The Seminole Wars were three related military conflicts in Florida between the United States Army and the Seminole, a Native American group which had coalesced in Spanish Florida during the early 1700s. The fighting occurred between about 1816 and 1858, with two periods of uneasy truce between active conflict. Both in human and monetary terms, the Seminole Wars were the longest and most expensive of the Indian Wars in United States history.
The Seminole are a Native American people originally from Florida. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and 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 Florida in the 18th century, most significantly northern Muscogee Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama. The word "Seminole" is derived from the Muscogee word simanó-li, which may itself be derived from the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning "runaway" or "wild one".
Brighton Seminole Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, located in northeast Glades County near the northwest shore of Lake Okeechobee. It is one of six reservations held in trust by the federal government for this tribe. The reservation has a land area of approximately 146 square kilometers or 36,000 acres and a 2000 census resident population of 566 persons.
Big Cypress National Preserve is a United States National Preserve located in South Florida, about 45 miles west of Miami on the Atlantic coastal plain. The 720,000-acre (2,900 km2) Big Cypress, along with Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, became the first national preserves in the United States National Park System when they were established on October 11, 1974. In 2008, Florida film producer Elam Stoltzfus featured the preserve in a PBS documentary.
The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida. They were part of the Seminole nation until the mid-20th century, when they organized as an independent tribe, receiving federal recognition in 1962. The Miccosukee speak the Mikasuki language, which is mutually intelligible with the Hitchiti language, is considered its dialect, and is also spoken by many Florida Seminole.
The Mikasuki language is a Muskogean language spoken by around 290 people in southern Florida. Along with Creek, it is also known as Seminole. It is spoken by the Miccosukee tribe and many Florida Seminole. The extinct Hitchiti was a mutually-intelligible dialect.
The Big Cypress Indian Reservation is one of the six reservations of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. It is located in southeastern Hendry County and northwestern Broward County, in southern Florida, United States. Its location is on the Atlantic coastal plain. This reservation lies south of Lake Okeechobee and just north of Alligator Alley. It is governed by the Seminole Tribe of Florida's Tribal Council, and is the largest of the five Seminole reservations in the state. Facilities on the reservation include the tribal museum and a major entertainment and rodeo complex.
Ar-pi-uck-i, also known as Abiaka or Sam Jones, was a powerful spiritual alektca and war chief of the Miccosukee, a Seminole–Muscogee Creek tribe of the Southeast United States. Ar-pi-uck-i successfully defied the U.S. government and refused to remove to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi and his influential leadership in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) resulted in the permanent Native American presence in Florida.
The Seminole Tribe of Florida is a federally recognized Seminole tribe based in the U.S. state of Florida. Together with the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, it is one of three federally recognized Seminole entities. It received that status in 1957; today it has six Indian reservations in Florida.
The indigenous people of the Everglades region arrived in the Florida peninsula of what is now the United States approximately 14,000 to 15,000 years ago, probably following large game. The Paleo-Indians found an arid landscape that supported plants and animals adapted to prairie and xeric scrub conditions. Large animals became extinct in Florida around 11,000 years ago. Climate changes 6,500 years ago brought a wetter landscape. The Paleo-Indians slowly adapted to the new conditions. Archaeologists call the cultures that resulted from the adaptations Archaic peoples. They were better suited for environmental changes than their ancestors, and created many tools with the resources they had. Approximately 5,000 years ago, the climate shifted again to cause the regular flooding from Lake Okeechobee that gave rise to the Everglades ecosystems.
James F. Hutchinson is a painter. He was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2011.
Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki is a museum of Seminole culture and history, located on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in Hendry County, Florida. The museum is owned and operated by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
The Tampa Reservation is one of six Seminole Indian reservations governed by the federally recognized Seminole Tribe of Florida. It is located in Hillsborough County, Florida.
William Buffalo Tiger was a political leader of the Miccosukee Nation based in the Everglades area of Florida. He served as the first elected tribal chairman from 1962 to 1985, and before that was head of the General Council from 1957 and a chief. His activism led to political organization of the Miccosukee and their gaining federal recognition in 1962 as an independent Native American tribe. They wrote a constitution to govern their people.
Bill Osceola was the first president of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. When the federal government marked his tribe for termination, Osceola came up with the idea of creating a rodeo as a tourist attraction to raise funds. The rodeo earned enough money to pay for tribal representatives to lobby against termination and formally organize as a tribe.
Billy Osceola, was the first elected chief of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. He became an ordained minister and was extremely influential in shifting the Seminole Tribe of Florida from traditional spiritual practices to the Baptist faith. He was the first elected chief of the tribe after their 1957 reorganization.
Betty Osceola is a Native American Everglades educator, conservationist, anti-fracking and clean water advocate. She is a member of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida Panther Clan. Osceola was born and raised in the Everglades and is an airboat captain and operator of Buffalo Tiger Airboat Rides on Tamiami Trail near Miami, Florida.
Ethel Cutler Freeman was an American amateur anthropologist and the first female trustee of the American Institute of Anthropology. She is best known for her research of Seminole culture on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in Henry County, Florida. During her career, she also conducted fieldwork with other Native American communities, including the Arapaho, Shoshoni, Navajo, Hopi, and Kickapoo. She also conducted research among the people of the Virgin Islands, the Bahama Islands, and Haiti as well as the Maasai and Zulu in Africa.
Josie Billie was a Mikasuki-speaking Seminole medicine man, doctor, and Baptist preacher. Billie was a member of the Panther clan of the Seminoles in southern Florida. He actively collaborated with American anthropologists and researchers like Ethel Cutler Freeman, Frances Densmore, Robert Greenlee, Robert Solenberger and William Sturtevant. Billie served as a public spokesman for the Florida Seminoles and created recordings of traditional folk songs and information about the traditional Seminole religion. As of 2017, his camp is part of the Tribal Register of Historic Places.
Seminole patchwork fringed dance shawl, ca. 1980s, by Susie Cypress (Seminole Tribe of Florida) from the Big Cypress Reservation, Florida
Ruby Jumper Billie: Big Cypress Reservation, Florida. Florida Memory, Set 72157633485327257, ID 8790883947, State Library and Archives of Florida.
Seminole patchwork, Museum of the American Indian - Heye Foundation (MAI), ~1960. Photographer: Carmelo Guadagno (Jimmy Guadagno)
Seminole patchwork jacket worn by Iron Arrow Honor Society members, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida.
