Seminole

“ My late companions could scarcely have reached the fort when the sounds of the strife suddenly ceased, and I heard the caha-queené—the Seminole shout of triumph. I was still listening to its wild intonations, when half-a-dozen men—dark-bodied men—rushed out of the bushes, and surrounded me where I stood. ”

“ As Belgium and bleeding France stand by the colors today at every hearthstone in the land, crucified that liberty and democracy might be saved for the whole world, so the Seminole, through a century long invasion of his wigwam and his campfire by the Paleface, has come through the crucible, still true to the colors of the plumed knight of his race—the martyred Osceola—American patriots that we know would spend their last drop of blood freely and gladly in defense of their native land and sacred soil they have loved so long. ”

“ Beware, adventurer, for this wilderness region gives out no secrets and only the Seminole knows the hidden channels and haunts.
The shadows grow dimmer and dimmer and we look up to see the stars lift the lids of their twinkling eyes to smile down upon the sleeping pappooses; the braves and the squaws, with the faith of little children, keep afresh the mystic religion of their ancestors, while they worship before the Great Spirit, who [206] has given this Pay-hay-o-kee country to his red children. ”

“ There was a “head chief”—king he could not be called—for “Mico,” his Indian title, has not that signification. The proud spirit of the Seminole had never sold itself to so absurd a condition; they had not yet surrendered up the natural rights of man. It is only after the state of nature has been perverted and abased, that the “kingly” element becomes strong among a people.
The head “mico” of the Seminoles was only a head in name. His authority was purely personal: he had no power over life or property. Though occasionally the wealthiest, he was often one of the poorest of his people. ”

“ Behind them the sub-chiefs and more noted warriors took their places, and still further back, in rank after rank, stood the common men of the tribes. Even the women and boys drew near, clustering thickly behind, and regarding the movements of the men with quiet but eager interest.
Contrary to their usual habits, they were grave and silent. It is not their character to be so; for the Seminole is as free of speech and laughter as the clown of the circus ring; even the light-hearted negro scarcely equals him in jovialty. ”

“ Centuries of wrong from hands too powerful to be resisted have taught these red Americans the patience of despair.
Amid the blessings of Christianity, the Seminole is an outcast from sympathy and an alien to hope, yet he has never ceased to be manly. While we protect the deer and the alligator, the quail and the fish, shall we leave our brother in bronze a prey to the lawless and a helpless victim of every loafer?
The only way to protect these wards of Florida is to buy a reservation, and hold it in trust for them—forever. ”

“ Ruin and destruction follow ever the tread of the Iste-hatke. He is strong, and we are weak. He is many, and we are few. We may kill his hundreds, and he brings thousands to devour us. We may plant, but he will gather the fruit. The Seminole may starve, and at the cry of his children for food the white man will make merry. ”

“ Are not the Seminoles of Florida, the descendants of the old monarchs, this race around which shadowy romance hovers, as worthy of preservation as the inanimate treasures of ancient Egypt? Are there no Rameses in American history? In the old turbaned tribe of Florida, we have a remnant of the most picturesque, deserving and moral of all the Aborigines of America, and they belong to a type that is everywhere else extinct. Are they not worth preserving and protecting to a point worthy the proud and historic name of Seminole? ”

“ Such is the law of the Seminoles. No Indian maiden must speak to a white man; but I never saw such as you before."
"But, how happens it," said he, in astonishment, "that you speak my language?"
"My father taught me," was the reply, "he is a scholar; we all speak some American."
"May I know your name?" asked our hero.
"I am Sunbeam, daughter of the Seminole chief."
"And mine is Henry Lee," he replied to her inquiring look. "You are well named," he continued. "I have seen many daughters of the pale-faces; but none so fair and bright as you. ”

“ The average American with his standard of morals calloused by dealings in the business and social world, smiles at the Seminole’s verdict of his character and with indifferent shrug, jocularly repeats it as being only—the opinion of an Indian.
But, measured by the Indian’s conception of honor, how small we must appear to the Seminole patriot, for, from his unwritten code of ethics, to one who knows the well grounded Indian character, his estimate of white manhood means more than is apparent underneath his calm exterior. ”

“ The statement I had from some cattlemen in mid-Florida I have thus found true, namely, that the Seminole are producing more men than women. What bearing this peculiarity will have upon the future of these Indians can only be guessed at. It is beyond question, however, that the tribe is increasing in numbers, and increasing in the manner above described.
There is no reason why the tribe should not increase, and increase rapidly, if the growth in numbers be not checked by the non-birth of females. The Seminole have not been at war for more than twenty years. ”

“ In dealing with the Seminole language we meet with long words and mammoth expressions. The Seminole greeting, “Ha-tee-eten-chee-hick-cha-hit-is-chay,” sounds formidable, yet it only means “Glad to see you.” These, with well-understood Indian phrases, such as “burying the tomahawk,” “going on the warpath,” we employ familiarly without a thought of the tribe we have dispossessed. The time for studying the aborigines of America will soon be over. Only remnants of the tribes remain among us. ”

“ Micanopy, when told by the officers that he might choose between emigration and death, answered, “Kill me here then, kill me quickly.” The same spirit is manifested by the Seminole to-day when he says, “We have never done anything to disgrace the land of our birth, nor the honor of an Indian. For fifty years the pledge to our great father has been kept inviolate. Our tongues are not forked and our feet tread not in the white man’s path. We threw away the rifle and grasped hands with the white skin. We know the white man’s power, and though we love peace, we fear not death. ”

“ Tustenuggee would remove the cool ember and quietly reach down and put a fresh one in its place. This old chief, so famous in history, never yielded to removal, and lived till a few years ago with his tribe in the Everglades. The goal of the Seminole is to learn to endure and to achieve. To this end is every Seminole boy educated, and different modes of developing the powers of endurance are employed. Carrying a deer for a long distance without fatigue, walking or running for many miles, jumping, wrestling, poling a canoe, etc., are some of the practical modes. ”

“ To remove them from their tropical homes to the chilling blasts of the Indian Territory would be an act of cruelty and wholly unnecessary. Those of us who have enjoyed life in this land of the palm, this land of the balmy air and life-giving sunshine, reveling in the eternal bloom of the flowers and the ceaseless song of the birds, can well picture the struggle it would cost the patient Seminole to be forced to a cold western land. No, fair Florida, the ancestors of these proud people were forced to the country of the setting sun silent and dejected. ”

“ As such I will first attempt to describe the Seminole. Then we shall be able the better to look at him as he is in his relations with his fellows: in the family, in the community, or in any of the forms of the social life of his tribe.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS. PHYSIQUE OF THE MEN.
Physically both men and women are remarkable. The men, as a rule, attract attention by their height, fullness and symmetry of development, and the regularity and agreeableness of their features. In muscular power and constitutional ability to endure they excel. ”

“ The white man laughs at us and whips us as though we were dogs. He takes from us that which pleases him, and gives us nothing but blows in return. The Indian and the wolf together are marks for his rifle. Let us show him that we are men and warriors. Let us strike a blow that he will never forget. It may be that when he finds the Seminole ready to fight, he will let us alone to dwell peaceably in our own land. Are the words of Coacoochee good in the ears of the tribe? Are his warriors glad when they hear them? ”

“ But when suspicion is disarmed, one whom they have welcomed to their confidence will find them evincing characteristics which will excite his admiration and esteem. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the Seminole, not as a representative of our National Government, but under conditions which induced them to welcome me as a friend. In my intercourse with them, I found them to be not only the brave, self reliant, proud people who have from time to time withstood our nation’s armies in defense of their rights, but also a people amiable, affectionate, truthful, and communicative. ”

“ The innate dislike of the Seminole toward strangers is his hardest prejudice to overcome; yet he is hospitable when he convinces himself that the visitor is no Government agent, nor come for any mercenary motive. The person who is fortunate enough to reach their hunting grounds, secure their confidence, observe their weird home life, and their childish untutored ways, meets with an attractive spectacle of romance and may study these aborigines in their primeval customs. ”

“ At the close of this struggle, costing thousands of lives and millions of dollars, the Seminoles were removed to Arkansas. They were recognized as “ the Seminole Nation,” and as one of the “ Five Civilized Tribes,” and granted autonomy upon the scale permitted the other four, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek. They live now mainly in Oklahoma, and a few in Florida. ”

“ When Hannah returned to her work about the table, snap! went the button, and Hannah’s ebony face and twisted, string-tied locks was photographed on the plate, and proud was the owner to possess so good a likeness of Uncle Sam’s one and only unfreed slave.
UNWRITTEN LAWS.
The government among the Seminoles is peculiar, it is remarkable, it is magnificent. There is no lying, no stealing, no murder and yet apparently there is no restraining law. The Seminole has many noble traits; he is proverbially truthful. ”

“ A more severely pure-minded people are not to be found on the globe. The women are above reproach. Were a white man to insult a Seminole woman by word or look it would be well for that man never to appear in the presence of the tribe again. The Seminole girl who would unwisely bestow her affections would be killed outright by the squaws. In the history of the Everglade Indians only one such case is known and at the birth of the half-breed child the mother was taken to the woods and there hung to a tree by the indignant squaws. ”

“ On arriving on the edge of the great swamp, each was to fire minute-guns as signals for the others, and then all three were to advance in converging lines towards the heart of the Seminole fastness.
The absurd manoeuvre was carried out, and ended as might have been expected, in complete failure. During the march, no man saw the face of a red Indian. A few of their camps were discovered, but nothing more. The cunning warriors had heard the signal guns, and well understood their significance. ”

“ In their intercourse with one another, they are, as a rule, voluble, vivacious, showing the possession of relatively active brains and mental fertility. Certainly, most of the Seminole I met cannot justly be called either stupid or intellectually sluggish, and I observed that, when invited to think of matters with which they are not familiar or which are beyond the verge of the domain which their intellectual faculties have mastered, they nevertheless bravely endeavored to satisfy me before they were willing to acknowledge themselves powerless. ”

“ HI-E-TEE, CAPTAIN TOM TIGER, HO-TI-YEE, AND “LITTLE TIGER”
One is tempted upon an intimate knowledge of this race to wonder whether the Son of Man appeared to the Indian also; could not the Light of the World in some mysterious way have touched the soul of this innocent people? The more one studies the Seminole, the more one wonders. Christ, according to their traditions, was killed by the “wicked Spaniards” when they first came to this continent. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The women and savage warriors clustered around, laughing at his sallies, or contributing their quota of grotesque wit, at which they uttered yells of demoniac laughter. We might easily have fancied ourselves in the infernal regions, in the middle of a crowd of jibbering fiends, who stood grinning down upon us, as if they drew delight from our anguish.
We noticed that few of the men were Seminoles. Indians there were; but these were of dark complexion, nearly black. They were of the tribe of Yamassees—a race conquered by the Seminoles, and partially engrafted into their nation. ”