The Seminole Wars (also known as the Florida Wars) were three related military conflicts in Florida between the United States and the Seminole, citizens of a Native American nation which formed in the region during the early 1700s. Hostilities commenced about 1816 and continued through 1858, with two periods of uneasy truce between active conflict. The Seminole Wars were the longest and most expensive, in both human and financial cost to the United States, of the American Indian Wars.