open battles in the field gave way to guerrilla tactics and a long war of attrition. In the spring of 1838, after several pitched battles, Horse finally decided the fight against the Americans was unwinnable and surrendered to US troops. This may have been prompted by the loss of his first wife, a Seminole woman said to have been a daughter of Chief Holatoochee, a brother or nephew of the chief Micanopy. The blacks in the war received promises of freedom if they would cease fighting as Indian allies and accept resettlement in the newly established Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. Horse was later granted papers freeing him a second time by General William J. Worth for the services he subsequently rendered to the U.S. Army in the latter days of the Second Seminole War in Florida, as both translator and scout. But his initial decision to give up fighting had been in response to the offer of a prior general, Thomas Sydney Jesup, who had made the first promise of general freedom to all escaped slaves and their children willing to surrender and accept removal. Thus John Horse's claim to freedom from slavery would rest on at least two legal claims, via decisions by two different American military officers. This would eventually be important as events unfolded a few years later in the west. Unfortunately, Horse's second wife and their children, who were removed to Indian Territory with him, did not gain freedom through his later service and had only the earlier declaration by Jesup to fall back on, thus remaining at risk from the increasingly aggressive activities of slave catchers in the new Indian Territory. With other Seminole, Horse was shipped across the Gulf of Mexico from Tampa Bay to New Orleans and north from there by way of the Mississippi to Indian Territory. There he and his family joined with the other Seminole and Black Seminole who had accepted removal to take up residence at one of two locations assigned to the Seminole inside the Creek area. Horse quickly rose as a leader among the Black Seminole because of his friendly relations with the Americans, his experience as a leader in the fighting, his linguistic skills and decisive cleverness. Life in Indian Territory New conflicts and old issues In the new territory, John Horse worked sporadically for the army as an interpreter and, sometimes, as an