Séminoles blacks

The Séminoles blacks (in English Black Seminoles ) are descendants of escaped slaves of the coastal part of the South Carolina and Georgia for the desert of Florida dice the end of the year 1600. The timid slaves joined various Indian groups already taken refuge in Florida. Together, the two groups formed the tribe Séminole, an multi-ethnic and Bi-racial alliance. Today, their descendants always live in rural communities of the Oklahoma and the Texas, with the the Bahamas like in the north of the Mexico. At the XIXe century Séminoles blacks of Florida were called Séminoles negros by their American white enemies and Estelusti or black Peuple by their Indian allies. Nowadays, Séminoles blacks are called “Seminole Freedmen” in Oklahoma, “Seminole scouts” in Texas, “Indian blacks” in the Bahamas, and “Mascogos” in Mexico.

Origins

The Spanish strategy of defense of Florida sat down at the beginning, on an organization of the natives in system of missions: Indians of a mission being used as protective militia of a colony against the English incursions of north. But the incursions of colonists come from South Carolina as the tropical diseases introduced by the slaves resulting from Western Africa were enough to decimate the indigenous population of Florida. When these first residents were almost extinct, the Spanish authorities encouraged the renegade Indians and the timid slaves of the English colonies of the North of America to be moved towards the south. The Spaniards hoped thus that these traditional enemies of English would contribute to the stop of the English expansion. Since 1689, the African slaves fled the low regions of South Carolina to seek freedom in Spanish Florida. By an edict of Philippe V of Spain, these fugitive blacks would receive freedom in exchange of their engagement to defend the Spanish colonists with St Augustine. The Spaniards organized these black volunteers in Milice; their colony of Strong Mose founded in 1738, is historically the first officially free black city of North America.

But the slaves taken refuge in the south did not appreciate all the military service with St Augustine. It is probable that much more escaped slaves sought refuge in desert regions of the north of Florida, where them good knowledge of tropical agriculture and their resistance to the tropical diseases served them. The majority of the blacks which cut through a path in Florida were of the people Gullah which was escaped rice plantations in South Carolina (and later of Georgia). They had preserved a good portion of their African lifestyle and their linguistic and cultural heritage. These Gullah pioneers established their own colonies based on the culture of rice and of corn and proved to be the effective allies of the Indians escaping from the same time from Florida.

A new surge of blacks occurs during the Guerre of Independence of the United States of America (1775-83), when several thousands of American slaves are committed fighting at the side of the English to gain their freedom: they are the black Loyalistes. (Florida being under British control lasting all the conflict). During the revolution, the Séminoles Indians were combined with the English and, consequently, of the close contacts occurred between the two groups. The members of the two communities still reinforced their link as a combatant with the English during the Guerre of 1812, causing the anger of the general and American hero) Andrew Jackson. When Africans and Séminoles crossed for the first time, Séminoles were themselves of the recent immigrants in Florida. Their community evolved/moved at the end of the XVIIIe century and at the beginning of the XIXe century when waves of Indians Creek left the current States of Georgia and of Alabama. When the American naturalist William Bartram the visit in 1773, Séminoles acquired their own tribal name, derived from cimarron , the Spanish word for timid , which suggested the statute of refugees of the tribe of Creek.

It is interesting to note that the Spanish word cimarron is also the source of the French word maroon (in English maroon ) employed to designate a slave who fled to live in freedom, in Florida, with the the Caribbean, and in other parts of the Nouveau world.

Bonds

Rebellion: John Horse and Black Seminoles, first rebels black with American slavery
History of Freedman Caesar Bruner
Seminole and Black Seminole: genealogy
Wired 13.09 Blood Feud: article of August 2005 Wired magazine

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