The Seminole Nation is its name, and its existence, as at present constituted, dates from the year 1842. Seven years previous to this date, the United States Government decided that the Seminole Indians, who belong to the family of the Muscogees, should be moved from their fertile Florida lands and taken to those of the Creek Nation, far away in the West. At this time the authorities concentrated our Indian wards in a few special places.
The Seminoles bitterly resisted the efforts made to remove them. It was only after a seven years' war that two thousand of them surrendered and were duly sent westward.
Originally the Seminoles had been numerically strong. This hard-fought war reduced their numbers to such a point that after those who surrendered had been transported, but five hundred remained in Florida. They represented, however, the strongest and most determined of their tribe; those who preferred death to surrender.
Separating themselves from those who decided to surrender, they penetrated to the innermost recesses of the Everglades, that death-dealing morass, covered with reeds and jungle-growth, through which winds a veritable labyrinth of stagnant streams, in whose mud crocodiles and alligators disport themselves, and where snakes, mosquitos, and other poisonous life abound. What little solid earth was to be found was nothing but a bog-like mass of sodden ground, thickly covered with grass and vines. Yet there and under such conditions these were determined to look up their home. They valued their freedom above all, and were willing to make any sacrifice and undergo any hardship rather than lose what they valued so highly.
White men could not endure the conditions they had to meet in the swamps, neither could they ever equal the Red man in ability to move quickly in such a place. The little band of Indians scattered and built their shelters on the driest spots they could find, maintaining themselves by hunting the game that was found on every hand.
So accustomed have they become to the conditions in which they live, that they are almost amphibious and absolutely immune to the bites of mosquitos or other poisonous insects.
At times some of the Indians will come out of their retirement and visit their white neighbors. Quite often many of them can be seen on the streets of Miami, Florida, where they go to purchase what limited supplies they may need, the money for the same being obtained by the sale of alligator hides.
At times a few white men have been invited by them to visit their homes in the Everglades. Those who have accepted this invitation have always been glad to hasten their departure, on account of the ravenous hordes of mosquitos and the familiarity of the water-snakes, and this notwithstanding the hospitality and sincere cordiality of their hosts.
Undoubtedly it is due to the ravages of these so-called pests—to their beneficent protection in this instance—that these Indians owe their freedom from the usual contaminating vices of the white man. The latter is simply unable to get close enough in touch to demoralize them. So we find these Indians today, whose life is the same as it was before the white man set foot upon the North American Continent.
They are free from the vice of drink, they live according to the highest moral code, they do not gamble, and are altogether a happy and care-free people. Let us hope they will ever remain so; that they will never lose their natural simplicity of character and their dignified reserve.