Is this single word as verified by Bishop Gray the keynote to the history and origin of the North American Indian?
With a close study of the Seminoles of Florida, one finds a subject mystical with the history of centuries past. We meet in this old-turbaned tribe a history vague, ’tis true, but as interesting as the data gleaned from the hieroglyphics of Mexico, or Egypt, and why not?
While the archæologist delves among the ruins of ancient Egypt, and as he disturbs the inanimate forms of the old Pharoahs, let him pause and like Diogenes of old, shine his lantern in scientific research for the American Rameses. Tracing the proud and invincible Florida Seminole through all his wanderings, from the plains of Mexico, we meet him to-day in the confines of the mysterious and weird Everglades.
Reaching Florida in 1750, under the name Seminole or Wanderers, his history verges into a singularly distressing drama and forms a tragical chapter in American history.
Tracing their lineage, as we may, to the Aztecs of Mexico, the student must find in their usages and customs links that connect their present history with that of the ancient tribes.
In this remnant, proud as the old Montezumas, may the scientist and antiquarian find a history teeming with interest, while the novelist may revel in story, both real and legendary—the most romantic of Indian life that has ever been written.
If we accept the Le Plongeon theory of prehistoric Mexico, as well as Professors Holmes and Seville’s research of Mexican antiquities, we must note the relationship between the early Central American civilization and the Ancient Egyptians; and that the builders of the pyramids and temples of Mexico and Yucatan were closely allied with the architects of the Cheops.
After the conquest of Mexico by Cortez in 1519-20, the Muskogee Indians left Mexico and gradually traversed the country till in 1620 we find them in Alabama, where they added other bands to their ranks. The British name them Creeks, from the many small streams that traversed the country.
Thus the great Muskogee tribe of the Mexican Empire vanquished by Cortez became one hundred years later the Creek Confederacy, from which branched the Seminoles.
It will take no great stretch of fancy to suppose that before the mysterious chain of migration the Aztecs and the early Egyptians were allied. As we study, to-day, the frail remnants of the vanishing Aborigines in the heart of the Everglades, may we not find a coincidence of usages that at least give abundant food for speculation, and the resemblance of the present Seminole to the ancient Egyptian suggests strong points of similitude to that of the old Israelites, and a common origin for the North American Indian and the older tribes, whose magnificent wrecks strew the borders of the Nile?