Seminoles of Florida

The books in the Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series demonstrate the University Press of Florida’s long history of publishing Latin American and Caribbean studies titles that connect in and through Florida, highlighting the connections between the Sunshine State and its neighboring islands. Books in this series show how early explorers found and settled Florida and the Caribbean. They tell the tales of early pioneers, both foreign and domestic. They examine topics critical to the area such as travel, migration, economic opportunity, and tourism. They look at the growth of Florida and the Caribbean and the attendant pressures on the environment, culture, urban development, and the movement of peoples, both forced and voluntary.

The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series gathers the rich data available in these architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical works, as well as the travelogues and naturalists’ sketches of the area prior to the twentieth century, making it accessible for scholars and the general public alike.

The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, under the Humanities Open Books program.

"The most comprehensive account of the history of the Florida Seminoles yet undertaken."--John K. Mahon, author of History of the Second Seminole War

The history of the Seminole Indians in Florida embodies a vital part of the tragic history of native and white American conflict throughout the entire United States. Drawing on widely scattered scholarship, including the oldest documents and recently discovered material, Covington gives us a complete account of the Florida Seminoles from their entrance into the state almost three hundred years ago, through the great chiefdoms of Micanopy, Osceola, and Billy Bowlegs, to the current political reality of democratic elections. (In fact one woman, Betty Mae Jumper, was elected tribal chairperson in both 1967 and 1969.) 

   After moving into the peninsula from Georgia and Alabama, the Seminoles fought three wars against the whites. By 1858, at the end of the final war, 90 percent of the tribe had been killed or forcibly removed to Oklahoma. Those who remained in chickees in the swampy grassland of south Florida comprised one of the last tribes in the country to retain cultural independence from whites. With the drainage of the Everglades and extension of highways and railroads into the area, the land the Indians lived on without legal title became prime real estate, and the Seminoles were evicted by the new white owners. 
  
Covington brings the history of the tribe into this century as he describes the beginning of Seminole relocation to reservations, their participation in World War II, the inroads of Christianity in the 1940s, and the changes in tribal education, government, and agriculture and business ventures in the past three decades.