21 Facts About Seminole

Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century.

The Seminole people emerged in a process of ethnogenesis from various Native American groups who settled in Spanish Florida beginning in the early 1700s, most significantly northern Muscogee Creeks from what is Georgia and Alabama.

Seminole culture is largely derived from that of the Creek; the most important ceremony is the Green Corn Dance; other notable traditions include use of the black drink and ritual tobacco.

In part due to the arrival of Native Americans from other cultures, the Seminole became increasingly independent of other Creek groups and established their own identity through ethnogenesis.

The Seminole were moved out of their rich farmland in northern Florida and confined to a large reservation in the interior of the Florida peninsula by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek.

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The Florida Seminole re-established limited relations with the U S government in the early 1900s and were officially granted 5, 000 acres of reservation land in south Florida in 1930.

Old crafts and traditions were revived in both Florida and Oklahoma in the mid-20th century as the Seminole began seeking tourism dollars from Americans traveling along the new interstate highway system.

The Seminole identify as yat'siminoli or "free people" because for centuries their ancestors had successfully resisted efforts to subdue or convert them to Roman Catholicism.

The Seminole were a heterogeneous tribe made up of mostly Lower Creeks from Georgia, who by the time of the Creek Wars numbered about 4, 000 in Florida.

The unified Seminole spoke two languages: Creek and Mikasuki, two among the Muskogean languages family.

Seminole was in power through the American Civil War, after which the US government began to interfere with tribal government, supporting its own candidate for chief.

The Seminole maintained a tradition of accepting escaped slaves from Southern plantations, infuriating planters in the American South by providing a route for their slaves to escape bondage.

Several treaties seem to bear the mark of representatives of the Seminole tribe, including the Treaty of Moultrie Creek and the Treaty of Payne's Landing.

The Seminole maintained a thriving trade business with white merchants during this period, selling alligator hides, bird plumes, and other items sourced from the Everglades.

The Florida Seminole founded a high-stakes bingo game on their reservation in the late 1970s, winning court challenges to initiate Indian Gaming, which many tribes have adopted to generate revenues for welfare, education and development.

Seminole were organized around italwa, the basis of their social, political and ritual systems, and roughly equivalent to towns or bands in English.

The Seminole population had been growing significantly, though it was diminished by the wars.

Some Seminole families participate in both religions; these practitioners have developed a syncretic Christianity that has absorbed some tribal traditions.

From 1861 to 1866, he led as chief of the Seminole who supported the Union and fought in the Indian Brigade.

The Seminole have a society based on a matrilineal kinship system of descent and inheritance: children are born into their mother's band and derive their status from her people.

Seminole worked hard to adapt, but they were highly affected by the rapidly changing American environment.