What are the Seminole Wars and their significance?

The Seminole Wars (there were three) were battles of
groups of Native Americans who joined together (and were called Seminoles) fighting with
the Spanish against the United States at first; later the Seminoles were pitted against
the U.S. as American forces tried to take land from tribes settled in
Florida.

Early on, most of the indigenous tribes of that
area had already been driven out of Florida, killed, or taken by the Spanish to Cuba.
Other Native Americans started to move east to Florida. Dissension arose because the
Native American tribes wanted to keep their land, and the American engaged them to take
the land, generally to push them to the west. Some treaties were signed, but specific
tribes (i.e., the Mikasukee, and the Seminoles) did not align themselves with, for
example, the Creek nation, and refused to be governed by a treaty that they had not
agreed to.

The significance is probably two-fold. We see
the United States taking land from the Native Americans, with aggression and all out
fighting between the two sides. And ultimately, the U.S. controls Florida completely and
the Seminoles are gone. After many years, and three separate wars, most of the Seminoles
in Florida who had not already been captured and removed, were paid cash and moved out
west. When the war was declared to be over, the few Seminoles remaining were generally
left alone.

Though dates differ according to different
military sources, the First Seminole Ware began around 1816, and the third war ended in
1858.