Y'all know that I've become fascinated with the African and Native American military and social alliance that created
the "Seminoles."
A "recent" (2001) archaeological discovery may shed new light on the daily living of what is suspected to be the largest
African/Black community in pre-Seminole War Florida.
QUOTE
Fortyfive minutes west of Walt Disney's makebelieve history, archaeologists dig for real artifacts. Hunched over a shallow,
square excavation, they search for Peliklakaha, the largest Black Seminole village known to historians, a place where different
cultures joined in a fight for freedom more than 200 years ago. Until now, say University of Florida archaeologists,
Peliklakaha existed only in the writings of military leaders and a painting commissioned by the U.S. general who had burned
it down. Archaeologists hope to unearth clues that documents can't provide, secrets about the life of a hidden people.
They hope Peliklakaha will reveal whether the inhabitants developed a unique lifestyle with their new status as free people
in Florida. "The story of the Black Seminoles is a tremendous story about a successful effort by slaves gaining their freedom
before the Civil War," said Delray Beach archaeologist Bill Steele, who discovered the site in 1993. "That's why Peliklakaha
is so significant." The dig could establish a new focus in archaeology on cultures that combine African and Native American
influences, said Terry Weik, the UF graduate student heading the excavation. It could also bolster the Black Seminoles' lawsuit
that seeks a share of the $56 million the United States government paid the Seminoles for reparations. To win their suit against
the U.S. government, the Black Seminoles must prove they owned land in Florida. The story of the Black Seminoles is complex and
controversial. Often it's misunderstood. The Seminoles themselves were a distillation of as many as 36 tribes. Osceola, the bold
and dashing Seminole leader for whom the Florida State University mascot was named, was half Scottish and half Creek Indian, and
married a Black Seminole.
[...]
Blacks were in Florida before the Seminoles. In the late 1600s, African slaves who escaped Carolina plantations and dodged slave
hunters through dangerous Indian country gained freedom by crossing the St. Mary's River, an international border that divided
Spanish and British colonial territory. This was the first Underground Railroad. So many fled here that, in 1693, the Spanish
settlement at St. Augustine began freeing the runaway slaves if they agreed to convert to Catholicism and protect the northern
border from the British, according to Jane Landers, author of Black Society in Spanish Florida. By 1738, these former slaves
formed the first free black community in North America Gracia Real de Santo Teresa de Mose better known as Fort Mose. Soon,
the Indians followed. They were the remnants of the most resistant tribes, the Creek, Hitichi, Yamasee and Miccosukee, Indians
who had been fighting the Europeans for centuries. Together they became known as the Seminoles.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.jupiter.fl.us/DocumentCenter/View/322/The-Forgotten-Seminoles
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