CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
PP. 254-278
UNITED STATES SELECT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
Senate Hearing 95th Congress
SECOND SESSION
ON
S. 2000
Tozier Report
by
Morrill M. Tozier
Information Officer
Bureau of Indian Affairs
SCANNED IMAGE ARCHIVE:
PP. 254-255, PP. 256-257, PP. 258-259, PP. 260-261, PP. 262-263, PP. 264-265, PP. 266-267, PP. 268-269, PP. 270-271, PP. 272-273, PP. 274-275, PP. 276-277, P. 278
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Early Background / The Buckskin Declaration / White House Correspondence / New Tension in Florida / Immediate Background of the Commissioner’s Trip / Scope of the Consultations / Some Seminole History / The Reservation People / Mike Osceola / The Cory Osceola Group / Some Basic Facts About the General Council / Miccosukee and Muskogee / The Two Main Groupings / The Religious Phase of the Conflict / Buffalo Tiger / First Meeting with the General Council / Second Meeting with General Council / The Recognition question
REPORT ON THE FLORIDA SEMINOLES
December, 1954
254
This is a report on a series of consultations held in south Florida from December 16 through December 20, 1954 by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons with the Indians of that State (commonly known as Seminoles) and with a number of non-Indian individuals interested in their welfare. Commissioner Emmons was accompanied to Florida by the Bureau’s Information Officer, Morrill M. Tozier, who took extensive notes on the consultations and is the writer of this report.
Early Background
The first indication of a problem among the Indians of Florida which might require attention at the national level came in October, 1953, when a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Interior was received from Morton H. Silver, a Miami attorney, purporting to speak on behalf of a group which he designated as “the General Council of the Seminole Indians of the State of Florida.” In the letter Mr. Silver protested against the activities of the Bureau’s Seminole Agency at Dania and requested an immediate investigation.
In a reply dated November 16, 1953, Assistant Secretary Lewis (1) called attention to the Congressional mandate in House Concurrent Resolution No. 108 requiring the Secretary to submit to Congress by January 1, 1954 his recommendations for terminal legislation covering the Indians of Florida, (2) explained the law concerning legal representation of Indian tribal groups, and (3) pointed out that the relationship of the “General Council” to the tribe was “not clear.”
The relationship was, in fact, not at all clear at that time and the prevailing view in the Washington Office of the Bureau was that the so-called “General Council” was probably a numerically insignificant rump group of malcontents. One reason for this was because the term “general council”, in Indian Bureau usage, usually refers to the entire adult membership of a particular tribal group (in contradistinction to the tribal council which is ordinarily composed of elected or selected delegates) and the Florida group in question, by Mr. Silver’s own description, clearly did not fit this definition. The tendency, therefore, was to suspect that the claims of the “General Council” group were spurious and quite possibly inflated through the demagogic efforts of an unscrupulous attorney. These suspicions prevailed with varying degrees of intensity until the Commissioner actually arrived in Florida around the middle of December.
After the Lewis reply of November 16, 1953, nothing further was heard from Mr. Silver or the “General Council” group until the following March when a number of Florida Indians came to Washington for the purpose of testifying on S. 2747 and H.R. 7321, companion bills which would terminate Federal supervision over the property and affairs of the Seminoles of Florida within two years after the date of enactment — bills prepared by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and submitted to Congress in compliance with the 108 mandate.
Among those who testified on March 1 were Morton Silver and Buffalo Tiger, the latter a young Indian who served as spokesman for the “General Council” group. In the course of the two-day hearing it became plain that there were sharp differences of opinion among the Florida Seminoles not only on the terminal legislation but on a number of other fundamental questions of tribal organizations and future relationships with the Federal Government. The exact pattern of factionalism and the comparative numerical strength of the
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various sub-groups, however, were not at all clear.
The Buckskin Declaration
During his testimony on March 1 Mr. Silver stated that at 9 o’clock that morning two members of the “General Council” group (George Osceola and Jimmy Billie) delivered “a message from their tribal council to the representative of the President of the United States, Captain Chesney, on the steps of the Capitol Building.” The message delivered was a petition on buckskindecorated with egret feathers which is now supposedly in the White House Archives and which became known as the Buckskin Declaration. It was addressed to President Eisenhower and started off with a brief historical account of relations between the Florida Indians and the United States since 1821. Next it referred to the claim against the United States filed with the Indian Claims Commission on behalf of the Florida Seminoles, pointed-out that a financial settlement was being sought under this claim to compensate the Indians for unjust land dealings with the United States in the past, and stated that the group was not interested in money. Without quite saying so, the petition strongly implied that the claim had been filed without the knowledge or approval of the “General Council” group and that it was adverse to what they considered their best interests. The next section of the petition emphasized (1) the cultural differences between Indians and white man and (2) the desire of this particular group to continue living in their traditional pattern. Finally, the petition called upon President Eisenhower to send a personal representative “not connected with any branch” of the Government to Florida for the purpose of meeting with the “General Council” group and reaching a satisfactory agreement “on the preservation of the lands to which we (i.e. the “General Council” group) are entitled under all past treaties, under the law of nations, and under justice.” The petition was dated February 26, 1954, was signed with a mark by ten Indians, and was witnessed and interpreted by Buffalo Tiger.
White House Correspondence
Receipt of the petition was briefly acknowledged on March 4, by Gerald D. Morgan, Administrative Assistant to the President, in a letter addressed to Ingraham Billie (the topmost of the ten signers) through Morton Silver’s office in Miami. Simultaneously a copy of the petition was sent by Mr. Morgan to Commissioner Emmons with a request that a draft of a suggested reply be prepared by the Bureau. Because the actual import of the petition was not at all clear on its face, the drafting of a reply took some time. A draft, however, was transmitted to Mr. Morgan by Secretary McKay on April 6. For reasons which are not known to the Bureau it was not sent out immediately but was held at the White House for over two months.
Meanwhile on May 3 a telegram addressed to the President by Buffalo Tiger (signing himself as “spokesman for General Council Mikasukie Seminole Nation Everglades”) was received at the White House from Miami. This telegram in somewhat primitive English, reminded the President that no answer had been received to the Buckskin Declaration and added that the group could not wait longer since “oil companies people close by our camps dynamite kill our game and fish . . .” Unfortunately this wire was referred to Bureau staff members completely unfamiliar with the
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earlier background and so considerable time was wasted in correspondence with the Seminole Agency in an effort to make some sense out of what appeared to be an incoherent mess. Eventually the train was put back on the rails and a letter was sent out over the Commissioner’s signature on June 21 to Buffalo Tiger advising him that if the group wished to continue living in their camps along the Tamiami Trail, they should consult with the land owners, and that they should take up their wildlife problem with the State Fish and Game Commission.
Shortly thereafter the Bureau received by referral from the White House a long letter addressed to the President by Morton Silver on June 4. Mr. Silver started this letter somewhat briskly by calling attention to the fact that the “General Council” had not yet received a reply either to the Buckskin Declaration of March 1 nor to the Buffalo Tiger telegram of May 3. (The Commissioner’s reply to the telegram, of course, had not been received or even written at the time Mr. Silver was writing on June 4.) After this introduction, the body of the June 4 letter was seemingly an attempt to spell out in more comprehensive terms and fuller detail the basic message of the Buckskin Declaration. On its face it was more of an impassioned plea for justice than a tightly reasoned, coolly stated argument and practically impossible to evaluate without extensive and time-consuming research into past relations between the Florida Seminoles and the United States. Three points of salient importance were brought out: (1) that the Seminole people of Florida have been the victims of injustice and bad faith on the part of the United States Government dating back to the early years of the 19th century, (2) that the security of these people in using their traditional homelands has been disturbed in recent years by mounting encroachments on the part of white people and governmental agencies, and (3) that if no satisfaction could be obtained from the U. S. Government, then they would submit their case to “the appropriate tribunals of national and International jurisdiction.”
on June 16, shortly after White House receipt of the June 4 letter, Bernard Shanley, Special Counsel to the President, signed the letter to Ingraham Billie which had been submitted as a draft by Secretary McKay on April 6. The reply (1) took note of the Buckskin Declaration, (2) expressed the President’s sympathy for the Indians’ desire to preserve their lands and to be free of governmental interference, (3) called attention to the fact that Congress was taking an active interest In Seminole affairs in connection with the termination bills, (4) pointed out that the Indians had been given full opportunity to express their views at the hearings held on this legislation, and (5) concluded that, in view of the current situation, it did not seem necessary or appropriate for the President to take the “independent action” suggested in the Buckskin Declaration.
On July 9 Mr. Shanley signed another letter drafted by the Bureau, this one addressed to Morton Silver in response to his June 4 letter. It was a brief reply which merely called attention to the fact that a response to the Buckskin Declaration had been forwarded to Ingraham Billie on June 16 and summarizing the essence of that response.
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Six days later, on July 15, Mr. Shanley transmitted to Commissioner Emmons a highly vituperative letter addressed to the President from Miami on June 26. Typewritten on Morton Silver’s letterhead and written in “educated English”, it was signed with an X by Ingraham Billie and witnessed by Buffalo Tiger. After briefly reviewing the background of the case, it acknowledged receipt of the June 16 letter signed by Mr. Shanley and dismissed that document with the remark that “a more ignorant and offensive statement could scarcely be made.” Then it proceeded to elaborate and make explicit a thesis which had been only dimly hinted in earlier communications from Morton Silver and the “General Council” group — namely, that the Mickasukie Seminole Nation of Florida is an independent and unconquered nation, technically still at war with the United States, that its people are not and do not consider themselves to be citizens of the United States, and that they have no desire to embrace “the ways of life of the white men.” The letter also expressed indignation to the President because the “General Council” had been forced to deal with subordinates, called for “plain talk”, and indulged in some by stating: “This is not a matter for Congress but for the Executive Branch . . . because the problem is not . . . one of the Seminole Nation (Florida) desiring to be independent of governmental supervision but is one that deals with the matter of treaties and treaty rights and the consequences flowing from both.” In referring the letter to Commissioner Emmons, Mr. Shanley asked that a reply be drafted and added in a handwritten postscript: “If he is entitled to it!”
After careful consideration a proposed brief reply to Ingraham Billie was drafted and submitted to the White House where it was signed by Mr. Shanley on August 16. It indicated that while the President could not send to Florida a representative unconnected with the Government, he was asking Commissioner Emmons to meet with the “General Council” group “this fall.” In a memorandum sending this draft reply to Secretary McKay for transmission to the White House, Commissioner Emmons pointed out that the incoming letter signed by Ingraham Billie (but presumably written by Morton Silver) was “most disrespectful to the President and his office, and would not in itself be worthy of a reply.” The proposed reply and course of action, however, were recommended “since the interests of the Mikasuki Seminole are involved.”
New Tension in Florida
While this letter was being processed, additional trouble broke out in Florida. On August 5 (Thursday) George Osceola, one of the two Indians who presented the Buckskin Declaration to Captain Chesney on the Capitol steps, died in a hospital at Clewiston, roughly halfway between the Brighton and Big Cypress Reservations. (See attached map.) After checking with the dead man’s two sons, one at Brighton and the other at Big Cypress, Superintendent Marmon had the body removed to a funeral home in Clewiston and proceeded over the week-end to make arrangements for burial in the cemetery adjoining the Agency grounds
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at Dania. On Monday morning after arrival of the body at Dania Agency, Morton Silver suddenly appeared at the Agency with three “off-reservation” Indians and told the officer who was temporarily in charge in Mr. Marmon’s absence that arrangements had been made for burial in the Everglades with full tribal ceremony. The acting superintendent, not knowing of the decision made by the two sons for burial at the Agency, agreed that the body would be given over to Mr. Silver and the “off-reservation” Indians if they obtained a permit for removal and transportation. The following morning Mr. Silver, accompanied by the same three Indians and half a dozen or more reporters, newspaper photographers, and television cameramen, and armed with the necessary permit, appeared at the Agency to claim the body. This time, however, Superintendent Marmon was on hand and a bitter altercation soon developed between the two men in full view of the assembled press and television people. Mr. Silver finally retired from the scene (without the body) but only after Superintendent Marmon had summoned a deputy sheriff from nearby Fort Lauderdale and threatened to have Mr. Silver forcibly ejected. Shortly thereafter the deputy gave out a statement to the press that he had been called for the purpose of preventing a riot. The whole incident, not surprisingly, was given full play for several days in southern Florida in the press, on television, and over the radio. The only surprising feature, perhaps, was that it did not rise to the level of national attention.
A few days after this public altercation Mr. Silver called the Bureau’s Washington office from Miami and complained to Acting Commissioner Greenwood about Mr. Marmon’s activities. His principal grievance was that stories were being circulated that he (silver) was a Communist. Without quite saying so, he left the implication that Mr. Marmon might have had a hand in the fomentation of these rumors. Greenwood indicated that he would assign the Acting Director of the Muskogee (Okla.) Area Office (which supervises the Florida Agency) to make a quick spot check on the ground. Following the check the Acting Director submitted a full report on the “burial incident”, expressed the opinion that both parties had been “guilty of some rather unrestrained and unwise remarks”, and recommended that Mr. Marmon be transferred to another assignment. Mr. Marmon was subsequently detailed for temporary duty in northeastern Oklahoma but returned to the Dania Agency with Commissioner Emmons’ approval several weeks before the latter’s arrival in Florida on December 15.
Immediate Background of the Commissioner’s Trip
Coming back now to the main thread of correspondence between the “General Council” group of Seminoles and the White House, the next item was a letter of August 24 to the President signed by Morton Silver and counter signed by Ingraham Billie with an X. Acknowledging receipt of the August 16 letter from Mr. Shanley, this reply indicated that the Shanley letter was made the subject of a “General Council” meeting on August 22 and that “much dissatisfaction was voiced” because the President had designated as his representative a man connected with a department of government which these Indians “do not trust.” The
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principal fear expressed by the Indians, according to Mr. Silver, was that Commissioner Emmons would insist on meeting with the “General Council” at the Dania Agency, “which has been the scene of many embarrassing and insulting incidents, the last of which occurred in the very recent past.” This fear, he added, would be “greatly allayed” if the meeting could be held at Jimmie Tiger’s Village on the Tamiami Trail about 30 miles due west of Miami. In a reply of October 28, drafted in the Bureau and addressed to Ingraham Billie, Mr. Shanley merely assured Billie once more that Commissioner Emmons planned to meet with the group and would advise them prior to his arrival. Nothing was said about the location of the meeting and the thought was added that Mr. Emmons expected to “meet with other individuals and groups at several points on the reservation.” A copy of this letter was sent to Morton Silver.
On November 5 Mr. Silver addressed a reply to the President which, while still somewhat querulous, reflected a considerably more temperate tone than his earlier correspondence. His principal complaint this time was that Superintendent Marmon in delivering the October 28 Shanley letter to Ingraham Billie had suggested that “all the Indians in Florida” meet with the Commissioner at Jimmie Tiger’s Village. Whether Mr. Marmon actually made such a suggestion has not been ascertained and now seems largely irrelevant in view of subsequent developments. Mr. Silver’s comments on the suggestion, however, are decidedly pertinent for the light they throw on the underlying situation. “There are,” he wrote, “different Indian tribes in Florida with different and varying problems.” The meeting to be held should be ‘between your (i.e. President Eisenhower’s) representative and the representatives of the Miccosukee [the spelling of this word varies widely in Mr. Silver’s letters and in other places] Seminole Nation in Florida, not a confusion of tribes and problems that would lead to nothing.” However, after having unburdened himself of this virtual ultimatum to the Chief Executive of the United States, Mr. Silver added that the “General Council earnestly desires to end the differences between their people and the white people of the United States” and stated that, despite their disappointment with the President’s action in naming an Indian Bureau official as his emissary, the Council members were “willing to treat” the offer as a “sincere gesture.”
This letter was referred to Commissioner Emmons by the White House with an accompanying note asking him either to prepare a reply for Mr. Shanley’s signature or handle the matter directly. The Commissioner chose the latter option and replied to Mr. Silver on November 29. In that letter Mr. Emmons (1) indicated his plans for meeting with various Indian groups in Florida from December 16 to 20 inclusive, (2) nailed down the fact that he was planning to meet only with “the Ingraham Billie group” at the Jimmie Tiger camp, (3) emphasized his deep personal interest in the welfare of all Indian people and his desire in this particular instance to “contribute toward a better and more positive relationship between these Indians and the Government of
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the United States”, and (4) asked Mr. Silver to set a specific time for the meeting at Jimmie Tiger’s Village. In a comparatively amicable reply dated December 4, Mr. Silver indicated that the “General Council” would like to have the meeting on Sunday, December 19. This suggestion was promptly accepted by the Commissioner and other meetings were then arranged by Superintendent Marmon around this centra1ly important date.
Scope of the Consultations
Starting an the morning of December 16 and winding up on the evening of the 20th, Commissioner Emmons in five full days met with six separate Indian groups in Florida at six different localities. Half of these meetings were held at the three Florida reservations: (1) the Dania Reservation (side of the Agency headquarters), comprising about 480 acres, roughly 25 miles north of Miami, (2) the Big Cypress Reservation and adjoining “State” Indian reservation, with a combined area of about 150,000 acres, located in the south-central part of the State approximately 45 miles due south of Lake Okeechobee, and (3) the Brighton Reservation of about 37,000 acres situated near the northwestern shore of Lake Okeechobee about 50 miles north of Big Cypress. The other three Indian meetings were held at various points along the Tamiami Trail, a major highway running across the State and through the Everglades almost due west of Miami. (See map for details.)
In between these Indian meetings the Commissioner also consulted and conferred with a large number of Florida citizens who are interested in the welfare of the Seminoles including a few who appear to be extremely well informed an their culture and their history.
From these many conversations there gradually emerged, for the first time, a reasonably coherent and comprehensible picture of the present situation among the Seminoles of Florida — a picture in many ways almost fantastically different from the badly distorted image which the Commissioner and the writer of this report took down to Florida with them.
Some Seminole History
The first point to be emphasized is that the present Indians of Florida are the descendants of a group (and quite possibly the only Indian group) which successfully defied the authority of the United States. In a treaty consummated at Payne’s Landing in 1832 the Seminoles agreed to give up all the lands they then occupied in the Territory of Florida and to remove within three years to an area west of the Mississippi River in what is now the State of Oklahoma. A substantial number of the Indians (probably a majority) complied with this agreement and their descendants today constitute the Seminoles of Oklahoma. However, another faction of the tribe under the leadership of Osceola repudiated the Payne’s Landing agreement claiming that they had not been a party to it and that it was negotiated through bribery and misrepresentation. In fact, Osceola is supposed to have driven a knife through the treaty, at one parley, in a dramatic gesture of contempt.
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Throughout the latter 1830’s and the 1840’s the United States Army made numerous attempts to round up the recalcitrant Florida Indians for deportation west of the Mississippi. These efforts are referred to in the history books as the Second and Third “Seminole Wars” although there is serious question whether a state of war actually existed in the full legal sense since it was never declared by Congress and only Congress can declare war under the Federal Constitution. Regardless of the legal niceties, however, the fact remains that there was warfare between the Amy and the Florida Indians intermittently for over a decade. During this period the Army apparently indulged in such tactics as capturing Osceola after he had advanced under a flag of truce and seizing another band of Seminoles brought in for a parley by well-intentioned Cherokees who were attempting to serve as intermediaries. Meanwhile Seminole hatred of the white man and all his works undoubtedly became steadily more fierce and uncompromising. Because of the swampy nature of the Everglades terrain and the Seminoles’ intimate familiarity with it, the Army’s task of rounding up these people for deportation proved to be extremely frustrating and costly ($40,000,000 spent and upwards of 1,500 soldiers killed, according to Army estimates at the time) and was never completely effective. By the early 1850’s, with about 150 Seminoles still In Florida and more than 11,000 deported west, the Army decided to abandon the whole undertaking and no further efforts were made to reassemble the Florida Indians with their now-distant kinsmen west of the Mississippi. This, briefly, is the factual basis for the widespread popular legend that the Seminoles of Florida are still “technically at war with the United States.”
Because of this unique background, the Florida Seminoles, unlike most western tribes, have no long history of relationships with the Bureau of Indian Affairs dating back to the middle years of the l9th century. In fact, the relationship is of surprisingly recent vintage. Although the first reservations (Brighton and Big Cypress) were established in the late 1800 ‘s, it was not until the late 1930’s that a Bureau program of any real significance among the Florida Indians was finally initiated. At that time a livestock enterprise was started on the Brighton Reservation with a small herd of cattle from drought-stricken areas of the West and the first Indian Bureau schools in Florida were built and staffed on the reservations.
Although these schools were opened bravely and with high hopes (to judge from a WPA report of 1940), it is only in even more recent years (seemingly since World War II) that education has begun to take a really solid hold among the Seminoles of Florida. At the hearings on the Seminole termination bill in early March or 1954 the statement was made that “at least 85 percent” of these Indians are illiterate. From evidence gained during the Commissioner’s Florida trip, this seems like a conservative estimate. At all six of Mr. Emmons’ Indian meetings translation of his remarks into the Indian language was essential and there were few questions or comments presented from the audience in English. Audience reactions to humorous
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remarks, which were extremely thin during the Commissioner’s English delivery, usually became gratifyingly noticeable during the Indian language “playback.” While the number of Florida Seminoles who can speak and understand English with fair adequacy is doubtless a bit higher than the number who can read and write, there are probably not more than 35 or 40 percent of the people altogether who have any means of direct communication (beyond a few elementary monosyllables) with their non-Indian neighbors. This is a fact of fundamental importance in understanding the present situation of the Seminoles and the nature of their problems.
Against this backdrop of widespread illiteracy and formidable language barriers, the divisions among the Seminoles and the recent pattern of activity come into much sharper focus. Even though the Commissioner held six Indian meetings, it now seems clear that there are two major groupings of primary significance: (1) the Reservation Indians and (2) those who live on small islands known as “hammocks” in the Everglades or in camps along the Tamiami Trail.
The Reservation People
At all three of the Commissioner’s reservation meetings, despite some variations of emphasis, a single basic point of view was reflected. Broadly speaking, the reservation people are oriented away from the ancestral tribal ways, hopefully facing the dominant culture and economy which they find around them, and eager to play an active part in it or at least reach a satisfactory adjustment with it in the near future. Specifically, they want (1) prompt settlement of their $50,000,000 land claim now on file with the Indian Claims Commission, (2) education for their children in public schools rather than in segregated Indian Bureau classrooms, (3) improvement of their land resources to increase productivity, (4) adult education to provide an adequate command of English and at least the rediments of the three R’s, (5) “modern homes” (apparently simple frame houses) in lace of the typical thatch-roofed, wall-less Seminole “chickees”. 6) a tribal organization based on the principle of majority rule, 7) an additional 25 years of assistance and trust protection from the Indian Bureau, and (8) administrative transfer of the Dania Agency from the Area Office at Muskogee (Okla.) to direct supervision by the Central Office in Washington, D. C.
Mike Osceola
The off-reservation picture is considerably more complex but can be simplified somewhat by coming immediately to a consideration of the highly atypical Mike Osceola group. Mike is about 35 years old, married to a non-Indian, and (in comparison with other Florida Seminoles) a conspicuous financial success. He holds a job as a mechanic with North American Airlines at the Miami Airport, runs several head of cattle on the Brighton Reservation, and operates a newly opened “Seminole Village” as a tourist attraction just a few miles west of Miami on the
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Tamiami Trail. Living at this village are Mike himself; his father, William KcKinley Osceola (apparently one of the more prominent Trail tribesmen 15 or 20 years ago); and three or four other family groups seemingly related to Mike by some degree of blood.
According to Mike’s own story (as told at the termination hearings in Washington last March and at the Commissioner’s meeting in Mike’s village in December), he grew up in the Everglades like many other members of the Tribe but decided at an early age to gain an education in spite of the disapproval of the tribal elders. As he tells it, this “disapproval’ was quite intense and at times actually involved threats of physical violence. Nevertheless, be persisted and apparently finished two or three years of high school quite probably the highest level of schooling ever reached by a Seminole of Florida. At the Congressional hearing last March he was the only Seminole spokesman to testify in favor of terminal legislation and emphasized his belief that the Seminoles would make better progress if they could be brought out from under the protective wing of the Bureau at an early date. At the December meeting with Commissioner Emmons his attitude on termination was somewhat less outspoken and he admitted, in effect, that some members of the Tribe may not yet be ready.
Other informants (some admittedly hostile to Mike and others apparently neutral) added a few touches which were not inconsistent with this self-portrait but tended to round out the picture. According to them, Mike was widely publicized several years ago both as the first Seminole to attend Miami High School and as a capable member of the football squad who played the game barefoot. By the time he left high school he was already being taken up by civic groups and women’s clubs in the general Miami area and was treated as an outstanding Seminole and the Tribe’s best hope for the future. Some of the less charitable informants emphasized that Mike was “spoiled” by this treatment and that he became arrogant and overbearing in his dealings with other Seminole people. Whether this is true or not, it does seem clear that, in the eyes of the traditionalist Seminoles living in the Everglades, Mike’s white-approved behavior in seeking public school education, in thrusting for leadership, and in improving his economic status was almost tantamount to treason. All of these things, anthropologists agree, are foreign to the traditional Seminole culture which stresses cooperativeness, humility, and simple living.
Thus it is easy to see how Mike Osceola’s influence among the off-reservation Indians might well be limited, as Morton Silver claims, to the comparatively few people (mainly blood relatives) who are living in his village. Any influence he might have had with the reservation Indians has apparently been largely dissipated by the stand which he took in favor of the termination legislation. In a press release issued by Morton Silver’s office in the name of the “General Council” on December 16, there is one paragraph which obviously
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refers to Mike Osceola although it does not use his name. (He is referred to as an “individualistic” Miccosukee with “ability in English” bearing a name “once honored in our Nation.”) The paragraph states that Mike “speaks for himself and his family, a total group of perhaps 20 people at most.” From the observations made and conversations held by the Commissioner and this reporter in Florida, there seem no reason to question the accuracy of that statement.
This of course, is not intended to deprecate Mike Osceola’s very substantial accomplishment in rising from a virtually primitive background in the Everglades to his present position as a self-reliant and effectively functioning member of American society. It is meant to suggest, however, that Mike and his followers are not a major factor in the broad pattern of current Seminole affairs and that they can be dealt with separately as a separate problem.
The Cory Osceola Group
In addition to Mike Osceola’s faction, Commissioner Emmons met with two other Indian groups at points along the Tamiami Trail. One was the “General Council” which had been making all the protests to the President that were the primary reason for the Commissioner’s Florida trip. The other was a small group of perhaps a dozen or 15 adults seemingly under the leadership of two brothers, Cory and John Osceola. Although they are brothers of William McKinley Osceola (and thus uncles of Mike), their point of view is quite different and they apparently have little or nothing to do with Mike or his father at the present time. For purposes of convenience, we refer to this latter group as the Cory Osceola faction since Cory was the more active spokesman at our meting.
Basically, the “General Council” group and the Cory Osceola faction are aiming at the same objective, operating within the framework of a single culture, and disturbed by precisely identical problems. The cleavage that separates them apparently is nothing more than a personal dispute which came to a head quite recently between Cory Osceola on the one hand and some of the “General Council” leaders, such as Ingraham Billie, on the other. From the facts gathered during the Commissioner’s trip, it is impossible even to guess the nature of this dispute or just how deep or serious it my be. To judge merely from Cory Osceola’s demeanor, however, it would seem to be almost irreconcilable.
Some Basic Facts About the General Council
Commissioner Emmons held two meetings with representatives of the “General Council” group — one a “public” meeting on Sunday, December 19, at Jimmie Tiger’s Village on the Trail about 35 miles west of Miami, which was covered by a dozen or more newspaper and
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magazine reporters and photographers, and the other a private session on Monday, the 20th, at Morton Silver’s office in downtown Miami. As a result of these meetings, the Commissioner and this reporter finally gained a reasonably clear picture of what is currently bothering these particular Indians — why, in other words, they are protesting as they are — and what they want and expect from the United States Government. Before going into these matters, however, it seems essential to provide some background information on the “General Council” group, gleaned from various sources, so that their protests and their demands can be viewed in true perspective.
First there is the question if the “legitimacy” of the Council and its actual status in the broader pattern of Seminole affairs. This subject is covered quite thoroughly in a recent Smithsonian Institution publication, “The Medicine Bundles of the Florida Seminoles and the Green Corn Dance”, by Louis Capron, a Florida anthropologist, and was amplified to some extent by Mr. Capron in conversation with the Commissioner and this reporter. Without going into all the intricate anthropological details, the matter can be summarized here quite briefly. The most important point to be emphasized is that the “General Council” is not, as we occasionally suspected before visiting Florida, an organization recently thrown together by some Indian extremists or an ad hoc group pulled together by Morton Silver for purposes of his own. Actually it goes back for many generations and was, until comparatively recent years, the only forum available to the Florida Indians for discussion of problems affecting the whole tribal group.
The picture of this traditional tribal organization presented by Mr. Capron is, as he readily admits, a bit cloudy in spots because some aspects of the matter are deliberately kept secret by the innermost circle and probably always will be. Nevertheless, certain basic facts are reasonably clear. We start off with the medicine bundles which were supposedly handed down to the tribe by the gods and which, according to Mr. Capron, have about the same awe inspiring significance for the traditionalist Seminoles as the Ark of the Covenant had for the ancient Hebrews. There are three of these bundles and each is in the custody of a medicine man. In fact, it is the medicine man’s custodianship of the medicine bundle that gives him his prestige status in the tribal group; once the bundle has passed to the custody of a new man, the former medicine man, if still alive, no longer enjoys his previous position of eminence and also loses the healing powers that are supposedly inherent in the bundle. As we shall explain later, this has actually happened in the recent case of Jose Billie. Each medicine man has an assistant who apparently functions somewhat in the role of an apprentice and is groomed for eventual assumption of the position.
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While the medicine man is seemingly active in one way or another throughout the year, he really comes into his own at the annual Green Corn Dance. This ceremony is traditionally held deep in the Everglades and is open to all tribal members. The actual scheduling of the Dance is not at all clear but the general impression gained by this reporter is that in recent years the Dance has been held more irregularly and with greater frequency than was formerly the case. Nowadays two or three Green Corn Dances in a single year are apparently not at all uncommon. However, the more important point for our purposes here is that the General Council (we can drop the quotation marks now) is an outgrowth of the Green Corn Dance and was, historically, generally convened at the same time and place. In fact, Mike Osceola claims that the Council in the past never met at any other time and place, and that its recent activities involving frequent meetings with Morton Silver and others are beyond its recognized sphere under tribal tradition. Aside from the irony involved in this puristic interpretation of tribal tradition by one of the most acculturated Indians in Florida, the major fact stands out that the real traditionalists have voiced no such objections and have, in fact, been playing an active role in the recent meetings. We suspect that the Council met in the past at Green Corn Dance time primarily for reasons of convenience — because this was the one time when there was sure to be a widespread tribal turn-out — and that, actually, there is nothing to prevent its meeting at other times if it chooses to do so.
The function of the three Medicine Men in connection with the Council meetings is somewhat unique. As Mr. Capron explains it, the Medicine Men take the lead in assembling the meeting and usually open up the discussions but do not actually function as chairmen in our full sense of the term. Everyone is free to speak and decisions are reached not by majority vote but, as in some other Indian tribes, by a kind of felt common consent. The closest non-Indian analogy would probably be what the Quakers call “the sense of the meeting.” Mr. Capron and other anthropological authorities on that matter emphasize that the concepts of “leadership” and ” authority”, as we know them, are wholly alien to the Seminole culture and play no part in the pattern of their tribal organization. Thus, while Ingraham Billie is recognized as the Chief Medicine Man among the three, this does not mean that he is able to speak on behalf of the other two or to exercise any control over the performance of their functions. Against this background, the emphasis of the reservation people on having an organization based on the principle of majority rule takes on added significance.
The next question that needs examination is the extent of the General Council’s influence among the Seminole people at the present time. In other words, how large a following does the Council
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have among the 900-odd (the best available population estimate) Indians of Florida? Morton Silver has set the figure as high as 600 but Superintendent Marmon considers this much too high and it would seem, in the light of other evidence, to be definitely inflated. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the turn-out at the meeting in Jimmie Tiger’s Village was unquestionably the largest that we had at any of the six Indian meetings. As a rough guess, this reporter would place the figure at about 75 adults as compared with less than 20 at the Mike Osceola and Cory Osceola meetings and not more than 50 at any of the three reservations. So, even though the General Council may not actually represent a majority of the Florida Indians, it almost certainly speaks for or comprises a very substantial minority and one that cannot, as a matter of public policy, be ignored or overlooked. A large part of the current problem arises from the fact that it has been largely ignored or overlooked by the Government until very recent months.
Miccosukee and Muskogee
At this point a few words are needed on the question of Miccosukees and Muskogees. Throughout this whole matter Morton Silver has persistently and emphatically contended that the Miccosukees and Muskogees are wholly distinct and separate peoples, and that the General Council in the appropriate body to speak on behalf of the entire Miccosukee “Nation.” The Muskogees are to him, quite obviously, a remote group with which he has no particular concern and he seems at times to have been under the decidedly mistaken impression that all or practically all of the people living on the reservations are Muskogees. The most extreme statement of this position is set forth in the press release (referred to earlier) which he issued on December 16 in the name of the General Council. In the release he asserts (1) that the term “Seminole” was “made up by white men” and applied to all the Indians of Florida in bland ignorance of the ethnological actualities (this in spite of the fact that he refers in this release and elsewhere, time and time again, to the Miccosukee Seminole Nation); (2) that the Muskogee Tribe “is not organized and is not a nation” whereas the Miccosukee Tribe is both;, (3) that the General Council “expresses and reflects the wishes, thoughts and feelings of an estimated 90% of the Miccosukee Seminole (sic) Nation in Florida,” and (4) that the only Miccosukee element of any consequence dissenting from the General Council’s position is the group of not more than 20 affiliated with Mike Osceola, who is not named in the release but referred to as an “individualistic” and English-speaking Miccosukee.
This, in my considered judgment, is an almost fantastic garbling of the facts and a substantial overstatement of the General Council’s actual current sphere of influence among the Indians of Florida. In the first place, there is nothing spurious or artificial at all about the term “Seminole”; it has been used by the very beat ethnological authorities for generations and is apparently derived
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from a native Indian word meaning something like renegade or “wild one.” It is true, of course, that there are both a Miccosukee Band and a Muskogee Band in the Florida Seminole grouping of Indians and this fact has been recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a great many years. While the literature suggests that there may have been significant cultural differences between the two bands in the past, these are not today readily apparent, at least to a casual observer. At the Commissioner’s reservation meetings the audience at Brighton, where the population is predominantly Muskogee, was virtually indistinguishable in dress and outward behavior from the presumably almost pure Miccosukee audiences at Dania and Big Cypress. The only important difference that could be readily noticed was in language. At the Brighton meeting the two Miccosukee-speaking girls who had served as interpreters for the Dania and Big Cypress meetings were, after a short trial run, replaced by a young man from Brighton and the translation was carried forward in Muskogee. However, the mere fact that the trial run was made would indicate to this reporter that the differences between the two languages are not major (probably comparable to those between Spanish and Portuguese, for example) and that speakers of one language can ordinarily follow at least the general drift of conversations carried on in the other. But Mr. Silver’s continuing insistence on dividing the Florida Seminoles along Miccosukee-Muskogee lines is not objectionable simply because of over-emphasis of seemingly trivial cultural dissimilarities. In the opinion of this reporter, a far more serious objection is that it gives us a badly distorted picture of the real and meaningful cleavage which exists among the Indians of Florida today. To be specific, Sam Jones, one of the two Medicine Men playing a key role in the General Council’s recent activities, is admittedly a Muskogee; the other, Ingraham Billie, is a Miccosukee. And the third Medicine Man of the Seminoles is John Osceola who has not taken part in recent Council activities but is affiliated, instead, with the faction led by his brother, Cory.
Moreover, what we might call the “non-Council Miccosukees” (that is, those people of Miccosukee blood who do not approve or support the Council’s recent activities and pronouncements) unquestionably constitute a much larger percentage of the total band population than is suggested by the Silver press release. The dissenters include not simply the followers of Mike Osceola mentioned in the release but also the Cory Osceola faction (who are apparently all Miccosukee) and, even more importantly, a very substantial percentage of the predominantly Miccosukee populations at Dania and Big Cypress. Conceivably the General Council may be speaking for something like a bare majority of the total Miccosukee population. But any claim that it represents 90 percent is clearly a gross exaggeration . . .
At the other extreme is the recent estimate of Roger J. Waybright, one of the two Jacksonville attorneys who have a Bureau approved contract with the Seminoles of Florida to prosecute their
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claims before the Indian Claims Commission. In a report submitted to the Tribe through Superintendent Marmon on January 10, 1955, Mr. Waybright devotes several pages to what we might call the General Council controversy and refers to this group as “40 or 50 of the heads of families who live along the Tamiami Trail . . . or at most 150 of the 925 members of the tribe.” Elsewhere in the report he consistently designates them as the “few” and “the small minority.” Mr. Waybright, of course, has no more reason to be impartial in this particular controversy than does Morton Silver and we strongly suspect that his estimate is almost as far off on the side of understatement as Mr. Silver’s claims are in the direction of hyperbole. Judging from all available evidence, the true numerical strength of the General Council group (counting children as well as adults) probably lies somewhere around midway between Mr. Waybright’s 150 and Mr. Silver’s 600.
The Two Main Groupings
Regardless of how significant the cultural and other differences between Miccosukee and Muskogee may have been in the historic past, this reporter believes strongly that the present controversy is not so structured and that Mr. Silver’s constant insistence in dividing the Tribe along these lines only leads to confusion and acrimony. The real cleavage in the Tribe today, as we see it, is between (1) a predominantly (but not exclusively) Miccosukee group, living chiefly along the Trail and in the Everglades, whose members deliberately reject the mores of non-Indian society and prefer to continue living along traditional lines in a semi-primitive hunting-and-fishing economy, and (2) a mixed Miccosukee and Muskogee group composed principally of people living on the three reservations who, in the main, accept the framework of the non-Indian society around them and want to improve their economic end social status within the broad pattern of that society. Hereafter in this report these broad groups will be referred to as the Trail Indians and the Reservation Indians — terms which are generally indicative although perhaps not entirely precise. In all probability there are some few families living on the reservations who would, given a clear-cut choice, align themselves with the Trail Indians — and vice versa.
Under this definition of the two broad groupings, the Mike Osceola and Cory Osceola factions might appear at first glance to be left out of consideration. However, it should be remembered that Mike and some of his relatives are running cattle on the Brighton Reservation and, despite Mike’s somewhat advanced ideas on termination of Federal responsibilities for Indian affairs in Florida, he is unquestionably much closer in basic sympathies to the Reservation Indian than to those along the Trail. While he is unlikely ever to move onto a reservation, the chances are that he and other off-reservation Indians currently earning an adequate living in the Miami area
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would probably align themselves, at least in a loose way, with the reservation people if called upon to make a choice.
Conversely, Cory Osceola, despite his apparently deep antagonism to Ingraham Billie and other key figures of the General Council, is obviously aiming at the same objectives and is psychologically committed to the same traditional way of life as the members of that group. There is at least a possibility that in time the current breach between the Council and the Cory Osceola faction will be healed and that the two groups will be brought together by their common purposes and mutual predilections. In fact, this process is likely to be nudged along and accelerated if a suitable sanctuary can be provided for the Trail Indians, either in the Everglades National Park or elsewhere, where they would be free to live in the accustomed way without outside interference. If the breach should prove to be deeper and more enduring than we now suspect, it would, of course, always be possible to set aside a separate corner or section of this sanctuary specifically for the Cory Osceola faction. So, even under the worst possible interpretation, the problem represented by the Cory Osceola group does not seen to be at all major or insoluble.
But the main cleavage in the Tribe — between the traditionalist Trail Indians and the progressive-minded reservation people — is obviously neither transitory nor trivial. It involves a fundamental difference in outlook, a sharp contrast in aspirations for the future. The two groups are in all probability completely irreconcilable and will have to be administratively dealt with as wholly separate entities. Any program or proposed solution which ignores these facts and attempts to treat the Florida Seminoles as a homogeneous tribe is almost certainly foredoomed to failure.
The Religious Phase of the Conflict
One important factor that has sharpened the conflict between the Trail Indians and the reservation people in recent years, it became clear during the Commissioner’s trip, has been the conversion of many reservation families to Christianity and their subsequent abandonment of the ancestral tribal religion and tribal mores. As the story was told to us, Baptist Missionaries in particular have been active among the reservation people for several years now and have succeeded in winning over a substantial number of converts. There has also apparently been some activity of this type by Miccosukee-speaking Seminoles and Muskogee-speaking Creeks from Oklahoma who have worked as Christian Missionaries on the Florida reservations. In addition, a number of younger reservation men have been sent away to a Baptist seminary in the northern part of the State for a period of training and have returned to their home areas to function as preachers in the native language. One such
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young man, Billie Osceola, played a leading part in the discussions held with Commissioner Emmons on the Brighton Reservation.
A significant sidelight on all of this is the complaint which we were told the Trail Indians frequently make that the younger reservation people no longer show them proper respect and have taken to laughing, more or less openly, at their costumes and their behavior. The fury which this doubtless amuses in the Trail traditionalists is, of course, not difficult to imagine.
But the religious phase of this controversy is perhaps most brightly illuminated by the rather dramatic story of Josie Billie, Ingraham Billie’s older brother. Josie until a few years ago was not only a Trail traditionalist but actually the recognized chief medicine man of the tribal group. Today he is a practicing Baptist and lives on the Big Cypress Reservation. Just what happened between the two brothers following Josie’s conversion to Christianity is not wholly clear. As Robert Mitchell of the Seminole Indian Association of Florida (an organization of white people interested in Seminole affair) tells it, the impression left is that Ingraham moved in more or less forcibly, took possession of the medicine bundle and ousted Josie from his former position. Mr. Mitchell also adds that Josie no longer dares to go back among the Trail Indians nowadays and that, if he did so, he quite possibly would be killed. Mr. Capron, however, insists that the transfer of the medicine bundle was wholly voluntary on Josie’s part and that he turned it over to Ingraham, as his logical successor, once he realized that he could no longer conscientiously function in his former role. In any case, it is clear that relations between the two brothers today are at the very least strained and that Ingraham is generally recognized by the Trail Indians as the legitimate custodian of the bundle.
Buffalo Tiger
Still further light is thrown on the present status of the Trail Indians their basic frame of mind by the story of Buffalo Tiger. Buffalo is a presentable young man in his 20’s who apparently grew up In the Everglades but somehow or other acquired at least a smattering of education. He is a younger brother of Jimmie Tiger, operator of the village where the open meeting with the General Council was held, and seems to earn his living by acting as an interpreter at the village in dealing with the tourists. As Buffalo himself tells it, he was approached a few years ago by some of the tribal elders and asked to serve as their spokesman and intermediary in dealing with the white people. At the time he indicated little interest in the assignment, the elders left, and he gave the matter no further thought. About a year later, however, the elders came to him again and told him that they had been quietly sizing him up
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for several months, and indicated that he was now more definitely than before the man they wanted. At this point he agreed to take on the assignment.
Now the most significant point about this incident in the way it highlights the deep suspicion and distrust that these General Council Indians obviously feel toward any person, Indian or non-Indian, who is not an inner member of their esoteric group and also their groping for some channel of communication with the white society around them. The picture that takes shape is of a semi-primitive people, cut off by a language barrier and somewhat bewildered by the recent course of events, reaching out in an almost desperate effort to make people understand how they feel and what they want. In this context even some of the more intemperate letters to President Eisenhower can perhaps be viewed with a 1arger tolerance and a fuller understanding.
The final link in the chain was provided by Morton Silver himself. As he tells it, Buffalo Tiger came to him about two years ago to discuss the possibility of a divorce from his non-Indian wife. During the course of conversation Buffalo mentioned the problems of the Trail Indians, for whom he was then starting to serve as intermediary, and asked Mr. Silver whether he would be willing to help them out on the legal aspects. Mr. Silver confesses that he was at first badly confused about the exact nature of their problems but after several trips to the Everglades and consultations with the General Council he finally became convinced that their complaints were well founded and agreed to lend a hand. He was not asked directly whether he has ever received say compensation for these services and the information was not volunteered. However, in view of the pronounced poverty of most Trail Indians, it seems a safe assumption that he has probably not received enough compensation to cover his expenses in working on the matter.
First Meeting with the General Council
This leads us up to the meeting in Jimmie Tiger’s Village on Sunday, December 16. At this meeting one major point emerged from the comments made by the Indian spokesmen which has not been adequately covered previously in this report. It is that these Indians, ordinarily referred to in Indian Bureau reports and elsewhere as “squatters living along the Tamiami Trail”, are in their own view nothing of the kind. As they see it, they and their ancestors before them for many generations have occupied and used these Everglades lands and any claims of ownership made by white people or governmental agencies are wholly unjust and even irrelevant. The point was made perhaps most vividly by Medicine Man Sam Jones when he said, as interpreted by Buffalo Tiger: “The land I stand on is my body. I want you to help me keep it.”
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Just who holds legal title to the swampy lands where these Indians live, hunt and fish, is not wholly clear. One member of the group, Jimmie Tiger, has his village just inside the boundary of the Everglades National Park and continues to operate there with the informal approval of the present park superintendent. The others live chiefly on small islands (known locally as “hammocks”), which are dotted throughout the watery landscape of the Everglades and apparently most of the lands they occupy and use (outside the National Park) are a patchwork mixture of State lands and private holdings. Seemingly the owners of these tracts have never taken action to oust the Seminole occupants and have, until quite recently, shown little or no interest in using the lands themselves or leasing them to others. Within the past year or two, however, there have been definite signs of development in the Everglades — fencing of certain areas by livestock operators, dynamiting by oil explorers, and actual oil drilling. In fact, there were two oil derricks within about a hundred yards of the meeting in Jimmie Tiger’s Village — and this may well be one reason why this particular spot was chosen — one within eyeshot inside the National Park and the other Just north of the Trail. Even before the meeting complaints were received from Morton Silver and his associates in the recently established United Seminole Affairs organization that the dynamiting for oil had killed large numbers of fish
in the Everglades and thus destroyed an important part of the Indians’ food supply.
At the meeting it became additionally clear that all these recent developments have had a strong impact on the Trail Indians who feel that, for the first time in their memory, they are being hemmed in and that the whole physical foundation for their way of life is gravely threatened. Undoubtedly these developments were the prime factor triggering off the series of protests that began with the Buckskin Declaration.
The impression gained by the Commissioner and this reporter was that so far there have been no really significant oil findings in the Everglades and that future prospects can be described as “only fair.” Barring an important strike, the probability is that before long oil prospectors will pull out and shift their attentions elsewhere. But there is always the chance of a major oil discovery, which would profoundly alter the picture almost overnight. And, in any case, there is the practically mushroom commercial growth now taking place in south Florida Which could easily engulf the Trail Indians and their hunting-and-fishing economy in a very few years unless preventive steps are taken.
After the Indians had voiced these anxieties and their strong conviction that the land rightfully belongs to them, the main burden of the presentation at the Jimmie Tiger meeting was taken over by Morton Silver and his partner, Leo Alpert, who at this point came into the picture publicly for the first time.
Mr. Silver started off by sketching in the immediate background events of the past year or two (points which have already been sufficiently covered in this report) and then moved into the more remote past to lay an historical foundation for the land claims which the General Council is advancing. Without going into all of the many end complex chronological details, it
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will suffice here to say that the claim is seemingly based on two principal points. One is the assertion that the Trail Indians of today are the descendants of Seminoles who never assented to the Payne’s landing Treaty of 1832 (under which the main body of the Tribe agreed to remove itself to Oklahoma) and that consequently the Treaty is of no force or effect so far as this group is concerned. The other point revolves around what Mr. Silver calls “the Macomb Treaty” of 1839. When asked by this reporter whether the “Macomb Treaty” was ever ratified by the Senate, Mr. Silver readily admitted that it was not and added, “That’s one of the troubles.” Under the circumstances it was not possible to pursue this point further at the time. Some subsequent (rather hasty) research has uncovered no mention of this particular document or even the name Macomb either in the standard reference work on Indian treaties (Kappler) or in the Smithsonian’s two-volume encyclopedia, “The Handbook of American Indians.” However, from another source (the Jackson-Waybright petition on behalf of the Florida Seminoles before the Indian Claims Commission) it seems clear that what Mr. Silver is talking about is a statement signed by Major General Alexander Macomb and apparently issued as part of his General Orders No. 6 at Fort King, Florida, on May 18, 1839. In the statement there is no reference to a “treaty” as such but General Macomb asserts that he has “this day, terminated the War with the Seminole Indians by an agreement entered into with Chitto-tuste-nugge, principal Chief to the Seminoles” and that the Seminoles and Mickasukies (sic) agreed “to retire into a district of country in Florida” which is then rather elaborately defined in terms of 1839 geography.
Without extensive additional research, it is, of course, impossible to say how much weight should be given to this rather peculiar and seemingly obscure document and whether it should be regarded an a “treaty” even under the most liberal definition of the term. In due course the question will probably be answered by the Indian Claim Commission. Suffice it to say here that Mr. Silver obviously regards the Macomb document as a solemn obligation of the United States and believes that it entitles the Mickosukee Seminole Nation (whatever that maybe) to a huge acreage in southwestern Florida.
At the Jimmie Tiger meeting Mr. Silver emphasized that the Indians do not necessarily insist on having “title” to the land (in our sense of the term, which they do not understand) but that they do want a guarantee of use rights which would be both perpetual and exclusive. Summing up, he stated that the Indians’ demands are actually threefold: (1) recognition of their ownership of the lands, (2) prevention of further encroachment on these holdings, and (3) recognition (i.e. by the United States Government) of the General Council.
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Mr. Alpert then spoke comparatively briefly. He emphasized his conviction, as a lawyer, that the Indiana have a soundly based claim to the lands in question a not only in terms of basic human rights and elementary justice but in specific legal terms that will stand up in court. Pointing to the oil derrick which almost literally over-shadowed the meeting, he demanded an end to this type of thing and added a bit ominously: “I don’t want to present this as a threat but I will say this. Because we feel that our case is a good one, if we cannot obtain satisfaction from the United States Government, we will resort to the World Court or some other appropriate tribunal.” (NOTE: While this may not be a completely accurate quotation, this reporter feels confident that it is a very close approximation of the words actually used by Mr. Alpert.)
Second Meeting with General Council
At the meeting in Morton Silver’s office the following day an effort was made to nail down more precisely a common basis of understanding. Commissioner Emmons emphasized, as he had at all previous Indian meetings, his definite feeling that it would be necessary and desirable to divide the Florida Seminoles into two broad groupings: (1) those who wish to improve their standards of living in the typically (non-Indian) American pattern and to affiliate themselves with the reservations even though they may not actually live there, and (2) those who prefer to continue living in the Everglades and following the traditional way of life. As to the comparative numerical strength of the two groups he observed that there seemed to be wide differences of opinion and that the only practical way to arrive at a real answer would be to have some kind of referendum or plebiscite giving each adult Seminole a chance to make a free and unhampered choice. He added his hope, as he had at the reservation meetings, that the reservations would be kept “open” both for any adult Trail Indians who might later change their minds and for any children in the Trail group who might prefer reservation affiliations on reaching the age of 21, and indicated that this proposal was apparently acceptable to the reservation people. Touching on the land problem, he sketched out a rough plan for having an area of perhaps 15,000 to 25,000 acres in the Everglades set aside as a sanctuary for the Trail Indians and establishing some kind of private trusteeship to safeguard the Indians’ interests. He also indicated that if such a plan could be worked out, it might be necessary for the Trail people to give up their proportionate share in any judgment money that might be forthcoming to the Florida Seminoles as a result of the claim now pending before the Indian Claims Commission. Finally, without particularly pushing the matter, he expressed the hope that some day the Trail Indians might see fit to send the youngsters to the public schools.
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Responding on behalf of the Indians, Buffalo Tiger indicated that there seemed to be general understanding of the terms outlined and no particular objections. As for schooling of the young, he indicated that this would have to come later after the land matter had been satisfactorily settled. At the meeting in his brother’s village the previous day, incidentally, he had spoken a bit on this subject. As he laid it out, the feeling of the Trail people apparently is that white people are not to be trusted (as their experience has taught them) and that attendance at the white man’s schools would only contaminate the young and turn them aside from the accepted Seminole path of life. (Here they doubtless have in mind the, to them, horrible example of Mike Osceola) Morton Silver, Buffalo Tiger and others, however, expressed considerable confidence that once the land problem is settled and the Trail people have tangible evidence of the Government’s good faith, they may speedily change their minds on the school question. Without wanting to appear overly skeptical, this reporter would suggest that a definite agreement covering public school education for the young along the Trail should be included as a part of any land settlement or sanctuary establishment that may be worked out. Under such an arrangement, the adult Trail Indians who are deeply committed to the traditional way of life would have an opportunity to live out their lives they prefer but the children would not necessarily be tied and limited by the decision of their parents.
At the meeting in Mr. Silver’s office the lawyers and the Indians were asked to delimit somewhat more precisely the area which the Indians were claiming so that the Commissioner would have this information as part of the total package to be taken back to Washington for study and consideration. After some hesitation and apparent confusion over this matter, Buffalo Tiger and Jimmie Billie, working together, finally traced out with their fingers on a large-scale road map the area where the Trail Indians have hunted and fished for years and which they feel is rightfully theirs. Excluding a strip roughly ten miles wide along the coast, the area designated includes all of Florida lying south of a line running east and. west across the middle of take Okeechobee. This would run south of the Brighton Reservation and would probably leave out Dania Reservation (as part of the excluded coastal strip) but would definitely take in Big Cypress. When this was pointed out, Buffalo Tiger said, “Well, them, don’t go so far up” and Jimmie Billie proceeded to trace out a new northern boundary running just south of the Big Cypress Federal Reservation. Most, if not all, of the adjoining State reservation, however, was included even in the redefined boundary. When an objection was raised to this, the lawyers asserted with some finality that the Trail Indians had been fishing and hunting in that particular area for years (with no interference or objection from Big Cypress residents) and would
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be extremely reluctant to give it up. This may prove eventually one of the most difficult issues to resolve in the whole matter since it apparently involves a sharp conflict of interests between the two groups and a certain amount of equity on both sides. The land was, we were told, set aside by the State of Florida simply “for the use of the Seminole Indians”, which would seem to leave the matter squarely up in the air.
The Recognition question
One final phase of the consultations remains to be covered. At the meeting in Mr. Silver’s office Mr. Alpert objected rather pointedly to the Commissioner’s frequent use of terms such as “factions” and “groups” and insisted with some vehemence that what we have here is a well established body of long standing — namely the General Council — and some Indians who have in recent years strayed away from their affiliations with it. Like Mr. Silver, he obviously regards the non-Council Miccosukees as a numerically insignificant group and also seems to feel — although he never quite said so — that the Miccosukees are in every sense of the word a sovereign and independent nation. After this reporter had recapitulated the general understanding reached on the land problem, Mr. Alpert emphasized with some force that recognition of the General Council was also a vitally important issue and should not be overlooked. Subsequently, since our return to Washington, a letter has been received from Morton Silver giving the question of recognition top priority and suggesting that the land problem be “deferred” for later consideration.
Although Mr. Silver states in this letter that he is reflecting the views of the General Council on this matter, this reporter cannot recall that the question of recognition was ever mentioned by any of the Indian spokesmen at either of our meetings. Subsequently in a long-distance telephone conversation with Mr. Silver, this reporter specifically asked why the matter of recognition was being given such importance. Mr. Silver’s reply was quite lengthy and involved two principal points. One point revolved around the difficulties which Trail Indians encounter when they fall into the hands of the law (e.g. for speeding or drunkenness) and are left helpless in a police court where they can neither speak nor understand the language. As well as we can understand Mr. Silver’s rather involved explanation on this point, what he seems to be saying is (1) that the Trail Indians have their own code and their own system of law enforcement, (2) that individual offenders will generally get better justice under this system than they could hope to find in the white man’s courts, and (3) that the chances of obtaining such justice will be greatly enhanced if the Council receives some kind of official recognition. The second point is simply
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That if the Government continues dealing with every Indian in Florida who sets himself up as some kind of “little chief”, factionalism will increase and chaos will reign among the Indian people. This reporter finds the second point considerably more persuasive than the first.
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