The Battles of the Loxahatchee occurred west of Jupiter Inlet in South Florida in January 1838 between the United States Military and the Seminole Indians led by Chief Abiaka. The First Battle of the Loxahatchee (Powell's Battle) occurred on January 15, involving a joint Navy-Army unit led by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Levin M. Powell. The Second Battle of the Loxahatchee (Jesup's Battle) occurred on January 24 involving a large army under U.S. Army General Thomas Jesup. The two battles were fought around the same area against the same group of Seminoles.
The Seminoles in the Loxahatchee area in January 1838 were the same group of Seminoles who had just fought at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee a month earlier. Seminole historian Billy Bowlegs III stated that Chief Abiaka led this Seminole group after the battle to the coast of Palm Beach County in order to loot shipwrecks for valuable supplies of gunpowder, clothing, and food.
The Battle of Lake Okeechobee and the Battles of the Loxahatchee were all part of a broader offensive into Southern Florida that was planned by General Thomas Jesup.
The names of the two battles have not been historically consistent. Older sources sometimes erroneously refer to Powell's Battle as the Battle of Jupiter Inlet (including Guinn), probably because contemporary newspaper accounts described it as occurring "near" the inlet.
The modern name of both battles refers to the Loxahatchee River (not the modern community of Loxahatchee, Florida). "Loxahatchee" is an Anglicized version of the waterway's Seminole name, "Locha-hatchee" (turtle river). Historical spellings have varied, including Lockahatchee (Mahon) and Locha-Hatchie (Buker).
== First Battle of the Loxahatchee (Powell's Battle) ==
Navy Lieutenant Levin M. Powell was put in charge of the Everglades Expeditionary Unit, a joint Navy-Army unit tasked with launching an amphibious expedition into South Florida to search for Seminole villages. Among the unit was a German doctor named Frederick Leitner who volunteered to be a combat medic for Powell's troops. Future Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was also part of this unit as a topographical engineer.
The expedition began at Fort Pierce, where Powell and his men boarded onto boats and shipped down the east coast of Florida until they landed at Jupiter Inlet on January 15, 1838. Soon after they landed, Powell's troops captured a Seminole woman and ordered her to lead them to her village. Leaving 23 of his men to guard the boats, Powell divided the rest of his men under Lt. William P. McArthur (Navy), Lt. Horace N. Harrison (Navy), and Lt. Henry W. Fowler (Army) and marched inland.
The early republic period saw the United States move from the weak Articles of Confederation to the federal Constitution ratified in 1788, with the Bill of Rights added in 1791. George Washington served two terms as president (1789–1797), establishing precedents for executive authority, and the federal capital moved permanently to Washington D.C. in 1800. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled the nation's territory for roughly $15 million, opening vast trans-Mississippi lands to American expansion. The War of 1812 against Britain ended inconclusively but produced a surge of American national identity and eliminated most British support for Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi. The Northwest Indian Wars (1785–1795) and the Creek War (1813–1814) broke Indigenous confederacies that had resisted US expansion. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily balanced slave and free states as the nation expanded westward, but embedded the contradiction of slavery in every subsequent territorial debate.
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