Johnalewis74's Blog
Johnalewis74's Blog
Aug 30, 2007 | 5:58 AM PST
Two Famous Seminole Leaders:
Osceola and Abiaka..........
Those years were illuminated by two legendary Seminole leaders... the famous warrior Osceola (a.k.a. William Powell) and the inspirational medicine man Abiaka (a.k.a. Sam Jones).
Elegant in dress, handsome of face, passionate in nature and giant of ego, Osceola masterminded successful battles against five baffled US generals, murdered the United States Indian agent, took punitive action against any who cooperated with the white man and stood as a national hero of the Seminoles' strong reputation for non-surrender. Osceola was not a chief with the heritage of a Micanopy or Jumper, but his skill as an orator and his bravado in conflict earned him great influence over Seminole war actions.
Osceola's capture, under a controversial flag of truce offered by General Thomas Jessup, remains today one of the blackest marks in American military history. A larger-than-life character, Osceola is the subject of numerous myths; his 1838 death in a Charleston, South Carolina prison was noted on front pages around the world. At the time of his death, Osceola was the most famous American Indian.
Though his exploits were not as well publicized, Seminole medicine man Abiaka (Sam Jones) may have been more important to the internal Seminole war machine than Osceola. Abiaka was a powerful spiritual leader who used his "medicine" to stir Seminole warriors into a frenzy. His genius directed Seminole gains in several battles, including the 1837 ambush now known as the Battle of Okeechobee.
Many years older than most of the Seminole leadership of that era, wise old Sam Jones was a staunch resistor of removal. He kept the resistance fuled before and after Osceola's period of prominence and, when the fighting had concluded, was the only major Seminole leader to remain in Florida. Starved, surrounded, sought with a vengance, Sam Jones would answer no flag of truce, no offer of compromise, no demand of surrender. His final camp was in the Big Cypress Swamp, not far from the Seminole Tribe's Big Cypress community of today.
No Surrender!
By May 10, 1842, when a frustrated President John Tyler ordered the end on military actions against the Seminoles, over $20 million had been spent, 1500 American soldiers had died, and still no formal peace treaty had been signed. At that time, it marked the most costly military campaign in the young country's history. And it wasn't over yet. Thirteen years later, a US Army survey party... seeking the whereabouts of Abiaka and other Seminole groups... was attacked by Seminole warriors under the command of the colorful Billy Bowlegs. The nation invested its entire reserve into the capture of the ambushers.....
The eventual capture and deportation of Bowlegs ended aggerssions between the Seminole's and the United States, Unlike their dealings with other tribes, the United States Government could not force a surrender from the Florida Seminoles. Historians estimate there may have been only a few hundred unconquered Seminole men, women and children left, all hiding in the swamps and Everglades of South Florida. No chicanery, no offer of cattle, land, liquor or God, nothing could lure the last few from their perches of ambush deep in the wilderness. The US declared the war ended... though no peace treaty was ever signed, and gave up.
The Florida survivors comprised at least two main factions:
Maskoki speakers who lived near Lake Okeechobee and those who spoke Hitchiti tongue (also called Miccosukee or Seminole) and lived to the south. In the remote environs of such uncharted Florida wilderness, the Seminoles remained, living in small traditional camps of cypress frame/palmetto-thatch chickees, isolated from Florida's society and the rest of the world until well into the 20th century... long after most tribes had experienced assimilation, religous conversion and cultural annihilation.
The descendants of these last few Indian resitors are the members of today's Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and the unaffiliated Independent or Traditional Seminoles.
The Seminoles began the 20th century where they had been left at the end of the Seminole Wars... in abject poverty, hiding out in remote camps in the wet wilderness areas of South Florida.
There, finally left in peace from US government oppression, the last few Florida Indians managed to live off the land, maintaining minimal contact with the outside world. Hunting, trapping, fishing and trading with the white man at frontier outposts provided the Seminoles with their only significant economic enterprise of the area.
By this time, development had reached the coastal rivers and plains of South Florida. Inland, a "drain the Everglades" mentality promoted by politicians and developers, forever altered the course of the "River of Grass." Even in the untamed wilderness of the Seminole, man's social and ecological pollution had dire effect. Poor crops, shrinking numbers of fish and game, droughts, serious hurricanes and other calamites once again heaped pressure on the Seminoles.
The collapse of the frontier Seminole economy in the late 1920's threatened the Florida Indians with assimilation and extinction. The wilderness no longer offered safety; many lived as tenants on lands or farms where they worked of as spectacles in the many tiny tourist attractions sprouting up across tourist South Florida.
By this time however, the U.S. Congress had begun to take notice. By 1938, more than 80,000 acres of land had been set aside for the Seminoles in the Big Cypress, Hollywood and Brighton areas and the invitation to move in, to change from subsistence farming and hunting/trapping, to an agriculture-based economy, was offered. Few Seminoles moved onto these Indian reservation lands, however, mistrusting the government that had hunted their forebears. Even the religious missionaries had a tough time breaking through the determined Seminole spirit.
In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act, recognizing the rights of American Indians to conduct popular vote elections and govern their own political affairs by consitution and bylaws. Again, inherently suspicious, mistrustful of any government intervention, the Seminoles did not take advantage of this opportunity untill 23 years later when the Tribe was faced with official termination by the U.S. Government. They did however, file a petition with the U.S. Indian Claims Commission in 1947 for a settlement to cover their lands lost to the U.S. government aggressors.....
