Florida's Forgotten Rebels

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John Horse's story feels like an answer to every
Hollywood studio's wish list: a mix of Spartacus,
Braveheart, Amistad, and Glory, with just a pinch of
Dances With Wolves. A sweeping tale of a decades-long
struggle against oppression, the movie would show how
Horse and the Black Seminoles created the largest
haven for runaway slaves in the American South, led
the biggest slave revolt in U.S. History, won the only
emancipation of rebellious North American slaves
before the Civil War, and formed the largest mass
exodus of slaves in U.S. History.
By Amy Sturgis, Reason Magazine

February 22, 2006
Sarasota County's underground railroad: New
documentary unearths Angola
Before Florida was a state, it was home to runaway
slaves. The Underground Railroad and its part in
Florida's history has recently been unearthed in
Sarasota County. Diverse groups seeking freedom from
the states and territories with institutionalized
slavery traveled the Underground Railroad south to
'free' Florida. They established the settlement of
Angola which archaeologists believe spanned from Tampa
to Sarasota County. (“Looking for Angola” is scheduled
to air on WEDU, West Central Florida’s primary PBS
station, at 9:30 p.m. Feb. 23, 11:30 p.m. Feb. 24,
1:30 p.m. Feb. 26 and 2:30 p.m. Feb. 28.)
By Shelley Draper, Charlotte Sun-Herald

February 22, 2006
UCF Anthropology Professor Featured in Documentary
About Black Seminoles
Rosalyn Howard, an assistant professor of Anthropology
at UCF, will be featured in the documentary “Looking
for Angola,” which profiles the community of Seminole
Indians and former enslaved Africans believed to be
located near Tampa and Sarasota during the 19th
century. “Looking for Angola” is scheduled to air on
WEDU, West Central Florida’s primary PBS station, at
9:30 p.m. Feb. 23, 11:30 p.m. Feb. 24, 1:30 p.m. Feb.
26 and 2:30 p.m. Feb. 28.
University of Central Florida News Office

August 29, 2005
Blood Feud
Once paragons of racial inclusion and assimilation,
the Native American sovereign nations have done an
about-face and systematically pushed out people of
African descent. For the better part of the 20th
century, black Indians were permitted to vote in
elections, sit on tribal councils, and receive
benefits. Now, in the wake of lucrative government
settlements and solid casino profits, tribal leaders
insist that the Freedmen were never actually citizens
and that they will never attain the honor of
membership because they don't have Native American
blood.
By Brendan I. Koerner, Wired

August 1, 2005
Historians want rewrite on slave revolt
A war party burned 21 plantations along the St. Johns
River in 1836, making off with hundreds of slaves and
permanently crippling the North Florida sugar
industry. Was the uprising in North Florida the
largest of its kind in U.S. History?
By Thomas Lake, Florida Times-Union

July 27, 2005
Scholars overlooked largest U.S. Slave rebellion for
more than 167 years
Since 1838, scholars have overlooked the largest slave
rebellion in U.S. History and their reference works
have been wrong, shows a new historical Web site.
News release

July 21, 2005
Web site chronicles little-known Fla. Slave revolt
As President Andrew Jackson sought to push Florida's
Indians west and capture Black Seminoles to return
them to slavery, the allies quietly slipped into
Florida's plantations along the St. Johns River, west
of St. Augustine, with a warning: "A war is coming."
By Scott McCabe, The Palm Beach Post

June 29, 2004
Seminole Freedmen rebuffed by Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to allow the
Seminole Freedmen to sue the federal government
without the Seminole Nation's involvement. The
Freedmen are trying to gain access and services
provided by a $56 million settlement awarded to the
Seminole Nation.
Indianz.com

December 27, 2003
Seminoles With African Ancestry: The Right To Heritage
There has been an ongoing debate among Seminoles with
African ancestry and Seminoles with Native American
ancestry regarding the legitimacy of the "Black
Seminoles." The arguments have reached crisis
proportions as families have split long racial lines,
Blacks Seminoles have been voted out of tribal
councils and can no longer fully participate in life
as a Seminole and some have even lost rights
altogether in the Seminole nation.
By Bakari Akil II, The Black World Today

August 17, 2003
Blacks with Indian blood seek tribes' recognition
[No link available. Access by registering and
searching at The Oklahoman archives.]
There has been an ongoing debate among Seminoles with
African ancestry and Seminoles with Native American
ancestry regarding the legitimacy of the "Black
Seminoles." The arguments have reached crisis
proportions as families have split long racial lines,
Blacks Seminoles have been voted out of tribal
councils and can no longer fully participate in life
as a Seminole and some have even lost rights
altogether in the Seminole nation.
By Ron Jackson, The Oklahoman

January 27, 2003
Tracing Bahamian Black Seminoles
University of Central Florida assistant professor
Rosalyn Howard documents the present and past of Black
Seminoles who emigrated to Andros Island in "Black
Seminoles in the Bahamas," written after a year of
living with the Black Seminole community in Red Bays.
News release

July 10, 2002
A Nation Divided
Indian tribes across the country are reaping windfall
profits these days, usually from gambling operations.
But some, like the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, are
getting rich from from belated government payouts for
lands taken hundreds of years ago. Now the government
is paying the tribe $56 million for those lost Florida
lands, and the money is threatening to divide a
nation.
CBS News, "60 Minutes"

August 20, 2001
Searching for Peliklakaha, land of the forgotten
Seminoles
Forty-five minutes west of Walt Disney's make-believe
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.
By Scott McCabe, The Palm Beach Post

June 17, 2001
Florida researchers launch first excavation of Black
Seminole town
The first ever excavation of a black Seminole town is
under way in Central Florida and may unearth how the
runaway slaves actually lived within the embattled
Seminole Indian nation, says a University of Florida
researcher.
News release