By Starr Munro Riverbend News
When America won independence in 1776, another battle was already brewing at home. Although the freshly born United States of America didn't have the power of a centuries old monarchy to contend with anymore, certain conflicts were quickly becoming full-blown wars. With many English descendants embracing a new identity of their new country, pioneers were beginning to make their way out of the cities and towns that had established populations and set out to discover the American dream for themselves. Pioneers faced the wilderness to find undeveloped land with hopes of carving out a homestead for themselves and their families. However, the problem with some of these undeveloped lands was although they had no courthouses or post offices, some people already called them home and were not willing to accommodate these young Americans and their dreams. The tribes of North America's Native Americans were beginning to have persistent conflicts with the settlers who moved too close, and north Florida was no exception to that issue.
The land that Hamilton County consists of is just one location that saw significant change in the 1800s, due to the discord between tribes and pioneers. Florida officially became a state in 1845 andthe city of Jasper was established 13 years later, in 1858. It was a good area for a city, close enough to get supplies, but secluded enough from other settlements that they could maintain a sense of solitude and independence. But Jasper would have been a lot more complicated without the 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek. The U.S. government and several groups of Indians living in present-day Florida made an agreement to establish a reservation in the center of the Florida peninsula and if not for the treaty, Florida may have taken a lot longer to develop into what it has become today.
With many of the first nations people of Florida wiped out from disease, and multiple seminole wars further devastating relations between the tribes and settlers, the tribes eventually agreed to move to the east side of the Suwannee River, hoping for less conflict in the future. A large amount of Native Americans in that area at that time were Seminole, from the Creek nation of Georgia and are federally recognized as the Miccosukee tribe today. The Miccosukee people currently make the Everglades their home, a long ways from north Florida. The River of Grass is one of the only places in America that both the Spanish and the English found impossible to navigate. Many tribes found sanctuary in the Everglades during the Indian Removal Act, and escaped slaves also hid out in the unmapped territory and evaded capture for many years to come.
Jasper is said to be on what were originally Miccosukee lands. A suspected Indian burial mound is located in Baisden Swamp on the outskirts of the small city. Six miles north of Jasper along the Alapaha River, an established village called Halato Micco once stood. Pottery, spear points and arrowheads have often been found in the area. It has been speculated that "Billy Bowlegs" himself may have once resided in the village for some time, and they named their village after his birth name, Holata Micco. Bowlegs was a man who played a large part in the Second and Third Seminole Wars, and is quite literally the stuff of legends. He further gained infamy as a Union Captain during the American Civil War, using the guerrilla warfare that helped him evade capture for years in the Everglades.