A Very Brief History of the Seminoles

For thousands of years before the coming of Europeans to southeastern North America, perhaps as many as 400,000 of the ancestors of the Seminoles built towns and villages and complex civilizations across the vast area. After 1510, when the Spaniards began to explore and settle in their territory, disease killed many of these people, but they were never "destroyed" or "conquered" as so many of the white men's history books proclaim. The survivors amalgamated across the peninsula of Florida and continued their lives. These are the Seminoles. The name given to the Native Americans of Florida is thought to have two origins- one is the idea that the word "Seminole" is a corruption of the Spanish word "cimarron" which means "wild"; the other is that it comes from the Creek words "ishti semoli" meaning "wildmen". By the early 19th century, the term "Seminole" was used to indicate the Native Americans of Florida.

They separated from the Creek in the early 18th century and settled in the former territory of the Apalachee in Florida. They gradually grew in strength, absorbing many runaway black slaves and the remnants of the Apalachee. While still under Spanish rule, the Seminoles became involved in several major confrontations with the United States, particularly in the War of 1812 and again in 1817-18. Upon coming to Florida in the early 19th century, the settlers were eager to claim land, and pressure from the slave owners from the north wishing to reclaim their lost slaves resulted in a series of bloody battles between the Seminoles and the Whites. 1814 saw the joining of the Red Stick faction of the Upper Creeks with the Seminoles. The first war, called the Fist Seminole War, erupted when some 300 men were sent to respond to reports of violence between Indians and settlers.

According to the Treaty of Paynes Landing (1832), the Seminole were bound to move west of the Mississippi River within three years. Most Seminole, led by Osceola, refused to go and prepared themselves for resistance. In 1835 began the Second Seminole War, which proved to be the most costly of the Indian wars in which the United States engaged. Lasting for nearly eight years, it cost the lives of thousands of Seminole and 1,500 U.S. soldiers, as well as at least $30 million. Finally defeated in 1842, the Seminole consented to move to Oklahoma, where they became one of the Five Civilized Tribes. Seminole Osceola, whose fighting ability and fiery spirit made him the symbol of resistance, was captured in 1837. The Third Seminole War broke out in 1849, when a white man was killed by Indians. This one ended in 1858. A few Seminoles remained isolated in the Everglades.

On July 21, 1957, Tribal Members voted in favor of a Seminole Constitution and established the federally recognized Seminole Tribe of Florida. In 1967, another group, deciding they wanted to make different political decisions, formed the Miccosukee Indians of Florida. In 1990 there were about 15,500 Seminole in the United States, mostly in Florida and Oklahoma. In Florida, there are Seminole reservations at Immokalee, Hollywood, Brighton and along the Big Cypress Swamp. Florida’s Miccosukee population are the only known Native Americans never to have signed a Treaty with the United States.