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An introduction to the land use and history of Seminole and Miccosukee Indians in southern Florida, with a focus on Big Cypress National Preserve. It discusses the unique environment of southern Florida, the formation of Seminole and Miccosukee communities, and the impact of European settlers and various industries on their land use. The document also includes maps and illustrations.
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An Ethnohistory of Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida
John C. Paige and Lawrence F. Van Horn
1982
Southeast/Southwest Team and Professional Support Division Denver Service Center National Park Service United States Department of the Interior
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to the Miccosukee people along the Tamiami Trail for their kind hospitality. Special thanks must be given to Tribal Chairman Buffalo Tiger, to William Osceola, gift shop owner and operator, and to Linda Cypress, high school student, for their invaluable aid in explaining Miccosukee culture.
We would like to acknowledge the enthusiastic ยท support of Superintendent Fred Fagergren of Big Cypress National Preserve. And we are grateful to former Park Manager Irvin Mortenson of the preserve for his many creative suggestions. To Fred and Sandy Dayhoff, a ranger and an interpreter, respectively, at Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park, we owe a debt of gratitude for their guidance and insight into Miccosukee ways.
For their unstinting efforts in helping gather source materials, sincere appreciation must be expressed to librarians Alcyone Bradley, Talulah Earle Dean, Ruth Larison, and Mary Manion of Everglades National Park, the Miccosukee Community Library, the National Park Service in Denver, and the Collier County (Florida) Museum, respec- tively. We are grateful to Executive Secretary Paul Camp of the Florida Historical Society for his helpful reference work, and to former Government Programs Manager Cyrin Maus of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida who provided much historical and contemporary informa- tion. Lastly, thanks must be given to Sandy Sehler of Big Cypress National Preserve for her general cooperation and help in locating park files, and to Joan Manson of the National Park Service in Denver for her fine typing. Many others, of course, helped in the completion of this report, and we thank them.
Denver, Colorado August 1982
ii
John C. Paige Lawrence F. Van Horn
Illustration
Map of southern Florida / 190 Map of Indian reservations in Florida / 192 The Big Cypress Swamp / 194 A cypress slough / 196 Wet prairie / 198 Dwarf cypress forest / 200 Green Corn Dance site: Chickee structures / 202 Green Corn Dance site: sleeping and cooking chickees / 204 Historical marker: 1936 Seminole Conference / 206 Monroe Station / 208 William Osceola / 210 Cypress poles cut and stacked for chickee building / 212 Miccosukee Tribal Chairman Buffalo Tiger / 214 Bay City Walking Dredge and the Everglades / 216 Map of oil fields in and near Big Cypress National Preserve / 218 Chart of oil and gas production, southern Florida, 1948-1980 / 220 Oil drilling pad, Big Cypress National Preserve / 222 Miccosukee Indians, Tamiami Trail, April 26, 1928 / 224
iv
INTRODUCTION
reputation for "being very distant, not to say unfriendly. 11 However, after a period of initial shyness, she found that her informants became interested in her questions and volunteered suggestions, even searching out information to bring back to her. Fieldwork is inherently difficult among the Seminoles because of their value of personal autonomy, which results in keeping much information very much to themselves, especially in their small, gossip-prone communities (Page and McBride 1982: 5).
In our limited time among the Trail Miccosukees, during the spring and summer of 1980, we found answering a question with a question an apparent strategy of theirs in coping with a quering stranger. "Now, who told you that?" was a frequent reply when we attempted to check items we thought we were learning about Miccosukee culture and social organization. Nonetheless, like Garbarino (1966) we found that after repeated visits to an individual, responses tended to become more expres- sive and straightforward, even on such subjects as menstrual taboos and the number of clans. As a generalization, the much reported Seminole- Miccosukee reticence is readily manifested, but recedes with time as one becomes accepted.
The Seminoles have been referred to as pioneers, frontiersmen, and emigrants (Sturtevant 1971: 105) as well as separatists, runaways, and renegades (Garbarino 1972:1; Fairbanks 1974:16). They themselves, according to Fairbanks (1974: 16), designate 11 wild 11 as the most accurate meaning or gloss of their people's name. The term Seminole, by which the Miccosukee Seminoles and Muskogee Seminoles are collectively known, appears to be a Muskogee Creek rendition of the Spanish word cimarron, meaning wild or untamed.
Cimarron has been applied to wild plants and animals, marooned sailors, and domestic animals gone wild. A connotation of the term would seem to be that of maverickness, appropriate for the Seminoles in the sense that they were Creeks who disassociated themselves from the main body of Creeks and the Creek Confederacy.
The first known employment of the term Seminole is that of John Stuart, British Indian Agent, who, in 1771, used the form Seminolies in a report to designate certain Creek bands that with regard to the Creek Confederacy "wanted to draw apart and be by themselves" (Mahon 1967:7). Stuart's usage is as follows:
Esimistisequo acquainted me that the Seminolies [italics ours] or East Florida Creeks had frequent intercourse with Spaniards at the Havannah by means of Fishing vessels which frequent the Bays of the western side of the Peninsula (Stuart 1771, quoted in Fairbanks 1974: 2).
The etymology of Seminole suggests a Spanish origin, subsequent Creek borrowing with sound substitution, and further English borrowing (Fairbanks 1974:17-19). The Creeks who settled in Spanish Florida became known to the Spanish as Cimarrones. Florida Creeks borrowed the term, substituting an 11 111 for the 11 ro 11 sound since Muskogean lan- guages have no 11 ro 11 equivalent. English-speakers heard the term in Creek, Simanoli (Hudson 1976:465), and employed a cognate like Siminole (Bartram 1791:153) that evolved into Seminole as used from the 1770s to the present (Stiggins 1831-1844:72 in Nunez 1958:173; Fairbanks 1974:19). If we define "wild" and "intransigent" to mean "determined to seek their own destiny on their own terms 11 then we can appreciate Fairbanks' com- ments below on the aptness of the term for the Seminoles:
Beginning about 1715, the wildest, most intransigent Indians of the Southeast moved into Florida to become.. .Seminole. In the Seminole Wars, it was again the wilder.. .element that remained in Florida. By 1771, they were being referred to by a distinctive term, Seminole [italics ours] ( Fairbanks 1974: 19).
The term Miccosukee may refer to wild boars in a lexeme whose meaning is not readily apparent from its constituent morphemes micco, chief, and sukee, hog, pig, or boar. It has been suggested that its origin is a term from the Hitchiti language of the Lower Creeks for a group whose chiefs were of a once-existent Boar Clan or a word for a people known for eating and/or raising hogs (Read 1934:19; Maus 1980). The Miccosukees are descendants of the Hitchiti-speaking Lower Creeks, as opposed to the Muskogean-speaking Upper Creeks, who migrated to
tions are being negotiated (^) by the park with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians (^) of Florida to keep the number of sites at the 1971-1972 level of traditional subsistence^ and^ ceremonial use^ when^ the^ enabling^ legislation was mostly formulated.^ Mention is made^ here^ of^ negotiations^ with^ the Miccosu kees because^ the^ Miccosu^ kees^ seem^ to^ be^ the^ more^ resolute^ in^ the context of the Miccosukee/Seminole distinction to remain aloof of the dominant White society and to determine their destiny on strictly their own terms.
In a relatively recent article, Kersey (1973) speaks of 11 A Tale of Two Tribes, 11 referring to the Miccosukees along the Tamiami Trail and the Seminoles farther north. The two tribes comprise three reservations and a Trail community as well as three political factions--two organized, one not. The two organized entities are the Seminole Tribe of Florida, incorporated in 1957, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, incorporated in 1962. Incorporated means organized with a constitution and federally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The third group is unaffiliated, comprising. Seminole and Miccosukee individuals enrolled in neither incor- porated tribe, sometimes called the Unaffiliated Group or Independents (Maus 1980:2). More is said later on Seminole politics in the section on modern political organization. The following section identifies the lands in Florida for which the Miccosukees or Seminoles hold title.
PART ONE THE MICCOSUKEES AND SEMINOLES
McBride and Page 1978:6). Eighty acres had been set aside in 1891 for the Seminoles near lmmokalee in what is now Collier County, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs discontinued its agency there in 1900 with a sawmill, store, and school because the Seminoles declined to live on reservation land. Today, however, a small group of Miccosukee-speaking Seminoles from lmmokalee are seeking reservation status as part of the Seminole Tribe of Florida (Douglas 1947:298; McBride and Page 1978:7; Maus 1980: 24).
The State Indian Reservation, to use the term as it was formerly known during the creation of Everglades National Park, 1934-1947, was ceded by Florida to the United States to become part of the new park. The state then set aside approximately 104,000 acres in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. This tract was divided between the Miccosukees and the Seminoles in 1962 after both tribes had gained federal recognition as incorporated Indian tribes. The 76,800 acres in Broward County became known as the Miccosukee State Reservation; the rest was the Seminole Tribe's portion (Maus 1980:28). We must at this point mention some physical aspects of Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades.
B. Physical Aspects
At the southwestern tip of Florida, the Everglades still cover an area larger than the State of Delaware, even over
though great portions the past 30 yea rs.
have been diked, drained, and developed The Everglades of years gone by seemed (^) to go on forever with panthers almost in Miami's backyard. The final vestige, still a wilderness of a kind found nowhere else, is now in the national park system. Everglades National Park was established in 1947 and Big Cypress National Preserve in 1974 ( Frame 1977: 137).
Euro-Americans seem to associate a certain mystique with the Everglades as an "enthralling expanse ... filled with life ... the heart of creation" (Reynolds 1977:45). It is worth quoting Reynolds on the subtle sounds of the Everglades and the ecological relationships beyond the Tamiami Trail:
... the sounds of the Everglades are indeed subtle as one sits and listens: there is the occasional splash of the alligators, the slithering of an otter, the grunt of a wild boar, the wind playing in the hammocks, and the birds whirring and whisping with the wind (Reynolds 1977:46). Most people cannot see beyond the Tamiami Trail to the heart of this vast region. Many look, but few see. Few see the har- mony of nature's creation; few understand the relationship of terrain to animals, of animals to plant life, of plant life to water, and of water's importance to the survival of man, beast, and plants (Reynolds 1977: 45-46).
Those Miccosukees and Seminoles who still live in the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp have become a part of the environment, a part, not in the romantic sense but in an adaptive sense. They have become part of the ecology through their use of natural resources and subsistence practices.
The two major physical areas of concern in this report are Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades. Detailed. descriptions of both these areas follow:
Big Cypress Swamp... [is] a large, flat pra1r1e... often flooded.. [with] short, sparse grasses, dwarfed cypress trees,... [and] a thick growth of algae.... Numerous circular depressions called domes ... [dot] this prairie, con- taining larger, denser strands of cypress... called stands. In the vast wilderness that was the Big Cypress ... prior to modern man... bear, panther, deer, alligator, otter, fish, and wading birds lived, fed, and bred to the rhythm of the annual water cycle (Browder, Littlejohn, Young 1977:59). South of Lake Okeechobee and bordered on the west by the Big Cypress [Swamp] and on the east by the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, lie the Everglades, a wide, shallow depression sloping from an approximate elevation of 19 feet at the edge of the lake to sea level 100 miles south... Wet season surpluses... [are]... retained... several months into the dry season, [playing] an important role in flushing and recharging the coastal aquifers, particularly during the dry season... pre- venting the intrusion of salt water near the coast. Sawgrass... [is] the predomina~t plant species... Special adaptations of numerous plant and animal species [enhance]... the Everglades' ability to capture and transmit energy and exchange nutrients under a fluctuating water regime. Alligator holes, for instance, serve both as a habitat for the reptiles and
This then is the setting of our story: a forested marshland that has been inhabited by a variety of prehistoric and historic Indian groups--the most recent being members of the Seminole and Miccosukee peoples, origi- nally from Georgia and Alabama. Early Spanish explorers of the sixteenth century were the first Europeans in the area, but apparently undertook little activity. When the United States assumed administration of Florida in 1821, the first settlers had visions of reclaiming the land for an agrar- ian paradise. Their drainage efforts are discussed later in this report. It was not until the twentieth century that lumbering, mineral extraction, ranching, road building, land speculation, and recreational pursuits began in Big Cypress. Such facets of Big Cypress land use are the crux of our study.
C. Seminole Origins
According to Seminole oral history or folk tradition, recorded in 1820, the Seminoles were in Florida at least by circa 1720:
An hundred summers have seen the Seminole warrior reposing undisturbed under the shade of his live oak, and the suns of one hundred winters have risen on his ardent pursuit of the buck and the bear, with none to question his bounds or to dispute his range (Cohen 1836:31, quoted in Mahon 1967:1-2).
The Seminoles are an amalgam of Lower and Upper Creeks and a few other Southeastern Indian groups, some native to Florida Ii ke the Apalachees, some not, like the Yuchis of Georgia. The Seminoles as a distinct entity were formed by way of gradual migration of various bands from Georgia and Alabama into northern Florida. A void existed in that area because of the decimation of the aboriginal peoples of Florida through European-borne diseases and periodic enemy Indian raids from the north. Mahon (1967:2-3) describes the re-peopling of Florida as follows:
By 1710, northern Florida had become that rare sort of vacuum, a habitable environment, recently peopled, now devoid of popu- lation except for a thin fringe of White men principally along the east coast [the Spanish]. Into this inviting void there
moved from time to time during a century groups of Indians from the territories north of the peninsula. Nearly all of them were of the Muskogean [language] family and were affiliated with the Creek Confederation (Mahon 1967: 2-3).
The movement of Creeks into Florida from Georgia and Alabama must be understood in terms of internal Creek affairs and diverse reactions to competing European powers. Migration occurred over many years spurred on by Queen Anne's War of 1701-1713, the Yamasee War of 1715-1717, and the Creek War of 1813-1814. After Queen Anne's War, the Spanish actively recruited Creek groups to settle in Florida 11 to replace the Apalachees and Timucuas destroyed by English and Creek raids 11 against the Spanish and their Indian allies (Mahon 1967:3). Some Lower Creeks, including the Tamathli group of Georgia, responded positively, and did migrate at this time.
In the Yamasee War, a coalition of Lower Creeks, Yamasees, and Cherokees attempted to lead an attack against the British. When the Cherokees would not continue their support and turned on the Lower Creeks, the Lower Creeks in turn abandoned the Yamasees, who were driven from their territory and hunting grounds along the coast of South Carolina. The Yamasees migrated to Spanish Florida, seeking protection from the Creeks and from the British. For a time, the Yamasees became effective Indian allies of the Spanish in Florida (Mahon 1967:3).
The Oconee band of Lower Creeks then moved onto Yamasee land, shifting to the lower Chattahoochee River from the Oconee River region of central Georgia. They eventually moved farther south to the Alachua region of Florida, and were well established there by 1750 (Mahon 1967:4). At about this time, other Lower Creeks were drifting south into the old Apalachee territory.
A factor in the shifting loyalties of Indian groups to one another and to the Spanish or British was their growing dependence on European trade goods, which made them vulnerable to the frontier economics of manipulation, exploitation, and the cutoff of supplies. Trader abuses figured prominently as a cause of the Yamasee War of 1715-1717, which
D. Seminole land-Use Periods
As an example of a land-use practice, Beard (1938:52) cites fire hunting in the Everglades, setting fires purposely, circa 1938, as a practice of Seminole and White hunters to reduce the cover for game. Driving game with fire is an Indian custom with ancient roots in aborigi- nal North America (Driver 1970:85). It would be ideal for a study such as this to describe in detail the myriad activities of everyday life of the Miccosukees and Seminoles in the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp, and to place each in its proper place in the cosmology of these peoples. To do so would require an elaborate ethnography describing all aspects of Seminole/Miccosukee culture in an integrated fashion, since all categories of culture are ultimately linked and related to one another. Unfortu- nately, such a task is beyond the scope of this study. Our discussion in this section is limited to the general Seminole attitude towards the land with a suggestion of how Florida Seminole history may be divided into five major land-use periods.
In some cultures, land can be divided and sold; in others, such a concept of dividing up the land for the exclusive use of individuals as owners would be literally unthinkable (Nelson 1979: 1). Euro-American culture falls within the first category, and Miccosukee-Seminole-Creek culture within the latter. The classic comments of Grinnell (1907:2-3) regarding American Indian land tenure apply to the Seminoles as con- firmed by Freeman (1960: 253). Traditionally, no individual ownership of land existed, only tribal or group ownership. Individuals had no land rights other than usufruct. However, these were rights for life an individual had 11 in common with his fellows 11 --fellow kinsmen or tribal members (Grinnell 1907:3). Usufruct rested with the tribe forever "to the exclusion of unfriendly peoples... [as] trustees; ... the rights in the land of those unborn were as clear as ... [a contemporary's] own; as clear as those of his ancestors^11 (Grinnell 1907:3).
The above serves to explain the Seminoles' continued attachment to the land--even to their new relatively unpopulated land in Florida whose usufruct they assumed by right of appropriation and by right of amal-
gamation with members of the few Florida aboriginal groups remaining, who had been decimated by disease and frontier warfare. As continually stressed in this report, the Seminoles and Miccosukees we are talking about were quick to fight for their Florida land, remaining there as a remnant population refusing removal.
We suggest five land-use periods of the Seminoles in Florida, as follows: 1) Initial Agrarian Settlement; 2) Nomadic Foraging and Guerrilla Warfare; 3) Hammock Horticulture accompanied by Hunting, Gathering, and Fishing, and Commercial Hunting for Pelts, Plumes, and Hides; 4) Tamiami Trail Camps for Tourism; and 5) Modern Reservation Communities and Other Tribal Economic and Cultural Developments. These periods are functional designations by the authors of major land relationships that overlap with the periods of Seminole history suggested by Milanich and Fairbanks (1980:251). The periods compare as follows:
Periods of Seminole History Florida Colonization 1716- Creek Separation 1763- Resistance and Removal 1790- (First Seminole War 1817-1818) (Second Seminole War 1835-1842) Withdrawal 1842- (Third Seminole War 1855-1858) Modern Crystalization 1870- Present
Seminole Land-Use Periods Initial Agrarian Settlement
Nomadic Foraging (Hunting, Gathering, Fishing, Sporadic Gardening) and Guerrilla Warfare
Hammock Horticulture with Hunting, Gathering, Fishing, and Commercial Hunting for Pelts, Plumes and Hides Tamiami Trail Camps for Tourism Modern Reservation Communities and Other Tribal Economic and Cultural Developments
Events of these periods of Seminole history and land use will be elaborated upon throughout the remainder of this report.
