Buffalo Tiger Pinning Badge on Don Osceola During Criminal Justice Graduation at the Miami-Dade Community College, 1977

Buffalo Tiger Pinning Badge on Don Osceola During Criminal Justice Graduation at the Miami-Dade Community College, 1977

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians made an effort to develop their own department of law enforcement, as well as other aspects of their community infrastructure. They petitioned in 1971 to the Department of the Interior to assume direct control over BIA programs operated on tribal land. The Miccosukee also wanted to include instruction regarding their culture in their children’s educational curriculum. To facilitate taking control over these various governmental processes, the Miccosukee Tribe established a corporation that could contract directly with outside entities. This precedent-setting initiative provided the Nixon Administration with a model from which self-determination would become a goal for all Indian tribes around the country in 1975. Both the Miccosukee Tribe and the Seminole Tribe of Florida––which also created a corporation––have continued to take actions to ensure that they maintain as much control as possible over community programs.

Unknown

Image Number PR23440, Print collections, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

http://floridamemory.com/items/show/15643

1977

Photograph