Among the most well known of Florida's native peoples, the Seminole Indians frustrated troops of militia and volunteer soldiers for decades during the first half of the nineteenth century in the ongoing struggle to keep hold of their ancestral lands. While careers and reputations of American military and political leaders were made and destroyed in the mosquito-infested swamps of Florida's interior, the Seminoles and their allies, including the Miccosukee tribe and many escaped slaves, managed to wage war on their own terms. The study of guerrilla warfare tactics employed by the Seminoles may have aided modern American forces fighting in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and other regions. Years before the first shots of the Civil War were fired, Florida witnessed a clash of wills and ways that prompted three wars unlike any others in America's history, although many of the same policies and mistakes were made in the Indian wars west of the Mississippi.

Florida's Seminole Wars, 1817-1858 (The Making of America)

Arts & Photography

Knetsch, Joe

Photography & Video

Arcadia Publishing

Fear and Anxiety on the Florida Frontier

For nearly three decades, Dr. Joe Knetsch has been one of the leading authorities on Florida's three Seminole Wars. Over the years, his articles have been published in many of the state's leading historical publications and in journals as varied as "The Journal of America's Military Past" and "Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal." Finding these important works, or even knowing they exist, has often been difficult. Now, in this one volume, The Seminole Wars Foundation has gathered many of Dr. Knetsch's articles on the Second Seminole War in one convenient place. The articles cover a wide range of topics, from showing how the cattle industry helped bring on the war, to examining how hurricanes and tropical storms affected its conduct. In this authoritative book we learn how Floridians coped with the war, from St. Augustine to Tampa, to Tallahassee. We also learn how the soldiers fought the war in remote places like Charlotte Harbor, the Everglades, and the Cove of the Withlacoochee. We also meet some of the more interesting players in the conflict, from those who played smaller parts, like Benjamin Putnam and Sam Heintzelman, to major figures like Thomas Jesup and William Worth. With extensive endnotes and a bibliography that is a valuable resource by itself, "Fear and Anxiety on the Florida Frontier" will be a treasured addition to the library of anyone interested in Florida history and in the story of the Seminole Wars.

History

Military

Seminole Wars Foundation Press

On This Day in Florida Civil War History

The most southern state has more than its share of Civil War stories. In January 1861, Florida militia forces captured the old Spanish Castillo de San Marcos, then known as Fort Marion, from the single Union soldier who guarded it. In 1862, Union forces recaptured it without a single shot fired. Union general Edward Moody McCook--later minister to Hawaii--accepted the surrender of Tallahassee on May 10, 1865. On May 13, he read the Emancipation Proclamation to an assembled crowd of white Floridians and former slaves on the steps of the Knott House in the city. Authors Nick Wynne and Joe Knetsch detail a Civil War moment for each date on the calendar. Learn a lesson a day or a month at a time.

Wynne, Nick

Americas

The History Press

Florida has long been viewed as a land of hope and endless possibilities. Visionaries seeking to establish new communities where they could escape the influences of society at large have turned to Florida to construct their utopias--from the vast plantations of British philanthropists and entrepreneurs in the eighteenth century to the more exotic Koreshan Unity and its theory that humans live in the center of a Hollow Earth. Some came to the Sunshine State seeking religious freedom, such as the settlers in Moses Levy's Jewish colony, while others settled in Florida to establish alternative lifestyles, like the spiritualists of Cassadaga. Still others created their communities to practice new agricultural techniques or political philosophies. Historians Joe Knetsch and Nick Wynne examine a number of these distinctive utopian communities and how they have contributed to Florida's unique social fabric.

Utopian Communities of Florida: A History of Hope

Knetsch, Nick Wynne & Joe

Florida in World War I (Military)

Gibson, Pamela

Florida in Flight: An Aviation History

Redd, Robert J.

Florida has long been viewed as a land of hope and endless possibilities. Visionaries seeking to establish new communities where they could escape the influences of society at large have turned to Florida to construct their utopias from the vast plantations of British philanthropists and entrepreneurs in the eighteenth century to the more exotic Koreshan Unity and its theory that humans live in the center of a Hollow Earth. Some came to the Sunshine State seeking religious freedom, such as the settlers in Moses Levy s Jewish colony, while others settled in Florida to establish alternative lifestyles, like the spiritualists of Cassadaga. Still others created their communities to practice new agricultural techniques or political philosophies. Historians Joe Knetsch and Nick Wynne examine a number of these distinctive utopian communities and how they have contributed to Florida s unique social fabric."

History Press Library Editions

Knetsch, Joseph

Florida in the Great Depression: Desperation and Defiance

The financial boom of the 1920s gave Florida citizens a look at prosperity and promise. By 1926, natural disasters, financial misdeeds and failures to realize those promises created a sense of impending doom and forced entrepreneurs into bankruptcy. With the hurricane of 1928, the boom was over, and coupled with bank failures and numerous farming epidemics, Florida plunged into a depression--two years before the stock market crash of 1929. Journey with noted Florida historians Nick Wynne and Joseph Knetsch as they detail the hardships of the times and the defiance of a state determined to rise above them.

Florida in the Spanish American War

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Books by Knetsch, Joe