Who are the People? by Willard Steele

The Seminole people are the descendents of the Creek people, and the Creek people are the descendents of the Lamar peoples. The ancestral lands of both the Lamar and Creek cultures encompassed parts of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee. The Lamar period lasted from about 1350 until 1700. The descendents of the Lamar peoples became the historic nations known as the Creeks and Cherokees.

The Creek Nation was created through a gradual process of assimilation. This continued into historic times. Remnants of the Westo (Yuchi), Apalachee and Yemassee Tribes were absorbed by the tribe after their defeats by the English. The Creek were unlike any other tribe in that it can be said that, in the southeast, there were the Chickasaw, the Cherokee, the Choctaw- and everyone else was a Creek. The nation was a confederation of dozens of towns. The diversity of the Tribe is reflected in the fact that it's members spoke seven languages-- Muscogee, Hitchiti, Koasati, Alabama, Natchez, Yuchi and Shawnee. The first five are dialects of Muskogean.

The early history of the Creek people in Florida is not well understood. While most people think of the Creeks as having come into Florida after 1700, this is not true. The Apalache were a Hitchiti speaking people that may have been related to the Creel Tamathli or Apalachicola. The Apalache, situated along the Apalachicola River, were in Florida at the time of Spanish contact. At the same time, another Hitchiti speaking Creek group, the Sawokli, were located at Choctawhatchee Bay, on the Gulf of Mexico.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Spanish attempted to set up a system of missions across north Florida and southern Georgia. While these efforts to set up missions in the Creek country failed, there were Creeks that were drawn from Georgia down to the Spanish missions in Florida. These included the Oconee at San Francisco De Oconi (1659); the Sawokli at Encarnacion de Sabacola el Minor (1675); and the Tamathli at Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria de la Tama (1675). Also in Florida at this time were other native peoples that would later be incorporated into the Seminole tribe. They included the Apalachicola who were settled along the river of the same name; the Yemassee, at San Antonio Anacape (1681), and Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria de la Tama (1675); the Tawasa, of the Timuqua; and the Yuchi, who were at this time located between the Apalachicola River and the Choctawhatchee Bay area.

The nucleus of the Seminole Nation however, was to form around a settlement of Oconee, Chiaha, Apalachicola and Sawokali town members. They came to prominence as allies of the English General Oglethorpe in his attack on St. Augustine in 1740. Afterwards they established a settlement at Cuscowilla (present day Micanopy, Florida) where they flourished as cattlemen. Their first leader, appropriately known as the Cowkeeper (an Oconee), was a sworn enemy of the Spanish. Throughout his life he kept both the Spanish and English out of what he considered to be the Seminole Nation. This was essentially all of the land west of the St. Johns River. The Cow keeper issued a warning that any Spaniard that he found on Indian lands would be killed. He kept this promise with alarming regularity.

The people of Cuscowilla Town were Miccosukee speakers. The first Creek speaking people, settled at Chocuchattee (Red House) near present day Brooksville, Florida. This was some time around 1760. Like their Mikasuki speaking neighbors, they were also cattlemen. Soon the vast herds of the growingSeminole Nation drew the attention of their white neighbors to the north. Conflicts that were occurring in Georgia spilled into Florida due to an increased white desire for land and cattle.

The story of the Cow keeper and his family is typical of what occurred to many for the next one-hundred years. The Cow keeper's nephew was Payne. Payne's nephew was Micanopy. And Micanopy's nephew was . The Cow keeper would kill eighty-six Spaniards before he died in 1784. He was recorded as saying that his only regret was in not having killed a hundred. Payne would die in 1813 of wounds he received defending the Seminolelands against a band of Georgia cattle thieves operating under the guise of an army. Micanopy would be forced to go west to Oklahoma during the (1835-1842). And Billy Bowlegs would survive the Second Seminole War only to be sent west at the end of the Third Seminole War (1858). He died of yellow fever during the Civil war while serving as a Major in the Union Army. In four generations, the only one of these men who died peacefully at his Florida home, had to kill eighty-six people to do it.

The Seminole population in Florida remained fairly small, around 1200, compared to the main body of Creeks in Georgia and Alabama, who numbered possibly 25,000 people. Then came the War of 1812. Thought of as a war between the U.S. and Britain, it was a fierce Indian war as well. Everywhere from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, native peoples dissatisfied with the increasingly aggressive actions of their white neighbors and the state governments joined the British against the Unites States armies. This was the beginning of a period of open warfare that continued almost unabated for the next fifty years. This period of time has been divided by historians into the War of 1812 (1812-1815); the Creek War (1813-1814); the Creek Civil War (1813); the First Seminole War (1818-1819); the Second Seminole War (1835-1842); the Scare of 1849-50 (1849-1840); and the Third Seminole War (1855-1858). The fallacy in these dates lie in the fact that one history says that the destruction of the British post on the Apalachicola River was the last battle of the War of 1812 and another calls it the first battle of the First Seminole war. It is unlikely that anyone there at the time saw the difference. In reality, all of these conflicts were one long war against the Creeks.

One result of these battles was that thousands of refugees from the war came into Florida. By 1823 the native population had increased three or four fold by the newcomers. This population of about five thousand was thrown together and subjected to the fiercest of all the wars ever waged by the U.S. Government against native peoples, known as the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842. This seven year war cost more than the American Revolution (estimates start at $20,000,000). It involved fifty-two thousand soldiers fighting against less than two thousand warriors. The army included the whole Marine Corps, all but one regiment of infantry, all of the artillery regiments, and a new regiment of Dragoons (formed just for service in Florida) and by wars end, four of the five highest ranking officers in the Army had been in Florida leading the troops. Add to this hundreds of ships and thousand of volunteers from Georgia, Florida, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and even Missouri. There were even Creek, Delaware and Shawnee warriors brought in to fight the Seminoles. By the end of the war there were reportedly only three-hundred Seminoles left in the territory. Then they fought the Third Seminole War and removed another 240 or so Seminoles.

No one really knows how many Seminoles were left in Florida after the 3rd Seminole War ended in 1858. The American Civil War drew attention away from the "Indian problem". In 1887 Special Indian Agent A.M. Wilson recorded that there were sixty adult males in a Florida Seminole population that totaled two hundred and sixty-nine men, women and children. "But", he added, "in case of trouble they could easily muster 200 fighting men, as there are doubtless 40 or 45 young men, who, though they have not reached their majority, they are good hunters and expert marksmen." Without explaining where the other one hundred warriors would come from, Agent Wilson only added a warning that there could be "serious trouble at no distant day." From beginning to end the government and its citizens would harbor an irrational fear of living next to the Indians.

For the next sixty years the small population of Seminoles would live on the fringes of society. They made livings as hunters, guides and sometimes, curiosities for the tourists. One positive side to this was that the Seminoles were able to make a living while maintaining a distance from the influences that tried so hard to change them. Outside of a few anthropological reports written by people like Clay MacCauley and Captain R.H. Pratt, knowledge of the Seminoles from 1860 until 1930 is relatively sparse.

In 1907, the Department of the Interior set aside 540 acres of land near Dania for Seminole use. In 1911, President Taft set aside lands in Martin, Broward and Hendry Counties as reservations. But when, in 1913, the State legislature voted 45 to 1 in the House and 23 to 0 in Senate to set aside 100,000 acres of lands for Indian use, Governor William Jennings vetoed the bill. Jennings believed that the Seminoles had signed a treaty to move to Oklahoma, had no rights as citizens of Florida, and that the rights of 800,000 non-tribal members outweighed those of the 400 Seminoles that lived in the State.

In spite of Jennings' archaic views, by 1913 there were 18 Indian reservations in Florida, ranging in size from 40 acres to16,000 acres. In the long run though, it was not racist views like Jennings’ that would be the biggest barrier to the reservations. It was theSeminoles themselves who resisted life on reservations. The very idea of land ownership has long been a point of contention between the red and white races. This was common to most native peoples. The attitude of Tribal people about land ownership was reflected in their hatred of surveyors. One Florida official said that the Seminoles were more afraid of the surveyor’s rod and staff than they were of the soldier’s musket. When Andrew Ellicott was sent by the U.S. government to survey the boundary between Georgia and Spanish Florida, hundreds of warriors descended on his camp and menacingly hung around, stealing his equipment in bits in pieces until he finally took a hint and gave up the effort. This survey wouldn’t be tried again for decades to come. The Third Seminole War was precipitated by a survey party that was attacked while surveying what is today’s Big Cypress Seminole Reservation and as late as 1908 a surveyor was shot by aSeminole while surveying for a drainage canal that was crossingSeminole lands. Native people are simply adverse to the concept of land ownership, and combined with a migratory seasonal lifestyle, reservation life was initially a hard sell. The Seminoles in the only camp on any of the reservations (Billy Fewell’s camp) probably didn’t even know that they were on reservation lands.

Changing economic conditions, including the Depression and the end of the market for plums and hides, plus the efforts of numerous people such as Ivy Stranahan, Minnie-Moore Willson, Agents Lucien Spencer, James Glenn, and the Creek preacher, Willie King, changed the minds of many Seminoles; enough so, that by 1935, a deputation of Seminoles approached the Secretary of the Interior, ----Ickes, with a request for reservation lands. Whether they had the real authority of the Tribe to speak is questionable. But the talk that they delivered was revealing. It said..

We, a group of the Seminole Indians of Florida, assembled in conference on the one-hundredth anniversary of the Seminole war, beg you to hear us:

The Seminole Indians have not been at war with the United States for one hundred years. The Seminole Indians live in peace and happiness in the Everglades, and have pleasant relations with the United States government. The Seminole Indians want a better understanding with the United States government and want to hear no more about war.

We have learned from our forefathers about the losses of our people in the Seminole War, and during recent years have witnessed the coming of the white man into the last remnant of our homeland.

We have seen them drain our lakes and waterways, cultivate our fields, harvest our forests, kill our game, and take possession of our hunting grounds and homes. We have found that it grows more and more difficult to provide food and clothing for our wives and children. We request and petition you to use your influence with Congress and the President of the United States to obtain for us the following lands and benefits.

The Seminole delegation concluded their address to Mr. Ickes with requests that included setting aside lands in the vicinity of the present day Brighton and Big Cypress reservations for the use of the Indians. It also asked for allowances for lands that had been taken from them and medical assistance.

This “talk” was far from submissive in nature. The biggest concession that the Tribe was willing to make was that they were no longer at war with the Government. Beyond that, the words of the representatives reflected an age old view that Native peoples had about the whites. In 1779 Chisika, the brother of the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh, had said, “The white man seeks to conquer nature, to bend it to his will and use it wastefully until it is all gone. The whole white race is a monster who is always hungry and what he eats is land.” The Seminoles had just witnessed the clear cutting of the entire state, from coast to coast, end to end, of its primeval forests. Environmentally speaking, these land changes were devastating to the native peoples. In Lake Worth for example, there had been every kind of wading bird that lived in south Florida; some of the largest rookeries in the area were located here. There was an island that was so covered with wildlife that the Indians named it Big Pelican Island. During 1874 and 1875, a man named Butler, working for the University of Rochester, systematically hunted the Lake Worth area until there were no pelicans left on Big Pelican. It would eventually be renamed Big Munyon Island after a snake oil salesman who manufactured Munyon’s Paw Paw Elixer and ran a hotel there. This sort of alteration to the landscape forced the native population to alter their economic and subsistence techniques.

The reservation question divided the Florida native peoples into two camps. The reasoning behind both of them made sense. One group would become known as the Missosukee Tribe of Seminole Indians of Florida; they were located next to the newly created Everglades National Park. While this created a fear that the Everglades would be overrun by non-native peoples, it had the effect of putting the area out of the reach of developers. The area provided, albeit imperfectly, a safe haven for people who held traditional views.

The second group took the offer of the reservation lands and began a new way to sustain the Seminole culture. They used the reservations as preservation areas in which to maintain the customs, language and self government of the Tribe. It provided a permanent and secure answer to the problem of the growing non-native population. Between 1970 and 1990, the population of Florida rose from 6.8 million to 12.9 million people. By 2025 it is expected to reach 20.7 million. Outside of a place like the Everglades, the nomadic lifestyle of the traditional Seminoles, who moved about the state as native people always had, following the seasons, was doomed. There were many issues that led to the decisions made by leaders at the time. These included health care, education, Christianization of tribal members, the re-establishment of the tribal cattle industry, and so on, but these could have been accomplished by assimilation into the general population. Ultimately, both the decisions made by the Florida tribes were made to preserve the culture. They were just made under different circumstances.

The reservations, more or less as they exist today, were established at the end of the Great Depression. A New Deal program, the Civilian Conservation Corps, had a special section, the Indian Department, or CCC-ID, that went to work helping to establish basic needs on the reservations. The most important aspect of the CCC-ID was that it trained tribal members to become skilled in range improvement, water control, digging wells, fencing, operating heavy equipment and constructing windmills.

Most of these skills relate to the cattle industry. It is seems appropriate that the first recorded leader of the Tribe was a man named the Cowkeeper, and the first elected officials of the reservations were the committee members of the Brighton Agricultural and Livestock Enterprise, and the Big Cypress Agricultural and Livestock Enterprise organizations.

The 1950’s were a turning point in the history of the Florida Seminole people. Tribal leaders found themselves having to address many significant issues during this period. In 1953, the United States Congress passed legislation to terminate federal tribal programs. Some tribes, such as the Menuminees of Wisconsin, were not yet ready for self determination. They were decimated by the action. While the State of Florida supported termination of services to theSeminoles, Tribal members and their supporters were able to successfully argue against termination. Instead of being terminated, Tribal leaders moved forward and by 1957 had drafted a Tribal constitution. They attained self government through the formation of a governing body, the Tribal Council. At the same time, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc. was created to oversee the business matters of the Tribe.

During the 1970’s the Tribe began a project that would affect tribal people all across America- Tribal Gaming. Beginning in a bingo hall on the Dania Reservation, Indian gaming today is the mainstay of many tribal economies across the country. Today the Seminole Casinos support a growing infrastructure for the Seminole community’s health and welfare, public safety, education and other services. The economic stability provided by gaming, combined with the cattle, citrus, and other business enterprises, has made the Seminole Tribe of Florida one of the most successful native business peoples in the United States today. It has also provided them the resources to preserve their culture through programs such as the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum, the Afachkee School and numerous language and culture programs.