Notes on the Floridian Peninsula

§ 2 The Seminoles

The Creek nation, so called says Adair from the number of streams that intersected the lowlands they inhabited, more properly Muskogeh, (corrupted into Muscows,) sometimes Western Indians, as they were supposed to have come later than the Uchees,251 and on the early maps Cowetas (Couitias,) and Allibamons from their chief towns, was the last of those waves of migration which poured across the Mississippi for several centuries prior to Columbus. Their hunting grounds at one period embraced a vast extent of country reaching from the Atlantic coast almost to the Mississippi. After the settlement of the English among them, they diminished very rapidly from various causes, principally wars and the ravages of the smallpox, till about 1740 the whole number of their warriors did not exceed fifteen hundred. The majority of these belonged to that branch of the nation, called from its more southern position the Lower Creeks, of mongrel origin, made up of the fragments of numerous reduced and broken tribes, dwelling north and northwest of the Floridian peninsula.252

When Governor Moore of South Carolina made his attack on St. Augustine, he included in his complement a considerable band of this nation. After he had been repulsed they kept possession of all the land north of the St. Johns, and, uniting with certain negroes from the English and Spanish colonies, formed the nucleus of the nation, subsequently called Ishti semoli, wild men,253 corrupted into Seminolies and Seminoles, who subsequently possessed themselves of the whole peninsula and still remain there. Others were introduced by the English in their subsequent invasions, by Governor Moore, by Col. Palmer, and by General Oglethorpe. As early as 1732, they had founded the town of Coweta on the Flint river, and laid claim to all the country from there to St. Augustine.254 They soon began to make incursions independent of the whites, as that led by Toonahowi in 1741, as that which in 1750, under the guidance of Secoffee, forsook the banks of the Apalachicola, and settled the fertile savannas of Alachua, and as the band that in 1808 followed Micco Hadjo to the vicinity of Tallahassie. They divided themselves into seven independent bands, the Latchivue or Latchione, inhabiting the level banks of the St. Johns, and the sand hills to the west, near the ancient fort Poppa, (San Francisco de Pappa,) opposite Picolati, the Oklevuaha, or Oklewaha on the river that bears their name, the Chokechatti, the Pyaklekaha, the Talehouyana or Fatehennyaha, the Topkelake, and a seventh, whose name I cannot find.

According to a writer in 1791,255 they lived in a state of frightful barbarity and indigence, and were “poor and miserable beyond description.” When the mother was burdened with too many children, she hesitated not to strangle the new-born infant, without remorse for her cruelty or odium among her companions. This is the only instance that I have ever met in the history of the American Indians where infanticide was in vogue for these reasons, and it gives us a fearfully low idea of the social and moral condition of those induced by indolence to resort to it. Yet other and by far the majority of writers give us a very different opinion, assure us that they built comfortable houses of logs, made a good, well-baked article of pottery, raised plenteous crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, tobacco, swamp and upland rice, peas, melons and squashes, while in an emergency the potatoe-like roots of the china brier or red coonta, the tap root of the white coonta,256 the not unpleasant cabbage of the palma royal and palmetto, and the abundant game and fish, would keep at a distance all real want.257

As may readily be supposed from their vagrant and unsettled mode of life, their religious ideas were very simple. Their notion of a God was vague and ill-defined; they celebrated certain festivals at corn planting and harvest; they had a superstition regarding the transmigration of souls and for this purpose held the infant over the face of the dying mother;258 and from their great reluctance to divulge their real names, it is probable they believed in a personal guardian spirit, through fear of offending whom a like hesitation prevailed among other Indian tribes, as well as among the ancient Romans, and, strange to say, is in force to this day among the lower class of Italians.259 They usually interred the dead, and carefully concealed the grave for fear it should be plundered and desecrated by enemies, though at other times, as after a battle, they piled the slain indiscriminately together, and heaped over them a mound of earth. One instance is recorded260 where a female slave of a deceased princess was decapitated on her tomb to be her companion and servant on the journey to the land of the dead.

A comparison of the Seminole with the Muskogeh vocabulary affords a most instructive lesson to the philologist. With such rapidity did the former undergo a vital change that as early as 1791 “it was hardly understood by the Upper Creeks.”261 The later changes are still more marked and can be readily studied as we have quite a number of vocabularies preserved by different writers.

Ever since the first settlement of these Indians in Florida they have been engaged in a strife with the whites,262 sometimes desultory and partial, but usually bitter, general, and barbarous beyond precedent in the bloody annals of border warfare. In the unanimous judgment of unprejudiced writers, the whites have ever been in the wrong, have ever enraged the Indians by wanton and unprovoked outrages, but they have likewise ever been the superior and victorious party. The particulars of these contests have formed the subjects of separate histories by able writers, and consequently do not form a part of the present work.

Without attempting a more minute specification, it will be sufficient to point out the swift and steady decrease of this and associated tribes by a tabular arrangement of such censual statistics as appear most worthy of trust.

Censual Statistics of the Lower Creeks and Seminoles.
Date.	Number.	Authority.	Remarks.
1716	1000	Roberts263	L. Creek war. on Flint river.
1734	1350	Anon.264	Lower Creek warriors.
1740	1000	Anon.265	“ “ “
1774	2000	Wm. Bartram266	Lower Creeks.
1776	3500	Romans267	Gun-men of U. and L. Creeks.
1820	1200	Morse268	“Pure blooded Seminoles.”
1821	5000	J. H. Bell269	All tribes in the State.
1822	3891	Gad Humphreys270	Seminoles E. of Apalachicola
1823	4883	Pub. Docs.271	All tribes in the State.
1836	1660	Sprague272	Serviceable warriors.
1843	42	Sprague273	Pure Seminole warriors.
1846	70	Sprague274	“ “ “
1850	70	Sprague275	“ “ “
1856	150	Pub. papers	Mixed warriors.
1858	30	Pub. papers	“ “

Probably within the present year (1859) the last of this nation, the only free representatives of those many tribes east of the Mississippi that two centuries since held undisturbed sway, will bid an eternal farewell to their ancient abodes, and leave them to the quiet possession of that race that seems destined to supplant them.