosukee population are the only known Native Americans never to have signed a Treaty with the United States.