Florida Resources

Among the most well known of Florida's native peoples, the Seminole Indians frustrated troops of militia and volunteer soldiers for decades during the first half of the nineteenth century in the ongoing struggle to keep hold of their ancestral lands. While careers and reputations of American military and political leaders were made and destroyed in the mosquito-infested swamps of Florida's interior, the Seminoles and their allies, including the Miccosukee tribe and many escaped slaves, managed to wage war on their own terms. The study of guerrilla warfare tactics employed by the Seminoles may have aided modern American forces fighting in Vietnam, Cambodia, and other regions. Years before the first shots of the Civil War were fired, Florida witnessed a clash of wills and ways that prompted three wars unlike any others in America's history, although many of the same policies and mistakes were made in the Indian wars west of the Mississippi.

The Great Florida Seminole Trail is the first comprehensive illustrated guide to Florida's historic and cultural sites that directly relate to the Seminole Indians, covering Seminole history from when they first migrated into the state in the 1700s to the tragic Seminole wars to contemporary Seminole culture. The guide covers all parts of the state that can be visited today, including the old Negro Fort site in the Panhandle, the Alachua Savannah near Gainesville, the Dade Battlefield in Bushnell, the Smallwood Store in the Ten Thousand Islands, Indian Key in the Florida Keys, and the destroyed sugar plantations near St. Augustine.

In a series of interviews conducted from 1969 to 1971 and again from 1998 to 1999, more than two hundred members of the Florida Seminole community described their lives for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. Some of those interviews, now showcased in this volume, shed light on how the Seminoles' society, culture, religion, government, health care, and economy had changed during a tumultuous period in Florida's history.

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 artistic tradition that in the past sustained Florida Indians helps identify them today as possessing a resilient, modern culture. In this account of the arts and crafts of the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee Indians, the author shows how artistic expression reflects and inspires history.

"A unique social and economic history of the Seminoles and an insightful view of their cultural adaptation and cultural continuity that previously has not been appreciated or understood."--Florida Heritage

Guy LaBree's connection to the Seminole Tribe of Florida began when he was an elementary school student in the 1940s living near the Dania (now Hollywood) reservation in Florida. However, it wasn't until the 1970s that his relationship with the tribe grew into a remarkable creative partnership. LaBree was encouraged by Seminoles who were former classmates and friends to produce paintings depicting important teachings about Seminole culture, customs, history, and legend as a way of passing on traditional knowledge to younger generations. To do this, he was given unprecedented access to privileged information never before shared with outsiders. As a sign of his success, two of his images now hang in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. This book features forty-two stunning selections from this self-taught artist's output of more than 1,000 paintings. It also tells, for the first time, the intriguing story behind the white man who became A Bosh Che−Will A Tee Chee: "The Barefoot Artist of the Seminoles."

Florida cuisine: twelve thousand years in the making, discover the the state's unusual and distinctive food influences and dishes. From the very first prickly pears harvested by Paleo-Indians more than twelve thousand years ago to the Seminole tribe's staple dish of sofkee, Florida's culinary history is as diverse as its geography. Influences as diverse as French, Creole, Spanish, Cuban, Greek, Mexican, Caribbean, and more season Florida's eclectic flavors. Learn how Florida orange juice changed the look of the American breakfast table and discover the state's festival-worthy swamp cabbage. Through syllabubs, perloos, frog legs and Tupelo honey, author Joy Sheffield Harris serves up a delectable helping of five hundred years of Florida cuisine--all with a side of key lime pie, of course.

When he died in 1838, Seminole warrior Osceola was the most famous Native American in the world. Born a Creek, Osceola was driven from his home to Florida by General Andrew Jackson where he joined the Seminole tribe. Their paths would cross again when President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act that would relocate the Seminoles to hostile lands and lead to the return of the slaves who had joined their tribe. Outraged Osceola declared war. This vivid history recounts how Osceola led the longest, most expensive, and deadliest war between the U.S. Army and Native Americans and how he captured the imagination of the country with his quest for justice and freedom.

"Betty Mae Tiger was born in 1923 to a Seminole Indian mother and a French trapper father, a fair-skinned half-breed who was nearly put to death at age five by tribal medicine men. She became the first formally educated Florida Seminole, attending a government boarding school in Cherokee, North Carolina, where at age fourteen she learned to speak English. Her autobiography is the story of the most decorated member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida - a political activist, former nurse, and alligator wrestler, who today has her own web site."

For the entire last quarter of the twentieth century, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, a federally recognized American Indian Tribe, struggled as it transitioned from a tiny group of warriors into one of the best-known tribes on the world's economic stage through their gaming enterprises. Caught between a desperate desire for continued cultural survival and the mounting pressures of the non-Indian world--especially, the increasing requirements of the United States government-- the Seminoles took a warriorlike approach to financial risk management. Their leader was the sometimes charming, sometimes crass and explosive, always warriorlike James Billie, who twice led the tribe in fights with the State of Florida that led all the way to the US Supreme Court. Patricia Riles Wickman, who lived and worked for fifteen years with the Seminole people, chronicles the near-meteoric rise of the tribe and its leader to the pinnacle of international fame, and Billie's ultimate fall after twenty-four years in power.

Describes the Seminole Indians of Florida and the great swamp area in which they live. Pictures the Seminole gliding through the grassy waters in his canoe, and selling his catch of frogs in the city. Discusses the problems of the tribe in a changing world and shows what the Government is doing to help these people to adjust to the white man's world.

This program examines the harm done to the Everglades by decades of exploitation and contamination. The impact of the sugar and orange industries, of flood control efforts, of Florida's burgeoning population, and even of competing conservation initiatives are considered. The points of view of environmentalists, industry, Native Americans, and academics are represented by John Ogden, of the Everglades Restoration Program; Malcolm Wade, of the U.S. Sugar Corporation; Buffalo Tiger, an elder of the Miccosukee tribe, which used to live in Water Conservation Area 3A; and biology professors from Columbia and Florida International Universities.