INCREASING.
It is generally believed that the Seminoles are dying off, and can last but a few years longer. On the contrary, they have large families of strong, healthy children, and the past ten years has shown a marked increase in their number. The strict law allowing no persons of like gens to marry is a reason why the tribe does not multiply still more rapidly. There are instances where eligible young men find great difficulty in getting wives because of the strictness governing the gens or consanguinity law. One chief has two daughters who find the same trouble in getting married because the men of their choice are too closely connected to them. Thus, a member of the Deer clan may not marry into the same clan, no difference how far removed the relationship may be. Relationship on the father’s side is not guarded against so strenuously, as the gens is all counted through the mother. Very often the law of marriage causes strange alliances—young men twentyyears of age having old women for wives. From the best obtainable resources, there were in the year 1859, only one hundred and twelve Indians left in Florida. In 1880, by actual count, as reported by the Smithsonian Institute, the Seminoles of Florida numbered two hundred and eight.According to datagotten from the Indians themselves the tribe to-day numbers nearly six hundred. Of this number a great proportion are young children, or in the language of the chief as he made a numerical calculation of the members of the different families—“heap pikcanannies, pikcaninniesojus” (plenty). The Seminoles are divided into four bands, who live in groups apart; each independent of the other, but in friendly relation. They are the Miami Indians, the Big Cypress band, the Talla-hassees and the Okeechobees. Since the death of Woxo-mic-co (Great Chief) five years ago, no one has been elected to fill his place, and it is doubtful if his office will ever be filled.
No event in the history of the Seminole tribe since the closing of the war has been more tragic than the slaughter of eight of the band, by the hand of Jim Jumper, a half-breed belonging to the tribe. The killing occurred in February, 1891. According to the Indians, the negro had bought some bad whiskey from a white trader, and it made him “crazy too much in his head”—doubtless delirium tremens. With his Winchester in his hand he started out. The first victim was his faithful squaw who happened to be close by. Rushing forward and throughthe camp and meeting the venerable Woxo-mic-co, head chief over all the tribe, who was on a visit to the Cow Creek band from his council lodge at Miami, the crazy half-breed sent a ball through the old chief’s head, killing him instantly. Old Tom Tiger, one of the landmarks of the Indian wars, hearing the firing, came to the rescue, but was shot down before he had time to interpose. Young Tiger, stepping out of the wigwam in time to see his father fall to the ground, with a blood-curdling war-whoop sprang upon the maniac and a hand-to-hand fight ensued; but he was at the wrong end of the rifle, and before he could wrest it from his antagonist, another report was followed by the death-cry of the brave, young Indian. The wildest panic ensued, the women and children huddling in their wigwams or fleeing to the woods. The murderer now rushed into the wigwam of his sister, and with his knife murdered her and her two little children, who were clinging to her dress in terror. Brandishing his knife, he started into the woods, where he was killed by a bullet from Billy Martin’s rifle. The wailing and the anguish in that camp can better be imagined than described. After the burial ceremony over the murdered victims, the body of the murderer was dragged far into the swamp, to be fed upon by the vultures. Thus passed away in less than half an hour eight innocent lives, victims to the demoralizing influence of the white man’s whiskey. The Indian village was broken up, theentire band moving away to escape the visitations of the spirits of the murdered ones.
Photograph by E. W. Histed.A SEMINOLE GROUP OF THE TALLAHASSEE BAND, KNOWN AS THE COW CREEKSA people without a country.
Photograph by E. W. Histed.A SEMINOLE GROUP OF THE TALLAHASSEE BAND, KNOWN AS THE COW CREEKSA people without a country.
A SEMINOLE GROUP OF THE TALLAHASSEE BAND, KNOWN AS THE COW CREEKS
A people without a country.
On the death of Woxo-mic-co, four candidates for the position of Big Chief appeared, but five years have passed and yet no chief has been elected. In the old chieftain’s death the last vestige of Seminole war spirit is obliterated. Nowhere in their history is their determination to live at peace with their white neighbors more conclusively proven than in the abolition of the office of Great Chief, “Big Chief” and war councils, in their minds, being inseparable.
The authority of the sub-chiefs, who are leaders of the different bands, is purely personal; they cannot decree punishment—a jury or council alone can do this. The government is not harsh, and there is as much freedom as could be possible in these forest homes.