Annexation

The dangers of Florida's new situation were brought home painfully to John Horse and his mother in the summer of 1821. At the time they were believed to be living in a refugee settlement outside of Tampa Bay. Scores of Black Seminoles had fled to the region after Jackson's devastating attack on the Suwannee in 1818. Settling on a tributary of Sarasota Bay, the refugees cultivated "the Old Spanish fields" along the Manatee River, near present-day Bradenton. There, they joined a small but flourishing maroon community that had been founded at least as early as 1812. A white observer described the place as the "Sarrazotta; or Runaway Negro Plantations." The residents called it Angola.