The exact date nor location of Wild Cat's birth is unknown. Although challenged, it's believed that he was born in 1807 on an island in modern-day Osceola County's Lake Tohopekaliga. There's also information about Wild Cat having a twin sister that died at birth. Wild Cat became a prominent figure during the Second Seminole War at only around nineteen years old. His father was captured by military forces in 1837 and was imprisoned at Fort Marion. His father died some time in 1839 while being sent to Indian Territory alongside a mass amount of Seminoles and other tribes. By Joshua R. Giddings [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Later in 1837, in October, Wild Cat met up with American military forces in a peace headdress and said he was a representative of Osceola and he began talks and negotiations with Thomas S. Jesup. The military forces agreed to the peace talks but, once the Seminole arrived at the meeting, they were arrested and imprisoned by Jesup. The s...

Skeleton Canyon By BAlvarius (Own work) [ CC BY-SA 3.0  or  GFDL ],  via Wikimedia Commons Skeleton Canyon is located in the far southeast corner of Arizona with side canyons leading into New Mexico.  It is located just a handful of miles from the Mexican border.  In the 1800's, it was used by Mexican smugglers and bandits to smuggle goods and riches into the U.S. for sale on the black market.  It was well known by American bandits as well.     In July of 1881, in a small Mexican town, some Mexican bandits, known as the Estrada Gang, were resting after looting the town of Monterrey.  An American bandit named Jim Hughes overheard them discussing their plan to smuggle their treasure into the U.S. through the long narrow canyon, later to be named Skeleton Canyon.  Jim Hughes spent much of his time in some of the wild and lawless towns of the area frequented by many outlaws, such as Charleston (Arizona), Galeyville (Arizona) and Shakespear...

While the First Seminole War officially began in 1816, conflicts began years earlier. These early years had a great influence on the outbreak of the Florida War. After Andrew Jackson's forces began to enter regions of Florida controlled by Spain, Spain had no choice but to begin to hand Florida over to the United States. Florida was officially handed over in 1819 and after the Adams-Onís Treaty. This handover was mostly due to the Spanish seeing Florida as hard to inhabit and the climate created unhealthy conditions for the Spanish. Furthermore, Napoleon was active in Europe and Spain saw him as being more worthy of their attention than Florida. Andrew Jackson Beginning around 1790, Spain, along with the British, helped to move Irish Catholics, English citizens, and citizens in the United States into Seminole territory. They gave land deeds to these "settlers" that agreed to stay on the land for a decade. After the decade, they'd be exempt from paying taxes and ...