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The focus of this portion of our web guide is on the Seminole people.

Although the Seminoles are one of the better-known tribes, they didn't exist as a tribe until the 18th century when some of the Lower Creek people in Alabama and Georgia migrated to Florida after confrontations with British settlers.

However, British colonists lumped a variety of tribal people, societies, and villages into this one nation because they spoke similar languages, including the Muscogee, Hitchiti, and Choctaw. The Creek Confederation was divided into the Upper Creek and the Lower Creek.

Most of the groups whom the British referred to as Creek had practiced slavery before the Europeans arrived, but the European practice of slavery introduced them to viewing slaves as property.

British colonists began complaining about their escaped black slaves going to Creek villages, where they were taken in by the tribes, and this connection became more intense with the Lower Creek, who formed close bonds with runaway slaves, relying on them as interpreters and allies.

A large group of Lower Creek left their homelands in Alabama and Georgia to escape encroachment by British settlers. The British called them "Seminole," derived from cimarrones, a Spanish word that means "wild ones" or "ones who broke away." It was a word that originally referred to domestic animals who had become feral, and later used as a reference to escaped slaves.

In central Florida, they developed their own way of life and culture separate from the other Creek tribes. The Seminole raised and traded in cattle.

The Seminole of Florida hold that they had inhabited Florida for thousands of years, claiming to be the original people of Florida. While this is not a documented fact, it is possible that they included people who had come to Florida long before the documented migration. Florida's population was often in flux due to warfare with other tribes, disease, and other factors.

The group we know of as the Seminole have adopted the name themselves, although they are a mixture of various groups who came together in Alabama, Georgia, or Florida.

This may (or may not) include the Black Seminoles, a mixture of people of American Indian and African origin who are associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma today. They are blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped former slaves who allied with Seminole groups in Florida during the Spanish occupation. Many have Seminole heritage, but, due to their mixed origin, they were often categorized as slaves or freedmen in the past. Historically, the Black Seminoles lived mostly in distinct bands near Seminole villages. While some were considered slaves of Seminole leaders, they had more freedom than slaves held by whites in the South or by other American Indian tribes. Today, the Black Seminoles reside in rural communities around the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Its two Freemen's bands, the Caesar Bruner Band and the Dosar Barkus Band, are represented on the General Council of the Nation. Other Black Seminole groups can be found in Florida, Texas, the Bahamas, and northern Mexico.

More than the other members of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole), the Seminole resisted the idea of giving up their lands and being moved west of the Mississippi.

This led to the Seminole Wars, a series of violent conflicts between the United States and the Seminoles between 1816 and 1856, while the Florida Territory was still a Spanish possession. Stirring these conflicts were tensions between the Seminole and white slaveholders to the north, who conducted slave raids across the border

The 1st Seminole War began in 1817, when General Andrew Jackson led an incursion into Seminole territory, destroying Seminole and Black Seminole villages.

When the United States took possession of Florida, the Seminole were coerced to give up their lands on the Florida Panhandle for a large reservation in the center of the peninsula. However, ten years later, President Andrew Jackson demanded that they relocate to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. A few bands complied, but most Seminole people resisted, leading to the 2nd Seminole War, which lasted from 1835 to 1842. Fewer than 2,000 Seminole warriors employing guerilla warfare tactics took on the U.S. military forces that numbered more than 30,000. Unable to win militarily, the U.S. military focused on destroying Seminole villages and crops.

Most of the Seminole people had relocated to Indian Territory by the mid-1840s, although several hundred remained in southwest Florida, later becoming involved in the 3rd Seminole War in 1855 until they were driven deep into the Everglades.

Today, the Seminole exist largely in the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida.

 

 

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