Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the 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 Spanish Florida beginning in the early 1700s, most significantly northern Muscogee Creeks from what are now Georgia and Alabama.
Old crafts and traditions were revived in both Florida and Oklahoma in the mid-20th century as the Seminole began seeking revenue from tourists traveling along the new interstate highway system. In the 1970s, Seminole tribes began to run small bingo games on their reservations to raise revenue. They won court challenges to initiate Indian gaming on their sovereign land. Many U.S. tribes have likewise adopted this practice where state laws have gambling, in order to generate revenues for welfare, education, and development.
Since the late 20th century, the Seminole Tribe of Florida has been particularly successful with gambling establishments, attracting many of the numerous tourists to the state. In 2007 it purchased the Hard Rock Café and has rebranded or opened several casinos and gaming resorts under that name. These include two large resorts on its Tampa and Hollywood reservations. Together these projects cost more than a billion dollars to construct.
Etymology
The word "Seminole" is likely from the Spanish cimarones, meaning "wild one", "untamed" or "runaway", as opposed to the christianized natives who had previously lived in the mission villages of Spanish Florida. In the 17th century the Spanish in Florida used cimaron or cimarrón to refer to christianized natives who had left their mission villages to live "wild" in the woods. Some of the Hitchiti- or Mikasukee-speakers who had settled in Florida identified themselves to the British as "cimallon".The British wrote the name as "Semallone", and later "Seminole". The use of "cimallon" by Hitchiti/Mikasukee-speaking bands in Florida to describe themselves may have been intended to distinguish themselves from the primarily Muskogee-speakers of the Upper Towns of the Muscogee Confederacy, called the "Creek Confederacy" by the British. After 1763, when they took over Florida from the Spanish, the British called all natives living in Florida "Seminoles", "Creeks", or "Seminole-Creeks".
An alternative explanation is that "Seminole" is derived from the Muscogee simanó-li. This has been variously translated as "frontiersman", "outcast", "runaway", "separatist", and similar words.
Culture
The people who constituted the nucleus of this Florida group either chose to leave their tribe or were banished. At one time, the terms "renegade" and "outcast" were used to describe this status, but the terms have fallen into disuse due to their negative connotations. The Seminole identify as yat'siminoli or "free people" because for centuries their ancestors had successfully resisted efforts to subdue or convert them to Roman Catholicism. They signed several treaties with the U.S. government, including the Treaty of Moultrie Creek and the Treaty of Paynes Landing.Seminole culture is largely derived from that of the Creek. One of the more significant holdovers from the Creek was the Green Corn Dance ceremony. Other notable traditions include use of the black drink and ritual tobacco. As the Seminoles adapted to Florida environs, they developed local traditions, such as the construction of open-air, thatched-roof houses known as chickees. Historically the Seminoles spoke Mikasuki and Creek, both Muskogean languages.
History
Origins
Florida was the home of several Indigenous cultures prior to the arrival of European explorers in the early 1500s. The introduction of Eurasian infectious diseases, along with conflict with Spanish colonists, led to a drastic decline of Florida's original native population. By the early 1700s, much of La Florida was uninhabited apart from Spanish colonial towns at St. Augustine and Pensacola. A stream of mainly Muscogee Creek began moving into the territory at that time to escape conflict with English colonists to the north and established their own towns, mainly in the Florida panhandle.Native American refugees from northern wars, such as the Yuchi and Yamasee after the Yamasee War in South Carolina, migrated into Spanish Florida in the early 18th century. The Yuchi did not speak a Muskogean language, but shared the culture of the Muscogee people. They had belonged to the Muscogee Creek Confederacy before moving to Florida. More arrived in the second half of the 18th century, as the Lower Creeks, part of the Muscogee people, such as Chief Billy Emathla fled from several of their towns into Florida to evade the dominance of the Upper Creeks and pressure from encroaching colonists from the Province of Carolina. In 1818 chief Billy Emathla was identified as the chief of a Yuchi town of about 75 people associated with Mikasuki villages east of Tallahassee.
They spoke primarily Hitchiti, of which Mikasuki is a dialect. This is the primary traditional language spoken today by the Miccosukee in Florida. Also fleeing to Florida were African Americans who had escaped from slavery in the Southern Colonies.
The new arrivals moved into virtually uninhabited lands that had once been peopled by several cultures indigenous to Florida, such as the Apalachee, Timucua, Calusa and others. The native population had been devastated by infectious diseases brought by Spanish explorers in the 1500s and later colonization by additional European settlers. Later, raids by Carolina and Native American slavers destroyed the string of Spanish missions across northern Florida. Most of the survivors left for Cuba when the Spanish withdrew, after ceding Florida to the British in 1763, following Britain's victory in the French and Indian War.
John Swanton stated in the mid-20th century that the Seminole encountered and absorbed the Calusa who had remained in southwest Florida after the Spanish withdrew. More recent scholarship since the turn of the 21st century holds that there is no documentary evidence of that assertion.
1700s to early 1800s
As they established themselves in northern and peninsular Florida throughout the 1700s, the various new arrivals intermingled with each other and with the few remaining Indigenous people. In a process of ethnogenesis, they constructed a new culture which they called "Seminole", a derivative of the Mvskoke' word simano-li, an adaptation of the Spanish cimarrón which means "wild", or "runaway" . The Seminole were a heterogeneous tribe made up of mostly Lower Creeks from Georgia, who by the time of the Creek War numbered about 4,000 in Florida. At that time, numerous refugees of the Red Sticks migrated south, adding about 2,000 people to the population. They were Creek-speaking Muscogee, and were the ancestors of most of the later Creek-speaking Seminole.A few hundred escaped African-American slaves settled near the Seminole towns and, to a lesser extent, Native Americans from other tribes, and some white Americans. The unified Seminole spoke two languages: Creek and Mikasuki, two among the Muskogean languages family. Creek became the dominant language for political and social discourse, so Mikasuki speakers learned it if participating in high-level negotiations. The Muskogean language group includes Choctaw and Chickasaw, associated with two other major Southeastern tribes.
In part due to the arrival of Native Americans from other cultures, the Seminole became increasingly independent of other Creek groups and established their own identity through ethnogenesis. They developed a thriving trade network by the time of the British and second Spanish periods, roughly 1767–1821. The tribe expanded considerably during this time, and was further supplemented from the late 18th century by escaped slaves from Southern plantations who settled near and paid tribute to Seminole towns. The latter became known as Black Seminoles, although they kept many facets of their own Gullah culture.
During the colonial years, the Seminole were on relatively good terms with both the Spanish and the British. In 1784, after the American Revolutionary War, Britain came to a settlement with Spain and transferred East and West Florida to it.
The Spanish Empire's decline enabled the Seminole to settle more deeply into Florida. They were led by a dynasty of chiefs of the Alachua chiefdom, founded in eastern Florida in the 18th century by Cowkeeper. Beginning in 1825, Micanopy was the principal chief of the unified Seminole, until his death in 1849, after removal to Indian Territory. This chiefly dynasty lasted past Removal, when the US forced the majority of Seminole to move from Florida to the Indian Territory, in modern Oklahoma, after the Second Seminole War. Micanopy's sister's son, John Jumper, succeeded him in 1849 and, after his death in 1853, his brother Jim Jumper became principal chief. He was in power through the American Civil War, after which the U.S. government began to interfere with tribal government, supporting its own candidate for chief.
After raids by Anglo-American colonists on Seminole settlements in the mid-18th century, the Seminole retaliated by raiding the Southern Colonies, primarily Georgia, purportedly at the behest of the Spanish. The Seminoles also maintained a tradition of accepting escaped slaves from Southern plantations, infuriating planters in the American South by providing a route for their slaves to escape bondage.
After the United States achieved independence, the U.S. Army and local militia groups made increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish Florida to recapture escaped slaves living among the Seminole. American general Andrew Jackson's 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminoles became known as the First Seminole War. Though Spain decried the incursions into its territory, the United States effectively controlled the Florida panhandle after the war.