When the United States declared its independence from England, its population began to grow exponentially; thus, Florida, under Spanish rule at the time, seemed to offer an area ripe for expansion. Seminole Indians, who inhabited
areas of northern Florida, were merely a nuisance, not a stumbling block to the country’s plans. Seminoles were composed of natives who had fled the Creek Wars in Alabama, plus Negroes who had escaped slavery. The two groups found sanctuary, lived and worked in close proximity, intermarried, and raised crops together. Southern plantation owners were galled by the Seminoles, who sheltered their human “property;” and General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee attacked, supposedly to reclaim slaves. In 1817 he torched houses and towns illegally without a declaration of war, and the country made plans to rid the land newly acquired from Spain of the resident Seminoles. First, the government offered Seminoles a small reservation in central Florida, but the Indians did not want to move to that harsh, inhospitable land. When they were removed from fertile farm land and abundant wildlife in the north, the Seminoles starved in their new homes; thus, they raided towns to find food. They were also aggravated by whites who were freely permitted to steal slaves.
When newly elected President Andrew Jackson shepherded through Congress the Indian Removal Act of 1830, what followed was the forced Treaty of Payne’s Landing which told the Seminoles to get out of Florida. In 1935 Indian Agent Wiley Thompson read the treaty to the illiterate Seminoles. A young man named Osceola angrily stabbed his knife through the document to display his distaste for the treaty, and thereby he became the clear leader of Seminole resistance to removal. Later that year, Osceola shot a Seminole chief who had taken money in return for promising to persuade Seminoles to leave Florida. The message was clear: this is what happens to anyone who betrays our people. In December, 1835, Osceola killed Wiley Thompson and an Army officer at Ft. King. The attack carried a clear message as well: the officer was killed with two shots; Thompson took 14 bullets and was scalped by Osceola. The warrior declared that Seminoles would fight removal to the end!
General Winfield Scott (known as “Old Fuss and Feathers”) arrived in Florida to subdue 500 Seminoles, bringing with him a brass band, cases of French wine, and a book of European battle strategies. Unfortunately for him and his army, the enemy fought with silent bows and arrows from the cover of swamps and marshes. The battles were the first jungle warfare experienced by the U.S. Army. The military bogged down in the swamps; the noise of their equipment made them walking targets; and the inclement weather with frequent rain created bogs, making for impenetrable battlefields.
A series of military brass, including Zachary Tyler, who later became President, assumed command of U.S. forces, proclaiming that they would rout out the upstart enemy in short order. They did not count on having to fight the Everglades: confront cottonmouths, rattlers, and panthers; malaria and dengue fever; and mold which rotted food stuffs. A grand campaign mounted by Scott resulted in the deaths of only 65 Seminoles. Seminole fighters attacked government forces when they least expected it, harassing and frustrating the troops with resourceful guerrilla tactics. The army even imported trained bloodhounds from Cuba at high cost to roust the Indians from their hiding places, but with no success. Scott was replaced by General Thomas Sydney Jessup. Osceola’s men fought Jessup’s army courageously, and Jessup had to resort to deceit to end Osceola’s leadership. When Jessup lured Osceola out of the swamps under a white flag of truce, Jessup clapped the chieftain into irons and imprisoned him at Ft. Moultrie at Charleston, South Carolina. Osceola was paraded through the Charleston streets on the way to Ft. Moultrie.
While imprisoned, Osceola was diagnosed with malaria, but not before reporters began to write about the fascinating “primitive,” making him an instant celebrity. People came to view the prisoner as a tourist attraction. He presented a dramatic picture, decked out in white feathers and silver jewelry. His health continued to decline when he became infected with acute quincy (tonsillitis). His military doctor announced that the chief probably would not live through the winter.
Renowned American artist George Catlin travelled to Charleston to paint a portrait of Osceola and wrote a remarkable description of the famous Seminole. “The young man is, no doubt, an extraordinary character, as he has been for some years reputed, and doubtless looked upon by the Seminoles as the master spirit and leader of the tribe, although he is not a chief. I am fully convinced from all I have seen and learned from the lips of Osceola and from the chiefs who are around him, that he is a most extraordinary man, and one entitled to a better fate…..In his face he is good-looking, with rather an effeminate smile…..In his manners and all his movements in company, he is polite and gentlemanly, though all his conversation is entirely in his own tongue; and his general appearance and actions, those of a full-blooded and wild Indian.”
Catlin shared the following description of Osceola’s last moments prior to his death: “About half an hour before he died, he seemed to be sensible that he was dying. He made signs to his two wives to bring his full dress, which he wore at time of war…..He put on his shirt, his leggins and moccasins, girded on his war-belt, his bullet-pouch, and powder-horn, and laid his knife by the side of him on the floor. He then called for his red paint, and his looking glass. He deliberately painted one half of his face, his neck, and his throat, his wrists, the backs of his hands, and the handle of his knife, red with vermillion – a custom practiced when the irrevocable oath of war and destruction was taken. He carefully arranged his turban on his head, and his three ostrich plumes that he was in the habit of wearing in it. Being thus prepared in full dress, he laid down a few minutes to recover strength sufficient. He rose up as before and with most benignant and pleasing smiles, extended his hand to all the officers and chiefs that were around him; and shook hands with his wives and his little children. He was lowered down on his bed, and he then slowly drew from his war belt, his scalping knife, which he firmly grasped in his right hand, laying it across the other, on his breast, and in a moment smiled away his last breath, without a struggle or a groan.” Osceola’s army doctor cut the warrior’s head off before burial, and displayed it in the Ft. Moultrie Medical Museum. He later gave the “trophy” to his son-in-law.
The Second Seminole War lasted for six years at a cost of 40 million dollars (seven billion dollars is today’s money) and the lives of over 2,000 soldiers. A total of 3,000 Seminoles were removed to Indian Territory in drips and drabs. They died by the hundreds on the way to their new home, suffering on their version of the Trail of Tears. 300 Indians were allowed to remain in Florida because the U.S. Army was unable to dislodge them from the swamps from which they fought removal, and they never surrendered. There was no peace treaty. The Seminole called themselves “The Unconquered.” Seminoles who refused to remove retreated into the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp and eluded the federal troops that came for them. Several thousand of their descendents live in Florida to this day.
In Gloria Jahoda’s book THE TRAIL OF TEARS, which details stories of the American Indian Removal, she concludes the chapter concerning the Seminoles who managed to stay in the swamps of Florida with these words, “These Seminoles never emerged to sign a formal peace treaty with speechmaking bluecoats. They have not signed one yet. Dogged in their historic retreat, they are still there.”
One would think that Seminole suffering ended when they were removed to Indian Territory, but that is not the case. In Grant Foreman’s book THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES, he describes the disaster which awaited the crestfallen Seminoles when they finally reached their ultimate destination. Because the tribe had not actually arrived until most of the other Indian nations were settled, no land had been set aside for the Seminoles. For a time they lived as guests of the Cherokee on their tribal lands. Then the government decided that the Seminoles and the Creeks would share land. Unfortunately for the Seminoles, the Creeks expected them to live under Creek control and abide by Creek laws. The joint-use policy was totally unacceptable to both tribes. Here are some of Foreman’s details: The Seminoles “were now encamped around Ft. Gibson in a distracted condition, homesick and discouraged, inflamed by their forcible removal from their homes in Florida; destitute and bewildered; for want of tools, helpless to cultivate the land or build homes; without means of transportation to the land provided for them even if they wished to go there; but above all else resolved not to locate in the country of the Creeks, become subject to their control….. These helpless and wretched people were living on the lands of the Cherokee who took pity on them and permitted them to cultivate the soil; but some of them rewarded their friends by killing stock to keep their families from starving. In 1842…..a large number of Seminoles…..demanded their agent to explain when the Government would give them the axes, hoes, and rifles promised by the officers to whom they surrendered in Florida. They said that before they were marched to the boats, General Jessup, in order to lighten the burden of removal, told them to throw away their old rifles, kettles, tools, and other cherished possessions, which would be replaced by the Government when they arrived in their new home. This promise had not been redeemed in the more than four years since the arrival of most of them in the West.”
When Seminole leader Wild Cat readied to go to Washington on “the business of my people,” he said, “We have been conquered. Look at us! A distracted people, alone without a home, without annuities, destitute of provisions, and without a shelter for our women and children, strangers in a foreign land, dependent upon the mercy and tolerance of our red brethren the Cherokees; transported to a cold climate, naked, without game to hunt or fields to plant, or huts to cover our poor little children; they are crying like wolves, hungry, cold, and destitute.”
Today’s Seminoles live in six reservations in Florida, as well as a reservation in Oklahoma, headquartered in Wewoka, Oklahoma. Tribal income in Florida is derived from citrus farms and cattle ranches, the tourist trade, and numerous high-stakes bingo parlors, as well as a number of casinos. Most well-known of these establishments is the Hard Rock Café Hotel and Casino near Ft. Lauderdale.
As a quilter myself, I am fascinated with the intricate patterns called Seminole patchwork. When sewing machines were introduced to Seminole ladies at the turn of the Twentieth Century, they began to create these patchwork designs to embellish their clothing. Both men’s and women’s clothes contain Seminole patchwork. Designs include such colorful names as “Snail Trail,” “Stairstep Bands,” “Tumbling Fish,” “Box Kites,” “Arrowhead,” and “Rattlesnake.”
