Varied native groups arrived in Florida during the late eighteenth century and eventually formed a common group identity. By the start of the second Spanish occupation (1783), many Creeks, pushed out of homelands to the north by White settlers, moved to Florida. Although other Indians previously inhabited the peninsula, European diseases, wars, and the immigration of southeastern Indians devastated the aboriginal population. Those few who survived, for the most part, assimilated with other Indians, formerly with identifiable tribes who migrated to Florida. This included new and resident runaway slaves and free Blacks who also joined the native newcomers. The Creeks’ Muscogee language became the most prevalent in the peninsula, and influenced the generalized grouping of the Florida Indians as Seminoles, and influenced the generalized grouping of the Florida Indians. But it was political factors, federal Indian policy, racial identity, and race relations that fused the variegated native population with a new consolidating Seminole identity.…show more content… By the time the U.S. occupied Florida, government officials had not yet imposed the general term “Seminole” to most, if not all, Florida Indians as an undifferentiated whole. The Seminoles, who had settled in previously abandoned lands, were made up of many tribes identified among them as: Timucua, Apalachee, Oconee, and Yuchi, etc., who in turn welcomed runaway Africans. Additionally, most tribal affiliations, especially those of the Creeks and Seminoles, were blurred for the convenience of the federal government to remove them from Florida and resettle them in the Indian