John Hicks, the Miccosukee Indian chief known in English by the name John Hicks and otherwise as Tuckose Emathla, was a prominent Indian leader between the First and Second Seminole Wars from 1818 to 1835. After General Andrew Jackson destroyed the Miccosukee towns west of this area in the 1818 campaign against the Seminoles, Hicks is believed to have relocated his village near this site. Hicks Town was evacuated by 1826 as Seminoles were removed to a central Florida reservation. Hicks died in the winter of 1833-34 after a decade as a major spokesman for his people in treaty councils where important decisions about the future of the Seminoles were made. White settlers occupied the site in the late 1820's, and Hickstown Post Office was established in 1830. By the late 1830's, the village had disappeared as a population center because of the Second Seminole War and the creation of an official Madison County seat at San Pedro.