This act was approved by the Governor, but between the time when President McKinley’s special government commission carefully selected these lands in 1898—an interval of less than a year—this particular tract disappeared (?) from the list of public domain and went into private ownership.
The bill, so inspiring in humanity, contained a clause in these days of Everglade jests called a “joker.” Like the eagle, as he sweeps down the lamb feeding at its mother’s side, so the spoils-taker, with “land grabbers’” outfit, swept down upon the inheritance of the red children of Florida, not only violating the sanctity of Florida’s citizenship but even gathering the crumbs that fell from Florida’s bounteous table, and the livid bar sinister of treachery again stained the escutcheon of Florida.
Years passed, when pressure was once more brought upon Florida’s inhumanity toward her native people, and the legislative body of 1913 passed a bill, unanimously providing 235,000 acres in the Everglades for the Seminoles. Alas! for the pathos of the story. On the very last day of the session, Governor Park Trammell, untouched by the needs of these long persecuted people, and in full sympathy and co-operation with the politicians’ strong anti-Indian feelings, vetoed the bill, not only denying the citizenry of Florida the inalienable right to uphold the dignity, honor and patriotism of Florida, but denying these oppressed natives as much as a spadeful of earth to cover their corpses. What mathematician can ever estimate the result of the power used by the Governor at this critical time? By this stroke of the pen, these aboriginal Americans again became the victims of a cowardly treason.
A great State like Florida, whose honor is far greater than her land possessions, need not vilify the history and lives of her native people; there has been much more than money involved in the handlings of the Everglade Country, and a handful of speculators, who said: “There is no land left for the Seminole—let him ‘make bricks without straw,’” found, as later records show, that a Florida democracy, quickened by the spirit of human kindness, checkmated the Everglade spoils-taker, whose fetish has been the dollar mark, and later through the Legislature gave to the native owners land upon which they may find peace and a refuge.
Again in 1915 an Indian bill was introduced, but certain active land speculators, known to be strongly opposed to the Seminoles having any land in Florida, arrived at Florida’s capital on schedule time, and the bill, as per Seminole dialect, went into a “big sleep,” and the story of the Seminole came before the world as rivaling that of the “Man Without a Country.” And, throughout the country, the printed pages of journalism carried headlines which read: “Within the Bounds of America, ‘We Have a Little Belgium of Our Own.’”
At this point in Florida’s history, the white American heard, as it were, the Seminole’s wounded cry: “Why have the lands of our fathers been taken from us?” And as the dirge-like wail of the oppressed Seminole echoed and re-echoed through the solemn stillness of the mysterious Everglades, it was transmuted into a very symphony of sorrow. The mournful echoes of the cry of this stricken race, like ether waves, permeated every corner of America, until Democracy answered thus: “If this America of ours, by the furling and unfurling of her Star Spangled Banner, can say to the war-mad nations of Europe ‘Touch not my people,’ surely she will look into her galaxy of States and see to it that the banner of her own flowery Florida shall no longer be besmirched with a blot caused by the political profiteers of the State; and Humanity, dignifying brotherly kindness, challenged the white man’s hidden records and with uplifted hand pointed the way to a just solution of the Seminole’s rights.”
THE 1917 LAND BILL.
The Climax of Twenty Years’ Struggle, When the Seminoles are Granted Homes in the Historic Stronghold of Their Ancestors.