Browse Items (44 total)

Bill Osceola was elected by virtue of his involvement in community matters. While he represented the collective Seminole body, he was also a reverend and a member of the growing Christian presence on the three reservations.

Out of three diverse communities, the original Seminole reservations—Big Cypress, Brighton, and Dania--would politically unify in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. From barely avoiding the termination of their federal supervision, the Seminoles…

This image is representative of new trends that sometimes conflicted with longstanding traditions on the Seminole reservations. The juxtaposition of the Baptist Church––a relatively recent phenomenon among the Florida Indians––with the Seminole…

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…

Buffalo Tiger--a young, English-speaking Miccosukee Tribal Member--was a prominent spokesman for his tribe. He, along with other rising leaders, led a determined campaign to secure separate federal recognition for his community. This included the…

When the Miccosukee Tribe was finally able to secure an official reservation along the Tamiami Trail in the early 1980s, it served as a confirmation of their existence as a separate tribe and political entity, validating their long struggle to gain…

The influence that Florida Indian leaders, such as Chief Tallahassee, held in their local villages was sometimes misconstrued by white officials to suggest more political control over all South Florida Indians than they actually had. The independent…

Ingraham Billie was an early leader in the push to maintain the Miccosukee General Council as a separate governing body from the Seminole Reservation Indian Tribal Council. However, disagreements with the new generation of Miccosukee leadership led…

By dedicating the bust of warrior/leader Osceola, the Seminoles honored the memory of their ancestor for guiding the tribe through a perilous chapter of its history.

The bust was sent to the Indian Hall of Fame in Anadarko, Oklahoma. The men on…

Concerned about steady encroachment––especially from the National Park Service as the U.S. prepared to create the new Everglades National Park––the Indian delegation living on the Tamiami Trail wanted assurances that they would not be moved from…