Skip to Main Content

Native Americans: History, Culture, & Tribes: Seminole

This guide covers the history and culture of Native American tribes. This guide is an ongoing project. As such, additional content will be added throughout the academic year.

Internet Resources

Seminoles - Last Colonized Tribe in the West

The Seminoles fight two wars with the American Army before reluctantly agreeing to move West. Osceola leads a faction against the treaties. Distributed by A&E Television Networks.

Source: Films on Demand

Perspectives

The Seminoles of Florida

"The most comprehensive account of the history of the Florida Seminoles yet undertaken."--John K. Mahon, author of History of the Second Seminole War The history of the Seminole Indians in Florida embodies a vital part of the tragic history of native and white American conflict throughout the entire United States. Drawing on widely scattered scholarship, including the oldest documents and recently discovered material, Covington gives us a complete account of the Florida Seminoles from their entrance into the state almost three hundred years ago, through the great chiefdoms of Micanopy, Osceola, and Billy Bowlegs, to the current political reality of democratic elections. (In fact one woman, Betty Mae Jumper, was elected tribal chairperson in both 1967 and 1969.)    After moving into the peninsula from Georgia and Alabama, the Seminoles fought three wars against the whites. By 1858, at the end of the final war, 90 percent of the tribe had been killed or forcibly removed to Oklahoma. Those who remained in chickees in the swampy grassland of south Florida comprised one of the last tribes in the country to retain cultural independence from whites. With the drainage of the Everglades and extension of highways and railroads into the area, the land the Indians lived on without legal title became prime real estate, and the Seminoles were evicted by the new white owners.    Covington brings the history of the tribe into this century as he describes the beginning of Seminole relocation to reservations, their participation in World War II, the inroads of Christianity in the 1940s, and the changes in tribal education, government, and agriculture and business ventures in the past three decades. James W. Covington is emeritus Dana Professor of History, University of Tampa, and the author of Story of Southwestern Florida, Under the Minarets, Plant's Palace: Henry Plant and the Tampa Bay Hotel, The Third Seminole War, and The British Meet the Seminoles. He has written some seventy articles about native Americans and about Florida history.

The Seminole Wars

"In this insightful book the conflicts known as the Seminole Wars are placed in the larger context of American history. Twenty-first-century Seminole Indians and all other Floridians have been shaped in part by those nineteenth-century events."--Jerald T. Milanich, Florida Museum of Natural History The Seminole Wars were the longest, bloodiest, and most costly of all the Indian wars fought by this nation. Written for a popular audience, this illustrated history is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of all three wars. John and Mary Lou Missall examine not only the wars that were fought between 1817 and 1858 but also the events leading up to them and their place in American history. In particular it sheds new light on the relationship between the wars, the issue of slavery, and the prevailing attitudes toward Native Americans. While fought in Florida, the Seminole Wars were a major concern to the nation as a whole. 

Healing Plants

The first published record of Florida Seminole herbal medicine and ancient healing practices, Healing Plants is a colorfully illustrated compendium of knowledge and practices passed down orally to Alice Snow from generations of her Native American ancestors. The authors' overview of Seminole history, native medicine, and the life of Snow, a Seminole herbalist (illustrated with personal photographs) places the healing practices in their cultural context and describes actual treatments. Charts with plant names in Creek, Mikasuki, and English and lists of plant properties with their common and botanical names offer easy reference. Col Color photographs provide clear illustrations of many of the plants. Herbal treatments include those intended for babies, for people who have had a hysterectomy, a stroke, blackouts or shortness of breath, "monkey sickness," alligator bites, or a speeding heart, people who have pain or have been ill for a long time, who like to sleep all the time or can't sleep because of worry or bad dreams, who are pregnant or "on the wagon" or have lost wives or husbands. Alice Snow is both a traditional Seminole and a cultural innovator who combines old and new methods of preserving and teaching "Indian medicine." Her record of medicinal plants and remedies is her contribution toward helping the Seminoles to hold onto their past while living in the present and moving toward the future.

The Enduring Seminoles

Winner of the Florida Historical Society's Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Award "This engaging short work of anthropology and Florida Indian history deserves a wide audience. . . . It is sophisticated enough for a university seminar but filled with appeal for anyone interested in Native Americans, Florida history or the interaction of tourists and native peoples."--Tampa Tribune Times "Should make some scholars look again at what they thought were the effects of commercial enterprises on the lives of American Indian people in this hemisphere."--American Indian Quarterly "Engrossing. . . . West has shown us just how vital tourism has been to the Seminoles and the Miccosukees."--Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel   "Packed full of stories and details about Florida tribes and tourism."--Orlando Sentinel Early in this century, the Florida Seminoles struggled to survive in an environment altered by the drainage of the Everglades and a dwindling demand for animal hides. This revised and expanded edition is the only book available on the cultural tourism activities of an Indian tribe.   Often told in the words of the many Seminoles interviewed for this book, this is a tale of unbelievable success against all odds as the Seminoles went from abject poverty to striking the first major international deal by a tribe with the purchase of the Hard Rock Caf#65533; in 2006. Patsy West, director of the Seminole/Miccosukee Photographic Archive in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is the coauthor of Betty Mae Jumper: A Seminole Legend and author of The Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes of Southern Florida.

Primary Sources & Reference Materials (Log in Required)