In Black America; The Black Seminole Indians

Come on. In Black America, reflections of the Black experience in American society. Most people have the idea that a Seminole is an Indian tribe where really it isn't what it is, it's a creak word that means runaways, escapies and

rebels and of course a Seminole nation is made up of many Indian tribes on all of the majority of them that lived in the south-eastern portion of the United States. The Black Seminole Indians were a loose confederation of people from similar but distinct backgrounds. Like the Europeans, they had slavery but with a difference. The Indian master allowed his slaves to live on their own land requiring that they contribute a portion of their harvest and assist them more like a feudal lord than a Chastel slave owner. The Seminoles were colorful people from their brightly-yued turbans and Florida file feathers to the eye catching shirts which were thigh or knee length and the tight-fitting blue English pants or buck scans. Recently a new book has been published about the Black Seminole Indians. It is a two-volume study of Black Seminole Indians from their African origin to the late 20th century. The work illuminates a

fascinating chapter of the multi-culture story of a people. I'm John Hanson and this week our focus is on the Black Seminole Indians with author Doug Savard in Black America. We hear a lot about the underground railroad to the north but very little's been mentioned about the Africans that ran away to the Indian villages which were no more than maybe 30, 40, 50 miles away in a lot of instances and they would receive shelter and protection from those Indians. And on the Indian in the Indian vein of it I mentioned the Cherokee and Alam. The majority of the Seminole that were down off in Florida were a splinter branch from the Creek Nation. They split off in 1750 and under a chief name Ahaya, the cowkeeper. They left Georgia, the area in Georgia where they were residing then and moved down into the Creek Hunting grounds down around Gain, Millageville, Virginia. I'm sorry, I'm sorry Florida, the area they called Alatua. So these were the original Indian Seminoles and of course like

I said there were several African sects that were down and they're also that ran into Florida for mostly for the protection of the Spanish government who had banned slavery in the early 1890s. In an effort to kind of more or less I say build up a buffer zone between themselves which was Spanish Florida and most of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and of course we know Texas, Mexico and all of them. Through the Western portion of the United States was all Spanish territory. Well in the southeast and portion of the United States at that time the American colonies were expanding swiftly and they were coming into the Georgia area and actually infringing on Spanish territory. So they the Spanish felt like if they could get all the Africans to escape from the plantations and the Africans which they had at that time enslaved which they freed and along with the Indians also to move in down along this area of northern Florida that it would be a buffer zone between them and the American colonies.

Author Doug Savard has spent more than seven years on this project. His research has taken him to South Texas and Mexico and the significance of his fieldwork is evident on the first page of the text. Mr. Savard's research has made him an internationally recognized authority on the Black Seminole's. He has been invited to deliver papers at professional conferences in this country and abroad. Mr. Savard is also a man of many talents. He's an actor, musician, novelist, screenwriter, anthropologist and historian. I asked Mr. Savard why he became interested in the Black Seminole Indians. I guess it goes back a long ways. Originally when I started doing the research for the novel that actually this is the research based on the novel, I mean that the novel is based on, goes back to when I was traveling a lot around the country and everywhere I'd go I'd

run into Black brothers and sisters that all said well I've got some Indian in me. You know I've got some Cherokee or I've got some Comanche or some Apache, you know. And it started during the time I was with the Afro-American players. We were putting together a federal grant to get accepted for doing some video for PBS and this happened to be one of the projects that I started working on for that and got interested in it. It's held me captivated for about the last seven years now. Once you guys just did in the Seminole Indians, how did you go about research? Did you go to the public libraries? Did you go back to the people that said they were Indians? Let me talk about your grandparents or something like that. It was a little bit of both. First you talked to people and mainly what I started with my grandparents who they called themselves Mala Glasgow's which are Black Indians and they gave me a lot of background and a lot of things. Also I had a

chance to meet a lot of the Seminole down in West Texas and from down in Mexico who gave me a lot of information and I have run into people that are Black Seminole just about everywhere I've been that care of the same surnames and everything and know a little bit about their history but not very much. And after I get the stories and the different things I then I go to I've used the PCL here on campus quite a bit. I hold a card where I check a lot of my materials out. Some of my research had some books that dated back in the 1880s and 1890s. Some books with some very fragile pages you know almost about to fall out of the books but there's quite a bit of information on the Black Seminole. It's just strange to me that none of us ever taught as a part of an early American history or Texas history. Could you give us a little background on the Seminole Indians and how did Blacks become part of their ancestry and how did they become part of

our ancestry? First of all before I do that I have to kind of establish what a Seminole is. Most people have the idea that a Seminole is an Indian tribe where really it isn't. What it is is a creek word that means runaways, escapees and rebels and of course a Seminole nation is made up of many Indian tribes all of the majority of them that lived in the south-eastern portion of the United States and Africans that were Fremaroons here in America when the American colonies began to grow. Also Africans that escaped from plantations you know we hear a lot about the underground railroad to the north but very little's been mentioned about the Africans that ran away to the Indian villages which were no more than maybe 30, 40, 50 miles away in a lot of instances and they would receive shelter and protection from those Indians and on the

Indian in the Indian vein of it I mentioned the Cherokee and all of them. The majority of the Seminole that were down off in Florida were a splinter branch from the Creek Nation. They spit off in 1750 and under chief name Ahaya the cowkeeper they left Georgia the area in Georgia where they were residing then and moved down into the creek hunting grounds down around Gain Millageville Virginia. I'm sorry I'm sorry Florida the area they called Alatua so these were the original Indian Seminoles and of course like I say there were several African sex that were down and they're also that ran into Florida mostly for the protection of the Spanish government who had banned slavery in the early 1890s in an effort to kind of more or less I say build up a buffer zone between themselves which was Spanish, Florida and most of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi

and Louisiana and of course we know Texas, Mexico and I hold up through the western portion of the United States was all Spanish territory well in the southeastern portion of the United States at that time the American colonies were expanding swiftly and they were coming into the Georgia area and actually infringing on Spanish territory so they the Spanish felt like if they could get all the Africans to escape from the plantations and the Africans which they had at that time enslaved which they freed and along with the Indians also to move in down along this area of northern Florida that it would be a buffer zone between them and the American colonies. Once you found the research and talking with the people were there some discrepancies in which the oral interpretation of the history versus what was written in books. That's a real interesting question John because you run into some of this on a

lot of different instances not only in talking to the descendants of some of the Seminole which I have in the past seven years but also in a lot of the research material that I went through a lot of books that I went through you have to kind of more or less study the author of that book like there were several of them that were army officers at the time that did a lot of documentary work about the Seminole Wars and you have to kind of understand where he stands from you know where he's looking from at the whole situation. A lot of interesting things came about as far as like comparing the two oral information and that which has been printed research in whatever you get a lot of I don't know if you would call I don't know wouldn't necessarily call it fables because they to the people are very true maybe folklore a lot of it an instance of the novel I'm writing about a chief Juan Coayo who was a black Indian

Seminole Indian chief and there's all kinds of different stories about what happened to him some say that he died in a hospital down in Mexico City some say that he disappeared on the trail because the rallies down in Mexico captured him and killed him others say that he died from the Paisen the Paisen being the voodoo many different things the Kikapoo haven't Indian down in Mexico has another story about what happens to him and you really never know like in that particular instance in my writing of a novel now I'll use my own judgment I have other research materials that kind of tend to tell me what happened in plus each time I go down to talk to my friends down in West Texas they seem to kind of let me in on a little bit more they don't really trust what they call the Bucca American people it doesn't make any difference whether you

black Chicano Mexican white or what they don't care really you consider as the Bucca outsiders and they don't cater too much to outsiders because they've been ridiculed and mistreated for so long for so many years their story is really one of a lot of hardship a lot of hardships and the number one thing I want to kind of let people know also with the book is that this story about the Seminole is not it's not unique this phenomenon is something that happened throughout the Western hemisphere I have communicated with anthropologists historians and all that are dealing with the same type situation that happened in South America with this mosquito Indians I've run into instances I talked to a Seneca Indian from New York that told me that there's a tribe in Boston that they seem to say that the city of Boston belongs to them by treaty and this the Naga's a tribe which is supposed to be a black Indian tribe also so

we're talking about a thing that happened quite a bit along the Eastern seaboard in South Eastern the proportion of the United States once you move more westward the situation kind of changes a little bit because the African that the Indian came in contact without there was a slightly different African either he was an explorer he was a cowboy he was with the Calvary you know something of this sort and plus the Indian in the Plains was a bit different the Comanche and Harlem they were a bit different from your southeast and all your eastern tribes the black factions were valuable allies of the Indian Seminole and although most blacks prefer to marry blacks and live in their own towns mix marriages continued between Africans and Indians concerned for these black Seminoles increase when slave importation was prohibited in 1806 slave prices rose drastically the Creek War of 1812 to 1814 with the United States Army under major general Andrew Jackson aided by

the lower creeks forced the Red Man from other southeast and tribes into Florida the Seminole population tripled and the threat of an all-out war increased in the territory as it is referred to by the Seminoles problems arose the United States located the Seminole among their arch rivals the Creek in an effort to rejoin the warring factions the creeks had taken the best land leaving only barren prairies for the newcomers the Cherokees and upper creeks offered to share their land with the now destitute Seminoles who had not been paid for their properties left in Florida some Seminoles and upper creeks cited in favor of blacks but non-payment of monies owed to the Seminoles by this country was the sea of distrust I asked Mr. Sevat how the Seminoles made the transition into 20th century America like the push that

I'm writing of the tribe that I'm writing about is the group that escaped from Indian territory in 1849 and went into Mexico to reside there as a military colony protecting Mexico from the Texacans and raiding Indians from across the Rio Grande are the real bravo from that side and they came back into the United States to fight for the Calvary as scouts a matter of fact for them on the Congressional Medal of Honor which is something that's never told in Texas history even and after they had been basically lied to by the war department and all of them that they were going to receive land here in Texas for making West Texas a place where people could settle and live because it was impossible many Germans many of your Irish and many European peoples tried to move into West Texas but it was impossible the Comanche and the Apache just

had them all terrorized and they wouldn't allow them to even get settled before they kill them all you know and so the Seminole actually came in as scouts and to fight for the Calvary to help rid West Texas of it's they say they're hostile elements actually they were people trying to protect what was there and what they did is after everything was made safe and pioneers start to come in farm start opening up farms and everything in West Texas and many of the settlers coming in wanted the land which had been delegated to the Seminole because they had made it such rich soil they had worked it so and the war department decided they weren't going to give them the land which was the same thing that happened to them in Mexico they had been promised land everywhere they've been since they would pushed out of their homes and Florida has been a lie and they were taken advantage of now the ones after the Indian problems I'll say in West Texas were settled they just banded the Calvary

and of course then that left the Seminole with no land or anything many of them went back to Mexico to live several stayed here in Texas and these are the ones that well I should say the descendants of the one that I visit with now down in West Texas do you fence sense that there's a sense of pride among blacks would say they have Indian or is that just something that some blacks say to disenfranchise themselves with the African heritage in which they possess John first of all from my research I'm finding that there is roughly about a third of all blacks in America that are part Indian like I said it was a phenomena that happened quite often because the African and Indian really hit it off quite well once they came in contact with one another because they had the same techniques of hunting they had they made their weapons the same the born arrow the bone knives or the stone knives and the number one thing that made them so close is that they had multiple they believed in multiple deities

they believe in having many gods and they also had the belief that it was impossible for man to own anything in nature is that it was for all of us to share and once the African and the Indian came together under this and many times they joined forces to fight against Europeans and so this being true gets your question again about blacks disenfranchised himself from Africa saying they want to be more Indian than African well I guess just to kind of sum it up then basically who was I'll say is that since so many of us do have Indian heritage it's often quite true that we are part Indian most of us have heard it from our parents a grand parents or whatever but it is a phenomena that happened all over the Western Hemisphere you mentioned a point about Seminole Indians not being mentioned in particularly this section

to country in the Southwest in Texas is there a change coming about since the publication of this book of saying Seminole Indians did make a significant contribution to Texas and to the civilization of America you know it's strange John since I've been working on the story for the seven eight years that I have I have run into people that all over the country that have been working on this this research they have been several people here at UT that have actually worked on research in this one professor here in linguistics one that has have gone down and studied the lifestyle of John July who's the center of a lot of attention here of historians and people that like to deal with the Western saga and all this like to go down and talk to John July who was living in Bracketville up until he was 97 years old he died about a year and a half ago but there's quite a bit of interest in it everywhere I'm running up on it even I recently talked to some people from Coila that have

actually told me about professors that I in the University of Mexico's in Mexico City University in Salteo that are all working on the same thing and to me I don't know maybe it's a time for it to all to start coming out I would like to try to make some type of contribution to the sesquist intennial I think it would be some history in Texas that as I have told most people about my research for the over years it really shocks them the fact that they have heard nothing about it in high school history junior high or not even in college history unless you are dealing specifically with something that will lead you to that you know but there's very little knowledge of it as far as the public and I think that's my whole purpose for doing it in the sense that so much that has happened to them they have learned from their experiences has helped them to see a see life and everything about them a little bit

different from the way that we as maybe I call ourselves the buccara the way that we see things you know was there going to be an addition to the current book this out are you going to work on another set of Seminole Indians well like I said the basic thing that I'm working on is a novel I've been work writing on the novel for seven years the book that's out now is written for academia it's based it's the information that my novel is based on my research and they wanted it kept down to a specific size and everything so I had to condense a lot of information down into a small you know small book so the novel being number one I just talked to my publisher the other day there's supposed to be a getting together of minds of going down to put together a coffee table top picture book they have a wealth of pictures down there pictures that date back in the middle 1800s of their families and they

tell stories of who this was what they did and you know this kind of thing so I'd like to put together a picture book of this along with the fact that I'm still working on trying to put together a package to do a teaching package for secondary education I'd like to have something like a 30-minute video tape with a teacher's guide to go along with it to start in junior high and high school to give our black children some recognition of themselves because I deeply within myself I feel like that's why we're losing a lot of black students out of the schools it's hard for them to relate to any of the history especially in the schools so I'd like to be able to bring out some of this and let them know that hey you know even in the state of Texas you know we were somebody Doug Savard author of the new book entitled the black seminal Indians of Texas published by American Press if you have a comment or would like to purchase a cassette copy of this program write us the address is in black America long

horn radio network center for telecommunication services Austin Texas seven eight seven one two by the dress again is in black America long horn radio network center for telecommunication services Austin Texas seven eight seven one two for in black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove I'm John Hanson join us next week you've been listening to in black America reflections of the black experience in American society in black America is produced and distributed by the center for telecommunication services at UT Austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or the station this is the long horn radio network