Seminole Indian History and Culture

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 the Seminoles 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 a Seminole while surveying for a drainage canal that was crossing Seminole 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 the Seminoles, 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.