The Third Seminole War (1855–1858) is again the result of Seminoles responding to settlers and U.S. Army scouting parties encroaching on their lands, perhaps deliberately to provoke a violent response that will result in the removal of the last of the Seminoles from Florida.

After an army surveying crew finds and destroys a Seminole plantation west of the Everglades in December 1855, Chief Billy Bowlegs leads a raid near Fort Myers, setting off a conflict that consists mainly of raids and reprisals, with no large battles fought.

American forces again strive to destroy the Seminoles' food supply, and in 1858, most of the remaining Seminoles, weary of war and facing starvation, agree to be shipped to Oklahoma in exchange for promises of safe passage and cash payments to their chiefs.

An estimated two hundred Seminoles still refuse to leave and retreat deep into the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp to live on land that is unwanted by white settlers.