James Monroe
James Monroe was an American statesman, lawyer and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty, his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, he is best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas. He served as the governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, the U. S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, the eighth Secretary of War. Born into a planter family in Westmoreland County, Monroe served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress; as a delegate to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Monroe opposed the ratification of the United States Constitution. In 1790, he won election to the Senate, he left the Senate in 1794 to serve as President George Washington's ambassador to France, but was recalled by Washington in 1796.
Monroe won election as Governor of Virginia in 1799 and supported Jefferson's candidacy in the 1800 presidential election. As President Jefferson's special envoy, Monroe helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase, through which the United States nearly doubled in size. Monroe fell out with his long-time friend, James Madison, after the latter rejected the Monroe–Pinkney Treaty that Monroe negotiated with Britain, he unsuccessfully challenged Madison in the 1808 presidential election, but in April 1811 he joined Madison's administration as Secretary of State. During the stages of the War of 1812, Monroe served as Madison's Secretary of State and Secretary of War, his war-time leadership established him as Madison's heir apparent, he defeated Federalist Party candidate Rufus King in the 1816 presidential election. Monroe's presidency was coterminous with the Era of Good Feelings, as the Federalist Party collapsed as a national political force; as president, Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and banned slavery from territories north of the parallel 36°30′ north.
In foreign affairs and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams favored a policy of conciliation with Britain and a policy of expansionism against the Spanish Empire. In the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain, the United States secured Florida and established its western border with New Spain. In 1823, Monroe announced the United States' opposition to any European intervention in the independent countries of the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine, which became a landmark in American foreign policy. Monroe was a member of the American Colonization Society, which supported the colonization of Africa by freed slaves, Liberia's capital of Monrovia is named in his honor. Following his retirement in 1825, Monroe was plagued by financial difficulties, he died in New York City on July 4, 1831. He has been ranked as an above-average president. James Monroe was born on April 28, 1758, in his parents' house located in a wooded area of Westmoreland County, Virginia; the marked site is one mile from the unincorporated community known today as Virginia.
The James Monroe Family Home Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. His father Spence Monroe was a moderately prosperous planter who practiced carpentry, his mother Elizabeth Jones married Spence Monroe in 1752 and they had five children: Elizabeth, Spence and Joseph Jones. His paternal 2nd great grandfather Patrick Andrew Monroe emigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century, was part of an ancient Scottish clan known as Clan Munro. In 1650 he patented a large tract of land in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Monroe's mother was the daughter of a wealthy immigrant by the name of James Jones, who immigrated from Wales and had settled in nearby King George County, Virginia. Jones was an architect. Among James Monroe's ancestors were French Huguenot immigrants, who came to Virginia in 1700. At age eleven, Monroe was enrolled in the lone school in the county. Monroe attended this school for only eleven weeks a year. During this time, Monroe formed a lifelong friendship with John Marshall.
Monroe's mother died in 1772, his father died two years later. Though he inherited property from both of his parents, the sixteen-year-old Monroe was forced to withdraw from school to support his younger brothers, his childless maternal uncle, Joseph Jones, became a surrogate father to his siblings. A member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Jones took Monroe to the capital of Williamsburg and enrolled him in the College of William and Mary. Jones introduced Monroe to important Virginians such as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Washington. In 1774, opposition to the British government grew in the Thirteen Colonies in reaction to the "Intolerable Acts," and Virginia sent a delegation to the First Continental Congress. Monroe became involved in the opposition to Lord Dunmore, the colonial governor of Virginia, he took part in the storming of the Governor's Palace. In early 1776, about a year and a half after his enrollment, Monroe dropped out of college and joined the 3rd Virginia Regiment in the Continental Army.
As the fledgling army valued literacy in its officers, Monroe was commissioned with the rank of lieutenant, serving under Captain William Washington. After months of training and seven hundred Virginia infantrymen were called north to
Seminole Wars
The Seminole Wars known as the Florida Wars, were three conflicts in Florida between the Seminole, a Native American tribe that formed in Florida in the early 18th century, the United States Army. Both in human and monetary terms, the Seminole Wars were the longest and most expensive of the Indian Wars in United States history; the First Seminole War began with General Andrew Jackson's excursions into West Florida and Spanish Florida against the Seminoles after the conclusion of the War of 1812. The governments of Great Britain and Spain both expressed outrage over the "invasion". However, Spain was unable to defend or control the territory, as several local uprisings and rebellions made clear; the Spanish Crown agreed to cede Florida to the United States per the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, the transfer took place in 1821. According to the Treaty of Moultrie Creek of 1823, the Seminoles were required to leave northern Florida and were confined to a large reservation in the center of the Florida peninsula.
The U. S. government enforced the treaty by building a series of forts and trading posts in the territory along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The Second Seminole War was the result of the United States government attempting to force the Seminoles to leave Florida altogether and move to Indian Territory per the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Fighting began with the Dade Massacre in December 1835, raids, a handful of larger battles raged throughout the Florida peninsula over the next few years. At first, the outgunned and outnumbered Seminoles used guerrilla warfare to frustrate the more numerous American military forces. In October 1836, General Thomas Sidney Jesup was sent to Florida to take command of the campaign. After futilely chasing bands of Seminole warriors through the wilderness, Jesup changed tactics and began seeking out and destroying Seminole farms and villages, a strategy which changed the course of the war. Jesup authorized the controversial captures of Seminole leaders Osceola and Micanopy under signs of truce.
By the early 1840s, most of the Seminole population in Florida had been killed in battle, ravaged by starvation and disease, or relocated to Indian Territory. Several hundred Seminoles were allowed to remain in an unofficial reservation in southwest Florida; the Third Seminole War was again the result of Seminoles responding to settlers and U. S. Army scouting parties encroaching on their lands deliberately to provoke a violent response that would result in the removal of the last of the Seminoles from Florida. After an army surveying crew found and destroyed a Seminole plantation west of the Everglades in December 1855, Chief Billy Bowlegs led a raid near Fort Myers, setting off a conflict which consisted of raids and reprisals, with no large battles fought. American forces again strove to destroy the Seminoles' food supply, by 1858, most of the remaining Seminoles, weary of war and facing starvation, agreed to be shipped to Oklahoma in exchange for promises of safe passage and cash payments.
An estimated 500 Seminoles still refused to leave and retreated deep into the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp to live on land, unwanted by white settlers. The original indigenous peoples of Florida declined in number after the arrival of European explorers in the early 1500s because the Native Americans had little resistance to diseases newly introduced from Europe. Spanish suppression of native revolts further reduced the population in northern Florida until the early 1600s, at which time the establishment of a series of Spanish missions improved relations and stabilized the population. Raids from the newly-established English Province of Carolina beginning in the mid-1600s began another steep decline in the indigenous population. By 1707, English soldiers and their Yamasee Indian allies had killed, carried off, or driven away most of the remaining native inhabitants during a series of raids across the Florida panhandle and down the full length of the peninsula. In the first decade of the 18th century.
10,000–12,000 Indians were taken as slaves according to the governor of La Florida and by 1710, observers noted that north Florida was depopulated. The Spanish missions all closed; the few remaining natives fled west to Pensacola and beyond or east to the vicinity of St. Augustine; when Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the majority of surviving Florida Indians took passage with the Spanish to Cuba or New Spain. During the mid-1700s, small bands from various Native American tribes from the southeastern United States began moving into the unoccupied lands of Florida. In 1715, the Yamasee moved into Florida as allies of the Spanish, after conflicts with the English colonies. Creek people, at first the Lower Creek but including Upper Creek started moving into Florida from the area of Georgia; the Mikasuki, Hitchiti-speakers, settled around. Another group of Hitchiti speakers, led by Cowkeeper, settled in what is now Alachua County, an area where the Spanish had maintained cattle ranches in the 17th century.
Because one of the best-known ranches was called El Rancho de la Chúa, the region became known as the "Alachua Prairie". The Spanish in Saint Augustine began calling the Alachua Creek Cimarrones, which meant "wild ones" or "runaways"; this was the probable origin of the term "Seminole". This name was applied to the other groups in Florida, although the Indians still regarded themselves as members of different tribes. Other Native Am
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States, the United Kingdom, their respective allies from June 1812 to February 1815. Historians in Britain see it as a minor theater of the Napoleonic Wars. From the outbreak of war with Napoleonic France, Britain had enforced a naval blockade to choke off neutral trade to France, which the US contested as illegal under international law. To man the blockade, Britain impressed American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy. Incidents such as the Chesapeake–Leopard affair, which happened five years before the war, inflamed anti-British sentiment in the US. In 1811, the British were in turn outraged by the Little Belt affair, in which 11 British sailors died. Britain supplied Native Americans who raided American settlers on the frontier, hindering American expansion and provoking resentment. Historians debate whether the desire to annex some or all of British North America contributed to the American decision to go to war. On June 18, 1812, US President James Madison, after heavy pressure from the War Hawks in Congress, signed the American declaration of war into law.
With most of its army in Europe fighting Napoleon, Britain adopted a defensive strategy, with offensive operations limited to the border, the western frontier. American prosecution of the war effort suffered from its unpopularity in New England, where it was derogatorily referred to as "Mr. Madison's War". American defeats at the Siege of Detroit and the Battle of Queenston Heights thwarted attempts to seize Upper Canada, improving British morale. American attempts to invade Lower Canada and capture Montreal failed. In 1813, the Americans won the Battle of Lake Erie, gaining control of the lake, at the Battle of the Thames defeated Tecumseh's Confederacy, securing a primary war goal. A final American attempt to invade Canada was fought to a draw at the Battle of Lundy's Lane during the summer of 1814. At sea, the powerful Royal Navy blockaded American ports, cutting off trade and allowing the British to raid the coast at will. In 1814, one of these raids burned the capital, but the Americans repulsed British attempts to invade New York and Maryland, ending invasions of the northern and mid-Atlantic United States from Canada.
Fighting took place overseas in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In neighbouring Spanish Florida, a two-day battle for the city of Pensacola ended in Spanish surrender. In Britain, there was mounting opposition to wartime taxation. With the abdication of Napoleon, the war with France ended and Britain ceased impressment, rendering the issue of the impressment of American sailors moot; the British were able to increase the strength of the blockade on the United States coast, annihilating American maritime trade, but attempts to invade the U. S. ended unsuccessfully. Peace negotiations began in August 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24. News of the peace did not reach America for some time. Unaware of the treaty, British forces invaded Louisiana and were defeated at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815; these late victories were viewed by Americans as having restored national honour, leading to the collapse of anti-war sentiment and the beginning of the Era of Good Feelings, a period of national unity.
News of the treaty arrived shortly thereafter. The treaty was unanimously ratified by the US Senate on February 17, 1815, ending the war with no boundary changes. Historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying the origins of the War of 1812; this section summarizes several contributing factors which resulted in the declaration of war by the United States. As Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered to be British insults such as the Chesapeake–Leopard affair. H. W. Brands says, "The other war hawks spoke of the struggle with Britain as a second war of independence; the approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was about vindication of American identity." Americans at the time and historians since have called it the United States' "Second War of Independence". The British were offended by what they considered insults such as the Little Belt affair.
This gave the British a particular interest in capturing the United States flagship President, which they succeeded in doing in 1815. In 1807, Britain introduced a series of trade restrictions via the Orders in Council to impede neutral trade with France, which Britain was fighting in the Napoleonic Wars; the United States contested these restrictions as illegal under international law. Historian Reginald Horsman states, "a large section of influential British opinion, both in the government and in the country, thought that America presented a threat to British maritime supremacy."The American merchant marine had nearly doubled between 1802 and 1810, making it by far the largest neutral fleet. Britain was the largest trading partner, receiving 80% of U. S. cotton and 50% of other U. S. exports. The British public and press were resentful of commercial competition; the United States' view was. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded to 176 ships of the line and 600 ships overall, requiring 140,000 sailors to man.
While the Royal Navy could man its ships with volunteers in peacetime, it competed in wartime with merchant shi
Colonel (United States)
In the United States Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, colonel is the most senior field grade military officer rank above the rank of lieutenant colonel and below the rank of brigadier general. It is equivalent to the naval rank of captain in the other uniformed services; the pay grade for colonel is O-6. The insignia of the rank of colonel, as seen on the right, is worn on the officer's left side. By law, a colonel must have 22 years of service and a minimum of three years of service as a lieutenant colonel before being promoted; the insignia for a colonel is a silver eagle, a stylized representation of the eagle dominating the Great Seal of the United States. As on the Great Seal, the eagle has a U. S. shield superimposed on its chest and is holding an olive branch and bundle of arrows in its talons. However, in simplification of the Great Seal image, the insignia lacks the scroll in the eagle's mouth and the rosette above its head. On the Great Seal, the olive branch is always clutched in the eagle's right-side talons, while the bundle of arrows is always clutched in the left-side talons.
The head of the eagle faces towards the olive branch, rather than the arrows, advocating peace rather than war. As a result, the head of the eagle always faces towards the viewer's left. However, when worn as a single insignia with no matching pair, such as on the patrol cap, garrison cap/flight cap, or the front of the Army ACU, there is a split between the services on which mirror image of the eagle should be worn. In the United States Army and United States Air Force, the eagle is always worn with "the head of the eagle to the wearer's right," with the olive branch clutched in the eagle's right hand talons. In the United States Marine Corps, United States Navy, United States Coast Guard and NOAA, the eagle is worn with "the head facing forward" on the wearer's right side of the garrison cover. Since respective service's officer insignia is worn on the left side and the rank insignia is worn on the right hand side of the Marine, Coast Guard and NOAA garrison caps, the eagle is facing to the eagle's left with the olive branch clutched in the eagle's left hand talons, a mirror opposite to the wear of the single eagle for Army and Air Force officers.
The United States rank of colonel is a direct successor to the same rank in the British Army. The first colonels in the U. S. were appointed from Colonial militias maintained as reserves to the British Army in the North American colonies. Upon the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, colonial legislatures would grant commissions to men to raise a regiment and serve as its colonel. Thus, the first U. S. colonels were respected men with ties in local communities and active in politics. With the post-war reduction of the U. S. Army, the rank of colonel disappeared, was not re-introduced until 1802; the first insignia for the rank of colonel consisted of gold epaulettes worn on the blue uniform of the Continental Army. The first recorded use of the eagle insignia was in 1805 as this insignia was made official in uniform regulations by 1810; the rank of colonel was rare in the early 19th century because the U. S. Army was small, the rank was obtained only after long years of service. During the War of 1812 the Army grew and many colonels were appointed, but most of these colonels were discharged when their regiments were disbanded at the war's conclusion.
A number of other colonels were appointed by brevet - an honorary promotion for distinguished service in combat. The American Civil War saw a large influx of colonels as the rank was held in both the Confederate army and Union Army by those who commanded a regiment. Since most regiments were state formations and were raised, the colonels in command of the regiments were known by the title "Colonel of Volunteers," in contrast to Regular Army colonels who held permanent commissions. During the Civil War, the Confederate Army maintained a unique insignia for colonel, three stars worn on the collar of a uniform. Robert E. Lee wore this insignia due to his former rank in the United States Army and refused to wear the insignia of a Confederate general, stating that he would only accept permanent promotion when the South had achieved independence. After the Civil War, the rank of colonel again became rare as the forces of the United States Army became small. However, many colonels were appointed in the volunteers during the Spanish–American War, prominent among them Theodore Roosevelt and David Grant Colson.
World War I and World War II saw the largest numbers of colonels appointed in the U. S. military. This was due to the temporary ranks of the National Army and the Army of the United States, where those who would hold the rank of Captain in the peacetime Regular Army were thrust into the rank of colonel during these two wars; the Military Promotion System was revised and standardized for all the services in 1980 as a result of passage of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act. Modern U. S. colonels command Army infantry, armor, aviation or other types of brigades, USMC regiments, Marine Expeditionary Units or Marine Aircraft Groups, USAF groups or wings. An Army colonel commands brigade-sized units, with another colonel or a lieutenant colonel as deputy commander, a major
Madison, Tennessee
Madison is a former settlement, now a suburban neighborhood of northeast Nashville, in the U. S. state of Tennessee. It is incorporated as part of the Metropolitan Government of Davidson County; the population of Madison's 37115 zip code as of the US Census Bureau 2016 estimates was 40,146. Madison is only 8.2 miles north at its closest point to downtown Nashville. Ellington Parkway serves as a direct connection from downtown Madison to downtown Nashville with exits to Inglewood and East Nashville. Madison is located close to major highways and parkways: 65, 40, 24, Briley and local access roads St. Route 45 and Dickerson Road, it begins at Briley Parkway and extends to the Hendersonville line in Rivergate, from Dickerson Road to the Cumberland River. Madison is one of 14 Community Plan areas in the Metro Nashville-Davidson County area for which zoning and land use planning is done; the 2015-updated Community Plan for Madison, an 89-page document adopted by the Metropolitan Planning Commission, was updated in 2015 as part of NashvilleNext's long-term planning.
Madison has two major centers: Rivergate. The area between the two centers is called Motor Mile. Madison services several surrounding communities: East Nashville, Whites Creek, Old Hickory, Hendersonville and more. Madison is one of about 26 suburban neighborhoods of Nashville. Madison Station post office was opened in 1857, when Madison Station was about eight miles from Nashville proper half way between Nashville and Goodlettsville. In the 20th century, Madison acted as a connecting suburb until being annexed into Nashville in 1963 due to the consolidation with Davidson County. Madison funnels traffic to Goodlettsville, Gallatin and downtown Nashville. Old Hickory Boulevard is a section of the Trail of Tears, the route of the forced removal of Cherokee Indians from North Carolina to Oklahoma, directed by U. S. President Andrew Jackson; this route passes directly by Jackson's estate, The Hermitage, in the neighboring community of Old Hickory, Tennessee. Madison was once home to the "Hillbilly Day" festival.
This festival was created as a fundraiser to benefit schools within the area. This fundraising festival included costumes, school events, a parade. Madison's first "Hillbilly Day" was in 1952. Madison is home to Amqui train station, built by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and serviced by the company until 1979. After L&N Railroad vacated the station, country music legend Johnny Cash purchased it and moved it from Madison to his home in nearby Sumner County; the station was returned to Madison after the passing of Cash and his wife June Carter Cash. Today, it houses a visitor center for the town. Public education in Madison falls under the supervision of Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Zoned schools in the Madison area send students through the Hunters Lane cluster, named after the area high school, Hunters Lane High School. Prior to the opening of Hunter's Lane, the public high school for the area was Madison High School, now Madison Middle Prep. Three private schools are located within Madison: Goodpasture Christian School, Madison Academy and Saint Joseph School.
Three public parks are within Madison: Madison Park is located in the center of State Route 45, Delaware Avenue, North Dupont Avenue. Peeler Park is located off of Neelys Bend Road at the end of Overton Road. Cedar Hill Park is located at the corner of Old Hickory Dickerson Pike. Another source of recreation for the Madison community is Rivergate Mall, located at the corner of Conference Drive and Gallatin Pike North; this mall houses over 130 different stores, including mainstream department stores. The Madison Branch Library opened in 1977, is part of the Nashville Public Library. A new facility, themed after the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, opened in 2000. Meeting rooms, group study rooms, public computers are available. Madison is a unique town in Nashville because of its easy accessibility via several major roads and interstates. Major roads running through Madison are Gallatin Pike. Dickerson Road runs along the west border of Madison. Briley Parkway, with easy access to Interstates 24 and 40, runs along the south border of Madison.
Interstate 65 has two main exits into Madison, one at Old Hickory Blvd, the other at Rivergate shopping area. Ellington Parkway connects downtown Nashville to downtown Madison with exits along the way to key areas of East Nashville and Inglewood. Vietnam Vets Parkway is accessible off Conference Drive directly off Gallatin which links Madison and Goodletsville to Hendersonville and Gallatin. Madison is on the rapid transit Metro bus lines. Madison boasts extensive walkability with several miles of sidewalks. Bike lanes were added in some of the newer asphalt in Madison and plans have been made to build a pedestrian and bike extension from Peeler Park to Stones River Park, which will connect Peeler key greenways leading to downtown Nashville. Madison is the location of the Nashville National Cemetery; the Nashville National Cemetery covers around 64 acres and holds nearly 33,000 veterans as well as their spouses, dependents. According to the National Park Service, the entrance to the cemetery is marked by a monumental arch which is, "one of five in the national cemetery system."
It and Spring Hill Cemetery, across Gallatin Pike, delineated the accepted boundary between Madison and Inglewood prior to the construction of nearby Briley Parkway. The population in Madison, as of 2010, was 37,316; the total number of households was 15,829. Average household income
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the U. S. state of Florida and the county seat of Orange County. Located in Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U. S. Census Bureau figures released in July 2017; these figures make it the 23rd-largest metropolitan area in the United States, the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, the third-largest metropolitan area in Florida. As of 2015, Orlando had an estimated city-proper population of 280,257, making it the 73rd-largest city in the United States, the fourth-largest city in Florida, the state's largest inland city; the City of Orlando is nicknamed "The City Beautiful," and its symbol is the fountain at Lake Eola. Orlando is known as "The Theme Park Capital of the World" and in 2016 its tourist attractions and events drew more than 72 million visitors; the Orlando International Airport is the thirteenth-busiest airport in the United States and the 29th-busiest in the world.
As one of the world's most visited tourist destinations, Orlando's famous attractions form the backbone of its tourism industry. The two most significant of these attractions are Walt Disney World, opened by the Walt Disney Company in 1971, located 21 miles southwest of Downtown Orlando in Bay Lake. With the exception of Walt Disney World, most major attractions are located along International Drive with one of these attractions being the Orlando Eye; the city is one of the busiest American cities for conferences and conventions. Like other major cities in the Sun Belt, Orlando grew from the 1980s up into the first decade of the 21st century. Orlando is home to the University of Central Florida, the largest university campus in the United States in terms of enrollment as of 2015. In 2010, Orlando was listed as a "Gamma−" level global city in the World Cities Study Group's inventory. Orlando ranks as the fourth-most popular American city based on where people want to live according to a 2009 Pew Research Center study.
Fort Gatlin, as the Orlando area was once known, was established at what is now just south of the city limits by the 4th U. S. Artillery under the command of Ltc. Alexander C. W. Fanning on November 9, 1838, during the construction of a series of fortified encampments across Florida during the Second Seminole War; the fort and surrounding area were named for Dr. John S. Gatlin, an Army physician, killed in Dade's Massacre on December 28, 1835; the site of construction for Fort Gatlin, a defensible position with fresh water between three small lakes, was chosen because the location was on a main trail and is less than 250 yards from a nearby Council Oak tree where Native Americans had traditionally met. King Phillip and Coacoochee frequented this area and the tree was alleged to be the place where the previous 1835 ambush that had killed over 100 soldiers had been planned; when the U. S. military abandoned the fort in 1839, the surrounding community was built up by settlers. Prior to being known by its current name, Orlando was once known as Jernigan.
This name originates from the first permanent settlers and Aaron Jernigan, cattlemen who acquired land two miles northwest of Fort Gatlin along the west end of Lake Holden in July 1843 by the terms of the Armed Occupation Act. Aaron Jernigan became Orange County's first State Representative in 1845 but his pleas for additional military protection went unanswered. Fort Gatlin was reoccupied by the military for a few weeks during October and November 1849 and subsequently a volunteer militia was left to defend the settlement. A historical marker indicates that by 1850 the Jernigan homestead served as the nucleus of a village named Jernigan. According to an account written years by his daughter, at that time, about 80 settlers were forced to shelter for about a year in "a stockade that Aaron Jernigan built on the north side of Lake Conway". One of the county's first records, a grand jury's report, mentions a stockade where it states homesteaders were "driven from their homes and forced to huddle together in hasty defences."
Aaron Jernigan led a local volunteer militia during 1852. A Post Office opened at Jernigan in 1850. Jernigan appears on an 1855 map of Florida and by 1856 the area had become the county seat of Orange County. In 1857, the Post Office was removed from Jernigan, opened under the name of Orlando at a new location in present-day downtown Orlando. During the American Civil War, the Post Office closed, but reopened in 1866; the move is believed to be sparked, in part, by Aaron Jernigan's fall from grace after he was relieved of his militia command by military officials in 1856. His behavior was so notorious that Secretary of War Jefferson Davis wrote, "It is said they are more dreadful than the Indians." In 1859, Jernigan and his sons were accused of committing a murder at the town's post office. They were transported to Ocala, but escaped. There are at least five stories as to; the most common stories are that the name Orlando originated from the tale of a man who died in 1835 during a attack by Native Americans in the area during the Second Seminole War.
Several of the stories relay an oral history of the marker for a person named Orlando, the double entendre, "Here lies Orlando." One variant includes a man named Orlando, passing by on his way to Tampa with a herd of oxen and was buried in a marked grave. At a meeting in 1857, debate had grown concerning the name of the town. Pioneer William B. Hull recalled
Second Seminole War
The Second Seminole War known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between various groups of Native Americans collectively known as Seminoles and the United States, part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars. The Second Seminole War referred to as the Seminole War, is regarded as "the longest and most costly of the Indian conflicts of the United States." Bands from various tribes in the southeastern United States had moved into the unoccupied lands in Florida in the 18th century. These included Alabamas, Yamasees and Creek people; the Creeks were the largest group, included Lower Creeks and Upper Creeks, both Hitchiti and Muscogee speakers. One group of Hitchiti speakers, the Mikasuki, settled around what is now Lake Miccosukee near Tallahassee. Another group of Hitchiti speakers settled around the Alachua Prairie in; the Spanish in St. Augustine began calling the Alachua Creeks Cimarrones, which meant "wild ones" or "runaways", and, the probable origin of "Seminole".
This name was also applied to the other groups in Florida, although the Native Americans still regarded themselves as members of different tribes. Other groups in Florida at the time of the Seminole Wars included "Spanish Indians", so called because it was believed that they were descended from Calusas, "rancho Indians", persons of Native American ancestry both Calusa and Creek, mixed Native American/Spanish ancestry, living at Spanish/Cuban fishing camps on the Florida coast; the United States and Spain were at odds over Florida after the Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War and returned East and West Florida to Spanish control. The United States disputed the boundaries of West Florida, they accused the Spanish authorities of harboring fugitive slaves and of failing to restrain the Native Americans living in Florida from raiding into the United States. Starting in 1810, the United States annexed parts of West Florida. In 1818 Andrew Jackson led an invasion of the Floridas; the United States acquired Florida from Spain through the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1819 and took possession of the territory in 1821.
Now that Florida belonged to the United States, settlers pressured the government to remove the Seminoles. In 1823 the government negotiated the Treaty of Moultrie Creek with the Seminoles, establishing a reservation for them in the middle of the territory. Six chiefs, were allowed to keep their villages along the Apalachicola River; the Seminoles gave up their lands in the panhandle and settled into the reservation, although they had isolated clashes with whites. Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch was placed in charge of the Army units in Florida. Fort King was built at the site of present-day Ocala, Florida. By early 1827 the Army reported that the Seminoles were on the reservation and Florida was peaceful; this peace lasted for five years, during which time there were repeated calls for the Seminoles to be sent west of the Mississippi. The Seminoles were opposed to the move, to the suggestion that they should be placed on the Creek reservation. Most whites regarded the Seminoles as Creeks who had moved to Florida, while the Seminoles claimed Florida as their home and denied that they had any connection with the Creeks.
The status of runaway slaves was a continuing irritation between whites. Spain had given freedom to slaves who escaped to Florida under their rule, although the US did not recognize it. Over the years, those who became known as Black Seminoles established communities near Seminole villages, the two peoples had close alliances although they maintained separate cultures. Slave catchers argued over the ownership of slaves. New plantations in Florida increased the pool of slaves. Worried about the possibility of an Indian uprising and/or an armed slave rebellion, Governor DuVal requested additional Federal troops for Florida. Instead, Fort King was closed in 1828; the Seminoles, short of food and finding the hunting becoming poorer on the reservation, were wandering off of it more often. In 1828, Andrew Jackson, the old enemy of the Seminoles, was elected President of the United States. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, they wanted to solve the problems with the Seminoles by moving them to west of the Mississippi River.
In the spring of 1832 the Seminoles on the reservation were called to a meeting at Payne's Landing on the Oklawaha River. The treaty negotiated there called for the Seminoles to move west, if the land was found to be suitable, they were to become part of the Creek tribe. The delegation of seven chiefs who were to inspect the new reservation did not leave Florida until October 1832. After touring the area for several months and conferring with the Creeks, settled there, on March 28, 1833 the seven chiefs signed a statement that the new land was acceptable. Upon their return to Florida, most of the chiefs renounced the statement, claiming that they had not signed it, or that they had been forced to sign it, they said they did not have the power to decide for all the tribes and bands that resided on the reservation. Some U. S. Army officers claimed that the chiefs had been "wheedled and bullied into signing." Others noted "there is evidence of trickery by the whites in the way the treaty is phrased."
The members of the villages in the area of the Apalachicola River were more persuaded, however, as they suffered more encroachment from European Americans. The Unit
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Brigadier General
Brevet Major General
