The Unconquered Seminoles of Florida

In 4th grade, I learned about Florida history (I’m pretty sure that’s still part of the curriculum), and it was probably the only time I learned about Florida history. The only thing I vaguely remember is learning about Spanish explorers (nothing super specific really stuck with me). That year the whole 4th grade also went to the Everglades and to the Miccosukee Reservation near there on a field trip. I remember watching alligator wrestling there and buying a necklace, and that was pretty much the end of my experience learning about Indigenous folks pretty much until grad school. And the only thing that really came to mind when I thought about Seminoles was FSU (definitely thought they were using Seminole as a mascot, but they’re not now, and I recently learned there’s been a pretty solid relationship between the tribe and the university that has developed over the past 60 years or, although some would not agree, - maybe more to dive into later) and chickees (pavilion structures with palm-thatched roofs that you tend to see a lot on hiking trail in Florida - at least that’s where I feel like I’ve seen them the most). But I grew up on, and am currently living on, land that Seminoles were forcibly removed from, and I’m pretty embarrassed that I never learned about the history of the people and the land until now.

And before I dive into the history, let me be clear that the Seminole people are very much alive and thriving right now. They are a federally recognized tribe and a sovereign nation with their own constitution, Tribal Council, and Board of Directors. From their website, “Today, most Tribal members are afforded modern housing and health care. The Seminole Tribe spends over $1 million each year on education, alone, including grants-in-aid to promising Tribal college students and the operation of the Ahfachkee Indian School. Over 300 Tribal members are employed by the Seminole Tribe in dozens of governmental departments, including legal and law enforcement staff. Dozens of new enterprises, operated by Tribal members, are supported by both the Tribal Council and Board.” There are about 3000 members of the Seminole tribe living in Florida today.

Learning about the history of the land I live on and the people who have called it home for thousands of years is important, so here it goes:

Ancestors of the Seminoles had lived in what is now the SE United States for at least 12,000 years, and consisted of many tribes going by different names, including Miccosukee, Muscogee, Calusa, and many others. In the early 1500, Spaniards came to Florida, and with the diseases they brought killed 9/10 of the Native People of the Americas within 100 years. Native tribes in the Southeast joined together, and they became a refuge for folks who sought escape from conquest and slavery, and as a result, were seen as a threat by settler-colonists.

During the Creek War of 1813-1814, the Maskókî tribes in Alabama rose up against white settlers, but were repressed and forced by General Andrew Jackson into treaties they did not want, so they migrated south to take refuge in what was then Spanish Florida where they joined tribes who had lived across Florida for thousands of years. These folks thought of themselves as yat'siminoli or "free people," because for centuries they had resisted assimilation and conquest by the Spanish and having their lands taken by the English. As a result, white folks began to call all Native folks in Florida Seminoles.

Settler-colonists in the US were upset at the Spanish for not keeping England at bay in Florida and for not controlling Native folks, and even more incensed at the protection and shelter Seminoles offered African slaves. The first Seminole War took place between 1814 and 1818 when General Andrew Jackson marched across Florida’s international boundaries to settle the “Indian problem” by burning towns and capturing escaped slaves. Through several treaties (Treaty of Moultrie Creek - 1823, Treaty of Payne’s Landing - 1832) and talks, US agents tried to convince Seminoles to sell their cattle/pigs to the US government, return slaves, and leave their ancestral homelands in Florida to move west of the Mississippi River. In 1830, Andrew Jackson, then president of the U.S. pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress. During what is known as the 2nd Seminole War, the U.S. government committed nearly $40,000,000 to the forced removal of more than 3000 Maskókî men, women, and children from Florida to Oklahoma. During the 3rd Seminole War, a series of skirmishes between 1856 and 1858, and much of the first half of the 19th century, the U.S. tried unsuccessfully to completely remove about 5000 Seminoles from Florida. Seminoles were hunted down and forced onto ships carrying them to New Orleans and up the Mississippi River and then over land to Fort Gibson in Arkansas where they were forced to compete with other tribes far from their homes for scarce resources to survive.

Unlike with other tribes though, the U.S. government could not force the Florida Seminoles to surrender, although there may have been only a few hundred Seminole men, women, and children hiding in the swamps of the Everglades in South Florida by the mid 1800s when the U.S.-declared war ended (although no peace treaty was ever signed).

The Florida survivors were made up of at least two main factions: Maskoki speakers who lived near Lake Okeechobee and those who spoke the linguistically-related Hitchiti tongue (also called Miccosukee or Seminole) and lived to the south. Seminoles lived in traditional camps well into the 20th century when most other tribes in the country had experienced assimilation and cultural annihilation.

However in the early 1900s, development was happening along the coasts of Florida, and decisions were made to “drain the Everglades” which not only negatively impacted the health and biodiversity of one of the most complex ecosystems in North America, but also the Seminoles who depended on the land of the Everglades to survive. By 1938, the U.S. Congress had set aside more than 80,000 acres of land in South Florida for the Seminoles, but few Seminoles moved onto the reservation lands due to their mistrust of the government (with good reason). In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act which allowed tribes to conduct popular vote elections and govern their own political affairs by constitution and bylaws, which the Seminoles did not take advantage of until 23 years later (due to mistrust of the government) when the tribe was faced by official termination by the government. However in 1947, the Seminoles filed a petition with the U.S. Indian Claims Commission for a settlement to cover the lands they had lost.

In 1957, the Seminole tribe adopted a constitution establishing a two-tiered government (a Tribal Council and Board of Directors), the same year that Congress officially recognized the unconquered Seminole Tribe of Florida. One particular group of Seminoles sought separate recognition, and was granted to them as the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida in 1962. About a few dozen people at the time chose not to enroll in either tribe as a formal protest of any government intervention in their lives and are known now as Independent Seminoles.

The tribe opened a high-stakes bingo hall in Hollywood, FL shortly after community activist James Billie's first election as Tribal Council Chairman, which set them up to mature financially and politically. Two more reservations were added (Tampa and Immokalee) which brought total Seminole trust holdings to more than 90,000 acres. From their website, “The opening of a new hotel (Sheraton Tampa East), entry into the lucrative citrus market, opening of the new Ahfachkee Indian School, development of the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum and Kissimmee-Billie Swamp Safari tourist attraction and the expansion of the profitable smoke shops and gaming enterprises have brought the Seminoles closer to their stated goal of self-reliance. In 1992, The Tribe collected a settlement on the land claim it had filed in 1947.”

I wish I had learned all of this in school, as it is a huge part of Florida’s history. FSU has a course called The Seminoles and the Southeastern Indians that they created in collaboration with the tribe that “explores the history of the Seminoles and other Southeastern Native Americans in the territory that is now known as the American South. The course covers the pre-contact era to the present with an emphasis on tribal perspectives.” While I’m curious about the content of this course (Is it just history with some mention of today? Does it delve into their ways of knowing? Their relationship to land? FSU’s history with the tribe?) and how tribal perspectives are centered, I think a course like this should be a required course at all Florida universities. So much of Florida history happened before settler-colonists ever came to this continent, and there is so much knowledge and humanity that was forcibly removed when they came that we can work to incorporate in our education. However, as author Patricia Wickman said “When we view the history of the Seminoles over their thousands of years in the Southeast, we find that we must focus on the miraculous story of their survival, rather than on the traditional historical image of their destruction” and I would have to agree. Their resilience is inspiring and has given me more to think about. While there is so much more to learn from the Seminole people, learning about their history and the untaught (at least in schools) history of Florida has been a good start.