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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 10/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida

Into this vacuum moved Indians from the areas north of
Florida. During the War of Jenkin’s Ear and King George’s War
(1739-48) some Lower Creeks accompanied General James
Oglethorpe of Georgia on forays into Florida. Some of the Indians
stayed or returned after the war, having been attracted to the area
by the wild cattle left from earlier Spanish ranches.13 One band,
the Oconee led by Cowkeeper, settled around Alachua in the
central part of the state. Travelers to the Indian town of “St.
Taffey” in 1756 were at the site of the former mission of Santa Fe:
St. Taffey a corruption of Santa Fe. Lower Creeks under Secoffee
moved into the Tallahassee redhills, the old Apalachee territory,
while the militant Mikasuki group settled in present Jefferson and
Madison counties.14 By the 1770’s the Indians of these areas were
called “Seminoles” which has been variously translated as “rene­
gade,” “runaway,” or “separatist.” “Seminole” was derived from
the Spanish term “cimarron” which was used for marooned sailors
and gradually applied to any wild form especially escaped domes­
tic animals that had gone wild.15 16
The last major movement of Indians into Florida occurred
during the Creek War of 1813-1814. One faction of the Creek
Confederation, called “Red Sticks” because of the red sticks they
carried as a symbol of war, was defeated by Andrew Jackson and a
contingent of Tennessee militia at the Battle of Tohopeka or
Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama Territory in
March 1814. It was a savage battle resulting in the deaths of some
eight hundred Red Stick warriors. After the defeat a number of
the Red Sticks, mostly Upper Creeks, sought refuge in Florida

,3By 1700 the Spanish had established fairly extensive cattle raches in the
regions of present Tallahassee, Palatka, and Gainesville. Spanish maps of the period
indicate that some of the ranching in the area of the Santa Fe River extended into
present Columbia County. See Charles W. Arnade, “Cattle Raising in Spanish
Florida, 1513-1763,” Agricultural History 35 (July, 1961), pp. 116-124.
14 Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, p. 4; Fairbanks, Ethnohistorical
Report, pp. 133-35.
16 Fairbanks, Ethnohistorical Report, p. 4.
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