Seminole

The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century.
Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes:
the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of
Indians of Florida, as well as independent groups. The Seminole people emerged in a process
of ethnogenesis from various Native American groups who settled in Spanish Florida beginning
in the early 1700s, most significantly northern Muscogee Creeks from what are
now Georgia and Alabama.[1]
Old crafts and traditions were revived in both Florida and Oklahoma in the mid-20th century as
the Seminole began seeking revenue from tourists traveling along the new interstate highway
system. In the 1970s, Seminole tribes began to run small bingo games on their reservations to
raise revenue. They won court challenges to initiate Indian gaming on their sovereign land. Many
U.S. tribes have likewise adopted this practice where state laws have gambling, in order to
generate revenues for welfare, education, and development.
Since the late 20th century, the Seminole Tribe of Florida has been particularly successful with
gambling establishments, attracting many of the numerous tourists to the state. In 2007 it
purchased the Hard Rock Café and has rebranded or opened several casinos and gaming
resorts under that name. These include two large resorts on
its Tampa and Hollywood reservations; together these projects cost more than a billion dollars to
construct.[2][3]

Etymology and culture[edit]

The word "Seminole" is almost certainly derived from the Creek word simanó-li. This has been
variously translated as "frontiersman", "outcast", "runaway", "separatist", and similar words. The
Creek word may be derived from the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning "runaway" or "wild one",
historically used for certain Native American groups in Florida.[4] The people who constituted the
nucleus of this Florida group either chose to leave their tribe or were banished. At one time, the
terms "renegade" and "outcast" were used to describe this status, but the terms have fallen into
disuse due to their negative connotations. The Seminole identify as yat'siminoli or "free people"
because for centuries their ancestors had successfully resisted efforts to subdue or convert them
to Roman Catholicism.[5] They signed several treaties with the U.S. government, including
the Treaty of Moultrie Creek[6] and the Treaty of Paynes Landing.[7]
Seminole culture is largely derived from that of the Creek. One of the more significant holdovers
from the Creek was the Green Corn Dance ceremony.[8] Other notable traditions include use of
the black drink and ritual tobacco. As the Seminoles adapted to Florida environs, they developed
local traditions, such as the construction of open-air, thatched-roof houses known as chickees.
[9]
Historically the Seminoles spoke Mikasuki and Creek, both Muskogean languages.[10]

History[edit]
Origins[edit]
Florida had been the home of several indigenous cultures prior to the arrival of European
explorers in the early 1500s. However, the introduction of Eurasian infectious diseases, along
with conflict with Spanish colonists, led to a drastic decline of Florida's original native population.
By the early 1700s, much of La Florida was uninhabited apart from Spanish colonial towns at St.
Augustine and Pensacola. A stream of mainly Muscogee Creek began moving into the territory at
that time to escape conflict with English colonists to the north and established their own towns,
mainly in the Florida panhandle.
Native American refugees from northern wars, such as the Yuchi and Yamasee after
the Yamasee War in South Carolina, migrated into Spanish Florida in the early 18th century.
More arrived in the second half of the 18th century, as the Lower Creeks, part of
the Muscogee people, began to migrate from several of their towns into Florida to evade the
dominance of the Upper Creeks and pressure from encroaching colonists from the Province of
Carolina.[11] They spoke primarily Hitchiti, of which Mikasuki is a dialect. This is the primary
traditional language spoken today by the Miccosukee in Florida. Joining them were several
bands of Choctaw, many of whom were native to western Florida. Some Chickasaw had also left
Georgia due to conflicts with colonists and their Native American allies. [citation needed] Also fleeing to
Florida were African Americans who had escaped from slavery in the Southern Colonies.
The new arrivals moved into virtually uninhabited lands that had once been peopled by several
cultures indigenous to Florida, such as the Apalachee, Timucua, Calusa and others. The native
population had been devastated by infectious diseases brought by Spanish explorers in the
1500s and later colonization by additional European settlers. Later, raids by Carolina and Native
American slavers destroyed the string of Spanish missions across northern Florida. Most of the
survivors left for Cuba when the Spanish withdrew, after ceding Florida to the British in 1763,
following Britain's victory in the French and Indian War.
While John Swanton stated in the mid-20th century that the Seminole encountered and absorbed
the Calusa who had remained in southwest Florida after the Spanish withdrew, more recent
scholarship since the turn of the 21st century holds that there is no documentary evidence of that
assertion.[12][13]
1700s to early 1800s[edit]
As they established themselves in northern and peninsular Florida throughout the 1700s, the
various new arrivals intermingled with each other and with the few remaining indigenous people.
In a process of ethnogenesis, they constructed a new culture which they called "Seminole", a
derivative of the Mvskoke' (a Creek language) word simano-li, an adaptation of the
Spanish cimarrón which means "wild" (in their case, "wild men"), or "runaway" [men].[14] The
Seminole were a heterogeneous tribe made up of mostly Lower Creeks from Georgia, who by
the time of the Creek War (1813–1814) numbered about 4,000 in Florida. At that time, numerous
refugees of the Red Sticks migrated south, adding about 2,000 people to the population. They
were Creek-speaking Muscogee, and were the ancestors of most of the later Creek-speaking
Seminole.[15] In addition, a few hundred escaped African-American slaves (known as the Black
Seminoles) had settled near the Seminole towns and, to a lesser extent, Native Americans from
other tribes, and some white Americans. The unified Seminole spoke two languages: Creek and
Mikasuki (mutually intelligible with its dialect Hitchiti),[16] two among the Muskogean
languages family. Creek became the dominant language for political and social discourse, so
Mikasuki speakers learned it if participating in high-level negotiations. The Muskogean language
group includes Choctaw and Chickasaw, associated with two other major Southeastern tribes.
In part due to the arrival of Native Americans from other cultures, the Seminole became
increasingly independent of other Creek groups and established their own identity
through ethnogenesis. They developed a thriving trade network by the time of the British and
second Spanish periods (roughly 1767–1821).[17] The tribe expanded considerably during this
time, and was further supplemented from the late 18th century by escaped slaves from Southern
plantations who settled near and paid tribute to Seminole towns. The latter became known
as Black Seminoles, although they kept many facets of their own Gullah culture.[18]
During the colonial years, the Seminole were on relatively good terms with both the Spanish and
the British. In 1784, after the American Revolutionary War, Britain came to a settlement with
Spain and transferred East and West Florida to it.
The Spanish Empire's decline enabled the Seminole to settle more deeply into Florida. They
were led by a dynasty of chiefs of the Alachua chiefdom, founded in eastern Florida in the 18th
century by Cowkeeper. Beginning in 1825, Micanopy was the principal chief of the unified
Seminole, until his death in 1849, after removal to Indian Territory.[19] This chiefly dynasty lasted
past Removal, when the US forced the majority of Seminole to move from Florida to the Indian
Territory (modern Oklahoma) after the Second Seminole War. Micanopy's sister's son, John
Jumper, succeeded him in 1849 and, after his death in 1853, his brother Jim Jumper became
principal chief. He was in power through the American Civil War, after which the U.S.
government began to interfere with tribal government, supporting its own candidate for chief.[19]
After raids by Anglo-American colonists on Seminole settlements in the mid-18th century, the
Seminole retaliated by raiding the Southern Colonies (primarily Georgia), purportedly at the
behest of the Spanish. The Seminoles also maintained a tradition of accepting escaped
slaves from Southern plantations, infuriating planters in the American South by providing a route
for their slaves to escape bondage.[20]
After the United States achieved independence, the U.S. Army and local militia groups made
increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish Florida to recapture escaped slaves living among
the Seminole. American general Andrew Jackson's 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminoles
became known as the First Seminole War.[21] Though Spain decried the incursions into its
territory, the United States effectively controlled the Florida panhandle after the war.
Seminole Wars[edit]
Main article: Seminole Wars

Coeehajo, Chief, 1837, Smithsonian American Art

Museum
In 1819, the United States and Spain signed the Adams-Onís Treaty,[22] which took effect in 1821.
According to its terms, the United States acquired Florida and, in exchange, renounced all claims
to Texas. President James Monroe appointed Andrew Jackson as military governor of Florida. As
European American colonization increased after the treaty, colonists pressured the federal
government to remove Natives from Florida. Slaveholders resented that tribes harbored runaway
black slaves, and more colonists wanted access to desirable lands held by Native Americans.
Georgian slaveholders wanted the "maroons" and fugitive slaves living among the Seminoles,
known today as Black Seminoles, returned to slavery.[23]
 Sign at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State
Park commemorating hundreds of enslaved African Americans who in the early 1820s
escaped from this area to freedom in the Bahamas.
After acquisition by the U.S. of Florida in 1821, many American slaves and Black Seminoles
frequently escaped from Cape Florida to the British colony of the Bahamas, settling mostly
on Andros Island. Contemporary accounts noted a group of 120 migrating in 1821, and a much
larger group of 300 enslaved African Americans escaping in 1823. The latter were picked up by
Bahamians in 27 sloops and also by travelers in canoes.[24] They developed a village known as
Red Bays on Andros.[25]
Under colonists' pressure, the U.S. government made the 1823 Treaty of Camp Moultrie with the
Seminoles, seizing 24 million acres in northern Florida.[26] They offered the Seminoles a much
smaller reservation in the Everglades, of about 100,000-acre (400 km2).[27] They and the Black
Seminoles moved into central and southern Florida.
In 1832, the U.S. government signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing with a few of the Seminole
chiefs. They promised lands west of the Mississippi River if the chiefs agreed to leave Florida
voluntarily with their people. The Seminoles who remained prepared for war. White colonists
continued to press for their removal.
In 1835, the U.S. Army arrived to enforce the treaty. The Seminole leader Osceola led the vastly
outnumbered resistance during the Second Seminole War. Drawing on a population of about
4,000 Seminoles and 800 allied Black Seminoles, he mustered at most 1,400 warriors (President
Andrew Jackson estimated they had only 900). They countered combined U.S. Army and militia
forces that ranged from 6,000 troops at the outset to 9,000 at the peak of deployment in 1837. To
survive, the Seminole allies employed guerrilla tactics with devastating effect against U.S. forces,
as they knew how to move within the Everglades and use this area for their protection. Osceola
was arrested (in a breach of honor) when he came under a flag of truce to negotiations with the
US in 1837. He died in jail less than a year later. He was decapitated, his body buried without his
head.
Other war chiefs, such as Halleck Tustenuggee and John Jumper, and the Black
Seminoles Abraham and John Horse, continued the Seminole resistance against the army. After
a full decade of fighting, the war ended in 1842. Scholars estimate the U.S. government spent
about $40,000,000 on the war, at the time a huge sum. An estimated 3,000 Seminoles and 800
Black Seminoles were forcibly exiled to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi, where they were
settled on the Creek reservation. After later skirmishes in the Third Seminole War (1855 -1858),
perhaps 200 survivors retreated deep into the Everglades to land that was not desired by
settlers. They were finally left alone and they never surrendered.[28][29]
Several treaties seem to bear the mark of representatives of the Seminole tribe,[30] including
the Treaty of Moultrie Creek and the Treaty of Payne's Landing. The Florida Seminoles say they
are the only tribe in America never to have signed a peace treaty with the U.S. government.[31]