Seminole history pdf download

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Russell Laurie N. Taylor Brian W. Mormino David C. Colburn Patrick J. Reakes f Meredith M. The Seminoles Come to Florida 3 2. Early Conflicts with White Americans 28 3. Prelude to War, 50 4. The Second Seminole War, Phase 1, 12 5.

The Second Seminole War, Phase 2, 96 6. A Period of Crisis 1. The Final War, 8. Early Contacts and Establishment of a Reservation 9. Missionary Efforts and New Federal Reservations Lucien A. Spencer and His Work, Brighton and Big Cypress Reservations Seminole Census, Appendix B. I developed a fondness for the American Indian as a child in St. It was my first opportunity to see a number of Indians living an ordinary life.

The University of Oklahoma with its good library, fine teaching staff, and excellent press offered an opportunity to work for a doctorate in U. Dale suggested that, as little had been published on the Ute Indians, I should select them as the subject for a dissertation. Accord ingly, my topic was "Federal Relations with the Utes, Dale, one of the country's foremost authorities on the American Indian, gave helpful advice concerning federal relations, and his course on the American Indian was useful from the historical side.

I undertook most of the basic research for the dissertation in that major depository of American Indian records, the National Archives in Washington, D. After graduation, my first college teaching position, in January , was in the Department of History at the University of Tampa. With Florida so far from the Ute Indians of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, I looked forward to developing a knowledge of the Native Americans who had lived in the Tampa area and who were still in the state.

I did so slowly, visiting reservations, talking to Seminoles, writing articles, and reading papers at state and national scholarly meetings. Present-day writers of Seminole history owe a debt to those who earlier recorded their views of the tribe and how the whites treated them. The first historian to make use of the store of materials at the National Archives was Grant Foreman.

Although he included early relations and removal of all five civilized tribes in two of his books, The Five Civilized Tribes and Indian Removal, the chapters devoted to the Seminoles contrib uted to my basic understanding of the subject. King, Harry A. Kersey, Jr. It is regrettable that no Florida Seminoles have written articles or books on the history of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, although the Miccosukees have been gathering information and some literature; per haps this effort will spark some written material from the Seminole perspective.

Evidence from the Seminole position can be found in taped interviews at the University of Florida's Oral History Archives and in the pamphlet "20th Anniversary of Tribal Organization, ," Semi nole Tribe of Florida, August 20, The Seminole view is needed, as Alice Marriott showed in her well-researched book Ten Grandmothers, in which a white minister proud of his Kiowa dialect was called by Kiowas "preacher who cannot be understood. The original tribes of Florida, which may have numbered as many as , persons, were virtually extinct when the Lower Creeks began making permanent settlements on the peninsula in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

The peaceful and semicivilized Apalachees were the first Florida tribe to suffer almost complete annihilation.

Governor James Moore of South Carolina, with 50 colonial soldiers and 1, Lower Creeks, invaded the Apalachee area in , destroying most of the Spanish missions and carrying off some Apalachee men and 1, women and children to be settled on the present-day borders of South Carolina and Georgia and a considerable number of Apalachee slaves to be sold in the West Indies.

Eventually a handful returned from Georgia, where Moore had settled some of the migrants along the Okmulgee River, but for all practical purposes the Apalachee missions had ceased operations. Learning of Moore's success in capturing Florida's Native Americans, various parties of whites, Yamassees, and Lower Creeks moved southward to raid the practically defenseless villages, and by thirty-two towns had been destroyed by raiders from the north. Johns provided excellent avenues into Florida; in one party of thirty-three Yamassees led by Captain Thomas Nairne paddled for six days along the river before going ashore and seizing Timucuans as they hunted, fished, and gathered firewood.

In a report in Nairne informed the Earl of Sunderland that "the garrison of Saint Augustine is by this war [Queen Anne's War] reduced to the bare walls, their castle and Indian towns all consumed either by us in our invasion of that place or by the Indian subjects since who in quest of booty are now obliged to go down as far as the point of Florida as the firm land will permit, they have drove the Floridians to the islands of the Cape, have brought in and sold many hundreds of them and daily now continue that trade.

When Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed near Calusa headquarters in , the tribe numbering perhaps as many as 15, gave the Spaniards a rough time, finally forcing them to abandon San Antonio, a station the Spanish had established. But diseases took their toll on the tribe, and after little was heard of the Calusas. At and near the mission tribe members fished and gathered wild fruits, but in September of each year they were taken by Cuban fishermen to the Keys and to the area near the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, where they worked for the Cubans.

Augustine and St. Florida's Native American popula tion rapidly declined, and by only three villages remained under Spanish protection. Augustine to the English, the Spanish carried with them to Havana eighty-nine Ya massees: twenty men, thirty-two women, and thirty-seven children. There is no mention of Apalachees or Timucuans living in or near St. Augustine at this time, but there likely was some intermarriage with the Spanish and Yamassee inhabitants.

This confederation represented a clash of cultures, lan guages, and environments, with only rarely a common goal or front. Crops raised included corn, melons, beans, and pumpkins, and when the soil became unproductive, the villagers moved to another site. Agriculture and hunt ing were carried on solely for subsistence purposes, and little or no effort was made to dispose of surplus commodities during this period. Seminole migration into Florida came in three phases.

Between and the Seminoles made raids against the Spaniards and their Ap alachee allies; although they acquired much knowledge of the Florida terrain, they made no significant settlements during this period. Between and , at least six Seminole villages were established in the northern part of Florida; small parties explored the entire peninsula in search of deer, bear, and other game and made contact with Cuban fishermen. The third phase came between and , when pressures in Alabama and Georgia forced many Upper and Lower Creeks to move into Florida.

Each of the hutis was part of a larger division known as the square ground town or talwa, where the leader of the town, the micco, lived. The talwa village, averaging several hundred persons, had as its highest official a leader or micco chosen by a general council of elders representing several clans. Selection of the leader was restricted to one clan, however, so the position might be deemed hereditary, although the chief could be impeached and removed by the council. Other town council officials included the vice-chief, micco apokta; assistant leaders, micalgi; ceremonial leaders, heniha; the war speaker, holibonaya; and the top two classes of warriors.

Although the council selected officials from a certain clan, those chosen had to possess the ability and skill to retain their positions; if misfortune happened during their tenure, they could be replaced by a person from another clan. Representatives from all of the towns considered matters of impor tance at a general assembly held in May, usually in the most important town, Coweta or Tukabahchee.

Before beginning discussions the men enjoyed a pipe, and because a clear head was needed to deliberate impor tant matters, they drank the black drink cassina , which the older men passed around the circle. The meeting was held in the center of the town, where three cabins were erected on each side of a square. The significance of the rising sun in their religion dictated that the cabin of the most important chief face the east. Nine of the cabins were painted red, but those facing the setting sun and occupied by older men were painted white to denote old age and virtue.

Only the important leaders entered the assembly cabin, and they could not leave or sleep until all matters had been discussed. Women prepared food and drinkroast meat, bread, and fermented mealserved by lesser leaders. Fight ing men were placed in four classes: imala, low; labotskalgi, higher; imala lakalgi, still higher; and tustenuggee, highest. Judging from his record of deeds performed on the battlefield the micco and town council selected the tustenuggee. When a fighting force was needed, the tustenuggee 6- PAGE 23 The Seminoles Come to Florida placed a red two-foot-long war club in his village square and sent a similar club to the leader of each band, who placed it in his square, began a count of the sticks sent along with the club to mark the days before the raid, and had a drummer keep a steady beat to summon all people in the town to the council house, where the number of warriors needed was announced.

At the end of three days the town leader, carrying a sacred bundle, went to the general meeting, where leaders from other towns had assembled, and the tustenuggee reported what had been planned. Once a town's warriors had assembled in their enclosure, the war leader was in complete control, distributing war medicine made from the brew of herbs and roots, which the men drank for three days.

According to one European witness, the war medicine served a good purpose by preventing the men from drinking hard liquor, which would make them drunk and useless as fighters; it also served as a slight purgative, which reduced infection from possible wounds. As soon as they left the town, the men, with the leader at their head, moved in single file, each walking in the footsteps of the leader and the last man concealing the prints with grass.

When a stop was ordered, the men formed a circle, a gun at the side of each and the leader sitting opposite the only opening in the circle.

By hand signal the leader informed the warriors when to sleep and when to arise and move from the circle. Such divisions were not important, for one town shifted divisions when it lost a ball game, and little is known of the system concerning identity of towns as peace or war towns. A Creek could not marry within a clan, and clan kinship was acknowledged from the female side.

A Raccoon could not marry another Raccoon but had to choose from the ranks of the other clans. Among the Creeks, the micco came from the ranks of one clan, usually the most important one in the town, but a general council of males was selected from several clans.

Some who tried to escape punishment were sometimes captured and brought back. No one was confined, but some who com mitted adultery were disfigured or beaten, and others were excluded from ceremonies and rituals until they demonstrated that they had been re habilitated by the shaman. When there was little chance of reform or when a serious crime such as murder had taken place, leaders of the clan met and decided upon a sentencemoney payment, exile, or execution.

Women made clothing, pottery, and mats, collected firewood and game when it was killed near the town, dressed skins, and prepared food. Rather severe restrictions were imposed on the Creek women.

Dur ing her monthly periods, a woman lived in a small hut erected some distance from her home; afterward she cleansed herself in a stream, dressed in fresh clothing, and returned home. Creek women had complete child-rearing responsibility until the children were able to provide for themselves, partly because the father belonged to one clan, the mother and children to another. In each clan there was usually a man who watched over the children, lectured those who needed advice at the Green Corn Dance, and took care of necessary punishment.

With the exception of some instruction by their mothers, girls re ceived little formal education, but boys performed many services: lighting fires, finding and carrying firewood, cooking the black drink, and doing all of the required work in the public square. Release from their lowly status came when they performed a brave act during a war or a hunt. When the time of marriage approached, the prospective husband sent a female relative to the female relations of his would-be wife.

After these representatives had met and approval had been given, the bridegroom gathered gifts, usually clothing, which were taken to the bride by his PAGE 25 The Seminoles Come to Florida female relatives. If accepted, he went to the home of the bride and remained there. After the bridegroom had erected his own home and given the products of a hunt to the bride, the marriage was considered valid. Either party could request a divorce, but the wife kept the children. Children received names shortly after birth; a girl usually retained hers throughout life, but a boy, given an early name such as "little rabbit" or "smells of urine," received a second name when he reached the age of a warrior and had performed some courageous feat, and sometimes a third name after he had performed another, more outstanding exploit.

A young warrior retained the name of his mother and could not have a wife until he brought back a scalp from a raid.

It is believed that the most famous Seminole, Osceola, was named Billy Powell in adolescent years and after maturity was given the name Asi-yaholo from asi Black Drink and yaholo singer a reference to the sons of the attendant who offered the black drink to the participants at the Green Corn ceremony.

The possibility of one man having three namesan Indian one, a translated version, and one given by whitesled to considerable confusion among the frontier people and later among writers trying to identify Creeks. Lieutenant Antonio Matheos moved into present-day Georgia in to enforce Spain's will on the Lower Creeks living along the Chatta hoochee and Flint rivers.

For a time he was partially successful, but under the influence of English traders the Lower Creek villagers moved north eastward to the upper Okmulgee River, where they lived for twenty-five years. Consequently, many Lower Creek warriors became knowledgeable about the geography of Florida. By mistreating and overcharging the American Indians, frontier traders brought on this brief but bloody war, which ended with the defeat of the Yamassees, their retreat to the gates of St.

Augustine, and the migration of their allies to southwestern Georgia, where they settled in an area extending from the falls of the Chattahoochee to a point some fifty miles downriver. In , , and , Lieutenant Diego Pena traveled into Lower Creek territory to secure allegiance to Spain and to ascertain how many Lower Creeks wanted to settle in Florida. He recommended that they select village sites along the banks of rivers and creeks. Marks , the migration of Lower Creek bands into Florida proper was more actively encouraged.

Although Pena could not convince Brims, leader of Coweta, that a Spanish alliance was necessary, he learned from the pro-Spanish nephew of Brims that six villages of Yamassee, Yuchi, or Apalachee would shortly move to Apalachee. Chiscalachisle, a Creek Yuchi leader, visited San Marcos de Apalache, but when he was not offered gifts and was served meager food, he decided that his people ought to stay in southern Georgia.

The Lower Creeks, comparing gifts given by the Spanish with those of their English and French rivals, complained, "King of Spain no good. English goods, give much, much. Captain does not give what el Mico sends. Usually only warriors visited the post, but when a tribal conflict threatened in , men, women, and children swarmed the place. During this initial phase of expansion into Florida, the Lower Creek bands, with the exception of several small villages in the Apalachee area, PAGE 27 The Seminoles Come to Florida made little or no attempt to form permanent establishments.

They came to Florida on slave raids and as English allies in the wars against the Spanish, but they did not remain. The Spanish did their best to enlist the aid of these possible allies, but because they failed to deliver sufficient gifts the Indians remained in Georgia and Alabama. The second phase of Creek expansion, which saw some permanent Lower Creek settlements established in Florida and extensive hunting in the area, occurred because of power politics and because of the great success of trade between whites and American Indians.

The Creeks' dependence upon whites' goods forced them to cast aside their practice of killing game only for their immediate needs; they began to kill as much game as possible to trade skins for guns, flints, powder, blankets, dyes, beads, iron utensils, and assorted odds and ends.

The Europeans became dependent upon their trade for deerskins used in the manufacture of saddles, aprons, book covers, breeches, shoes, gloves, and other items. In order to find the rapidly vanishing herds of deer, Creek hunters made longer and longer trips and often remained away from their families for several months. After the transaction the factor sent the goods by mule or horse train to the trading house headquarters in Charleston, Savannah, or Pensacola. To the hunters the relatively untapped Florida wilderness was a virtual promised land, filled with vast numbers of deer, bear, and other game.

With the settlement of Georgia by the English in , the excursions by the English and their American Indian allies into Florida became more frequent. A band of Tallapoosas and Yuchis raided Picolata in , destroying it and forcing the Yamassees and Timucuans living there to flee to St.

In a Creek attack took place at Fort Pupo, less than thirty miles from St. Augustine, and a short time later Spanish cattlemen observed Lower Creeks camped near roads on tracts throughout central Florida. Besides laying siege to the Castillo de San Marcos at St. Augustine, bands of Lower Creeks taking part in this foray explored the area west of the St.

Johns River and became familiar with the lakes, hammocks, swamps, and rivers. It is difficult to ascertain definite reasons for the migration of the first Lower Creek bands into Florida and the making of permanent settle- 11 PAGE 28 The Seminoles of Florida ments. William Bartram relates in detail the travels of one of these Lower Creek bands, the Oconee, led by Cowkeeper.

According to the story told to Bartram, Cowkeeper's band had settled along the Oconee River in Georgia but, because of the proximity of frontier settlements, had mi grated to the lands held by the Upper Creeks. Unhappy with this location, they decided to move southeast toward the Atlantic Ocean. En route they saw the plains and the lake at Alachua Prairie and there built the town known as Alachua or Latchaway. Because of the smell of decaying fish and swarms of mosquitoes, Cowkeeper and his people later abandoned Latch away and moved to Cuscowilla, located several miles away near presentday Micanopy.

Bartram talked to a trader who knew the Lower Creeks well and learned another possible reason for the Oconee migration into Florida. Because the cultivation of maize and beans exhausted the soil, southern bands constantly needed to change their old sites for more fertile ones. Surrounded by hostile tribesCherokees, Chickasaws, and Choctaws the Lower Creeks sought to migrate to Florida, where there was no need to expect a battle whenever they changed village sites.

The vast majority of personal names listed in books and papers pertaining to the period were given in Muskogee, but some of the persons listed were known definitely to have been Mikasuki. Probably many persons spoke both languages, and the in terpreters used Muskogee as the official language in transacting business with the whites and the Mikasukis because more people knew Muskogee than Mikasuki and non-Muskogee speakers adopted the Muskogee tongue. These bands scattered across northern Floridaalong the Apalachicola and the lower Suwannee rivers, throughout Tallahassee and the Alachua Prairie, and along stretches of the St.

Johns Riverand established "towns each a political unit with little sense of commonness. Because of poor communication, however, these ties were broken. As early as Englishman John Stuart, the American Indian agent, called the Florida natives Seminoles because he had learned that it meant wild people. Although William Bartram used the same term during his travels in Florida, only Cowkeeper's band, which had settled near Alachua Prairie also called Paynes Prairie , showed that they were determined to cast off the influence of the Creek Confederation.

The word Seminole as used by Muskogee speakers is taken from the Spanish term cimarron or runaway, but this designation was disliked by the American Indians. Perhaps the translation pioneer or adventurer would be more suitable. The reader should not confuse these Lower Creek Mikasuki-speaking Semi noles with the later group that called itself the Miccosukee Tribe of In dians of Florida. This group broke away from the Seminoles for political, not ethno-linguistic, reasons and is composed of both Mikasukiand Muskogee-speaking Indians.

The largest Seminole camps in Florida during the s were in present-day Alachua, Leon, and Levy counties. Cuscowilla included some thirty dwellings, a population of several hundred persons, cornfields, herds of cattle and horses, and a considerable number of Yamassee slaves.

According to Bartram, Cuscowilla consisted of a number of wood-frame buildings erected about an open square with a council house at the center and several smaller outlying settlements. Each home had its own vegetable garden in which corn, beans and squash were cultivated, but coontie Zamia integrifolia and wild potatoes gathered from the woods supplemented the diet. So attractive was the Alachua area with its rich soil that by migrants from the Creek towns of Oconee, Apalachicola, Sawokli, and Chiaha had moved into the region.

White King was the leader of a second settlement, Talahasochte,!? On the excursions to Cuba they traded deerskins, furs, dried fish, honey, and bear oil for cigars, coffee, rum, and sugar. Many of the European items came from a trader who lived at the village for some time.

In addition to Talahasochte and Cuscowilla a third town lay on the west bank of the St. Johns River near present-day Palatka. During the first Spanish period Seminole pressure against white settlements in Florida increased to such a degree that the inhabitants of San Marcos de Apalache and St. Based on years of research into the Scott Massacre, Elizabeth's War concludes with a detailed history of the event and an overview of the First Seminole War.

Get BOOK. Elizabeth s War. This study of the Seminole tribe is a fantastic, hands-on way to draw your children into learning a part of American history! Click here to download your free printables! We value your privacy and promise never to send you spam; you can unsubscribe at anytime. Indian freedmen and their descendants have garnered much public and scholarly attention, but women's roles have largely been absent from that discussion. Now a scholar who gained an insider's perspective into the Black Seminole community in Texas and Mexico offers a rare and vivid picture of these women and their contributions.

In Dreaming with the Ancestors, Shirley Boteler Mock explores the role that Black Seminole women have played in shaping and perpetuating a culture born of African roots and shaped by southeastern Native American and Mexican influences. Mock reveals a unique maroon culture, forged from an eclectic mixture of religious beliefs and social practices. At its core is an amalgam of African-derived traditions kept alive by women. The author interweaves documentary research with extensive interviews she conducted with leading Black Seminole women to uncover their remarkable history.

She tells how these women nourished their families and held fast to their Afro-Seminole language — even as they fled slavery, endured relocation, and eventually sought new lives in new lands.

Of key importance were the "warrior women" — keepers of dreams and visions that bring to life age-old African customs. Featuring more than thirty illustrations and maps, including historic photographs never before published, Dreaming with the Ancestors combines scholarly analysis with human interest to open a new window on both African American and American Indian history and culture. Author : Angela Y. Author : Daniel F. Littlefield Publisher : Univ. A new edition of a standard work documenting the interrelationship of two racial cultures in antebellum Florida and Oklahoma.

Seminole Freedmen, as they were called, were the only African Americans living among the Five Civilized Tribes who were entitled to tribal allotments. Unlike the other Five Civilized Tribes--which held African Americans as slaves--the Seminole incorporated blacks into their tribe.

Since the Curtis Act required the Dawes Commission to "follow tribal customs and usages" in processing applications for allotment, it had to consider any children of a mixed marriage "freedmen rather than citizens by blood.