The Seminoles, Part 2: Assimilation, Termination and Finally Recognition

See Part 1 of our Seminoles history, and our 3-part series on the Historical Overview of the Southeastern Creek Tribes and Creek Nation for a greater understanding of the Seminoles.

Florida became the 30th state in 1845. In 1855 the relentless push of the Florida frontier caught up with the Seminole when military surveyors and a group of Seminoles exchanged gunfire. The Third Seminole War had begun and new demands to remove the remaining Seminole to Indian Territory were strong. This war was a series of limited engagements and in 1858 the war drew to a close after U.S. troops were able to penetrate the Big Cypress Swamp and destroy settlements and stored food supplies. About 150 Seminoles were taken to the Indian Territory leaving a few hundred Seminoles scattered among the Everglades. It is the descendants of those few unconquered who live in Florida today.

Following the Third Seminole War the Seminoles lived in relative isolation for several decades. Small settlements, each with several chickees, dotted the hammocks around Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp to the south. Toward the end of the century trading posts were established in Fort Lauderdale and other areas. Seminoles traded items such as alligator hides and egret feathers, valued items in the fashion world. The massive drainage projects began in southern Florida in the 1890s hindered the Seminoles’ trading and economic pursuits. But then came the 20th century boom that brought new residents and tourists to Miami and Fort Lauderdale on the Atlantic Coast and Fort Meyers on the Gulf Coast. Instinctively the Seminoles began to stress tourism as a new economic opportunity. In the 1930s and 1940s some of the Seminole began to raise cattle returning to a resource their ancestors had turned to a century before.

During the 1930s and 1940s federal agencies provided some services to the Seminole but these were threatened in the 1950s by federal legislation that sought to remove the special status of the American Indian Tribes. Indian termination remained the policy of the U.S. government from mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and policies with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into the mainstream society. Assimilation was not new; the belief that indigenous people should abandon their traditional lives and become “civilized” had been the basis of policy for centuries. But what was new was the sense of urgency, that with or without consent, tribes must be terminated and begin to live like Americans. To that end, the U.S. Congress set about ending the special relationships between tribes and the federal government. The intent was to grant Native Americans all rights and privileges of citizenship, reduce their dependence on a bureaucracy whose mismanagement had been documented, and eliminate the expense of providing services for native people.

In practical terms the policy ended the U.S. Government’s recognition of sovereignty of tribes, trusteeship over Indian reservations and trust lands, and the exclusion of state law applicability to native persons. From the government’s perspective Native Americans were to become taxpaying citizens subject to state and federal taxes and laws from which they had previously been exempt.

Being proposed for termination galvanized the Seminoles. On October 9, 1953 an emergency meeting was called at the agency headquarters in the Dania, Florida Reservation. There were two issues to be considered: first, convincing the U.S. government that the tribe was not ready to take over management of its own affairs; second, convincing the government that all Indians living in Florida were not Seminole. In March 1954 Seminole Tribal members testified at a Joint Hearing before U.S. congressional committees of Interior and Insular Affairs. Additional hearings were held in April 1955 wherein the Tribe requested continuance of 25 years of government supervision and separation of the Seminoles from the Miccosukee and Traditionals. By March 1957 a tribal committee had been formed to draft a Tribal constitution and corporate charter. The Constitution and Bylaws were accepted by tribal vote on August 21, 1957 and ratified by the U.S. Congress later that year, thereby granting the Seminoles federal recognition as the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The Tribe would be led by an elected tribal council comprised of representatives from each of its six Florida reservations. The Tribal members would elect a Chairman and Vice Chairman.

The Seminoles remarkable entrepreneurial success began in the 1970s when they established a tax-free cigarette shop on the Seminole Hollywood, Florida Reservation. Later they were the first U.S. Indian Tribe to open a major high-stakes bingo operation. In 1988 the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was enacted by the U.S. Congress to regulate the conduct of gaming on Indian lands. The Seminoles immediately developed plans for casino gaming. Since that time they have developed and own seven gaming facilities on their Florida lands including two Hard Rock Casino and Hotel Complexes, two Seminole Casino and Hotel properties and three other Florida casinos. In 2007 the Florida Seminoles acquired 100 percent of the Hard Rock Company. This entity now owns 192 locations which include hotels, casinos and restaurants in 60 countries. Other significant Seminole enterprises include their citrus groves and cattle ranches. Their cattle enterprise is the 12^th largest cattle operation in the United States. Today the Seminole Tribe of Florida has over 90,000 acres of Trust land and boasts 12,000+ Tribal members. The Seminole Tribe of Florida is without a doubt one of the great American success stories of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.

Sources, Florida Indians from Ancient Times to Present, 1998, Jerald T. Milanich; Tribes of the Southern Woodlands, Time-Life Books; The Southeastern Indians by Charles Hudson; Creek Country, The Creek Indians and Their World, by Robbie Ethridge; The Seminole Wars 1817 – 1858,Joe Knetsch, 2003; and numerous web sites including the Seminole Tribe of Florida site.