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65-592: The Miccosukee, along with the Florida Seminole, speak the Mikasuki language , also spelled Miccosukee. The language has been referred to as a descendant of Hitchiti , a dialect of Hitchiti, and another term for Hitchiti. By the late 18th century, the British recorded the name Miccosukee, or Mikasuki, as designating a Hitchiti-speaking group centered on the town of Miccosukee , a tribal town affiliated with

130-494: A Camping World truck driven by Kyle Busch , and a Nationwide car driven by Mike Bliss . The Miccosukee relationship with NASCAR dates to 2002, and it ended prior to the start of the 2010 season. The Miccosukee Indian Village Museum opened in 1983. The museum offers to its visitors a variety of artistic expressions such as native paintings, hand crafts, and photographs. Additionally, it is possible to find some artifacts such as cooking utensils that are also on display. The Museum

195-574: A U.S. territory in 1821, and the American government soon increased pressure for removal against all Indians living in Florida. This was the period of numerous treaties between the U.S. and various bands of Indians living in Florida as white settlers increasingly pushed for more available land, and the government in Washington, D.C. sought to support those who wished to take advantage of settling

260-406: A matrilineal system of kinship and inheritance. Children are considered to be born into their mother's clan , from which they gain their status in the tribe. In this system, the mother's older brother is highly important to her children, more than the biological father, especially for boys. The uncle is the one who introduces the boys to the men's groups of the clan and tribe. The Miccosukees have

325-492: A bilingual and bicultural society. We are dedicated to serve, inspire, and encourage our students with the understanding that the culture and traditions of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, along with a rigorous curriculum, are strengths upon which they can build personal, social, and academic success in the classroom and beyond." Mikasuki language The Mikasuki , Hitchiti-Mikasuki , or Hitchiti language

390-621: A cattle grazing lease, and nearly 55,000 acres (223 square kilometers) of wetlands. The Miccosukee Tribe provides use permits for non-Natives to use some of the wetlands for hunting camps. The tribe also controls about 200,000 acres (810 square kilometers) of wetlands, most under a perpetual lease made in 1983 with the State of Florida and located in the South Florida Water Management District 's Water Conservation Area 3A South. Miccosukees may use "this land for

455-604: A constitution and corporate charter to organize a government; they achieved federal recognition in 1957. The land claims and termination controversies heightened the distinction for the Miccosukee living near the Tamiami Trail. Unable to gain similar federal recognition of their own right to sovereignty, a group of Miccosukees, led by the young councilmember Buffalo Tiger ( Heenehatche ), visited Cuba in July 1959 during

520-644: A gas station and service plaza on the Alligator Alley Reservation located on I-75, with a gas station casino of 8,500 square feet and 150 slot machines scheduled to open in November 2023. Past Miccosukee business interests have included sports sponsorship, extended to several teams in NASCAR , primarily Phoenix Racing and Billy Ballew Motorsports . These include the 2009 Aaron's 499 winning Sprint Cup Series car driven by Brad Keselowski ,

585-843: A gift shop, general store, service station, and the Miccosukee Indian Village Museum on the Tamiami Trail Reservation along U.S. 41. In addition to the Miccosukee Resort & Gaming hotel in Miami-Dade county , now known as the Miccosukee Casino & Resort, at the northwest corner of U.S. 41 and Krome Avenue, the Miccosukee Tribe also operates the Tobacco Shop on the southwest corner. The tribe owns and operates

650-463: A group of Native Americans in Florida known as the "Alatchaway" (Alachua), a Muscogee-speaking group led by Cowkeeper ( Ahaya ) that was a precursor of the modern Florida Seminoles, rejected a meeting between the British and the Creeks at Picolata, the site of a Spanish fort about 13 miles west of St. Augustine in northeastern Florida. Cowkeeper and his band of Indians negotiated their own agreement with

715-606: A pretext of retaliation for Indian raids against settlers in Georgia. The true reasons for invasion included pursuit of runaway slaves and the realization that Spain was too politically and militarily weak to protect Florida. In addition to the destruction of Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River by American forces in 1816, these events were the initial conflicts in the First Seminole War . Florida became

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780-630: A time during the 19th century, the Miccosukee were part of the developing Seminole identity in Florida. This identity formed in the early 19th century in Florida through a process of ethnogenesis . The Miccosukees and the Seminoles, however, not only continued to see themselves as separate entities within Florida but also saw themselves as wholly separate from the Creek Confederacy that continued to negotiate with Europeans and claimed influence over Alabama, Georgia, and northern Florida. In 1765,

845-711: A written constitution, and all adult tribal members are part of the General Council, which manages the tribal services. The General Council elects officers to run the Business Council, which is led by a chairman. This system is "a combination of traditional tribal government and modern management." As of 2023, the current chairman is Talbert Cypress. The rest of the Business Council are Lucas K. Osceola, Kenneth H. Cypress, William J. Osceola, and Petties Osceola, Jr., serving respectively as Assistant Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary, and Lawmaker. Curtis E. Osceola serves

910-681: Is a language or a pair of dialects or closely related languages that belong to the Muskogean languages family. As of 2014 , Mikasuki was spoken by around 290 people in southern Florida . Along with the Cow Creek Seminole dialect of Muscogee , it is also known as Seminole . It is spoken by members of the Miccosukee tribe and of the Seminole Tribe of Florida . The extinct Hitchiti was a mutually intelligible dialect of or

975-584: Is known as the Miccosukee Reserved Area (MRA) or the Tamiami Trail Reservation, located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Miami. The largest land section is an 87,000-acre (352 square kilometers) reservation on the northern border of Everglades National Park , known as the Alligator Alley Reservation, which includes 20,000 acres (81 square kilometers) of developable land, much of which the Miccosukee Tribe uses for

1040-538: Is located in 41 Tamiami Trail, Miami, FL, 33131. The Miccosukee Indian School is the tribal school. The Bureau of Indian Affairs established the school in 1962, and the tribe took over administration operations in 1971. The Miccosukee educational system offers a Head Start Preschool Program and kindergarten through twelfth grade classes as well as vocational and other higher education programs. The school's vision statement reads: "To empower every student to reach their full academic potential while being productive members of

1105-424: Is the center of tribal activities in the 21st century, and it contains all of the essential needs for the tribe, including residences, the school, the police department, the health clinic, recreational amenities, and the tribe's administration building. The 1962 Constitution of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida initially emphasized admitting tribal members of at least half-Miccosukee ancestry. The tribe has

1170-539: The Creek Confederacy . The town spanned sections of present-day Alabama, southern Georgia, and northern Florida. Under pressure from European encroachment into their territory during the 18th century, the Miccosukee underwent a period of increasingly frequent migration to Spanish Florida . The Miccosukee were displaced during the Seminole Wars (1817–1858), a series of three military conflicts between

1235-604: The Miccosukee tribe of Florida. Traceable by local names in Hitchiti, the language was used by peoples over considerable portions of Georgia and Florida. Like Creek , this language has an archaic form called "women's talk", or female language. Scholars believe that the Yamasee also spoke Hitchiti, but the evidence is not conclusive. Other evidence points toward their speaking a different language, perhaps one related to Guale . Some sources list Hitchiti as an extant language in

1300-605: The Tamiami Trail , a roadway completed in 1928 that ran through the Everglades and connected the cities of Tampa and Miami . The Trail Indians, as they were called, generally kept more traditional practices. They were less interested in establishing formal relations with the federal government than the Cow Creek Seminoles to the north, who started moving to reservations around the same time. In 1953,

1365-530: The 1990s. The Seminole and Miccosukee were made up of descendants of members of the Muscogee Confederacy , who had migrated to Florida under pressure from European-American encroachment. The Seminole formed by a process of ethnogenesis in the 18th century. American settlers began to enter Florida and came into conflict with the Seminole. The Seminole Wars of the 19th century greatly depleted

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1430-589: The British in a separate meeting. The spring of 1787 marked the first time that a group specifically known as Seminoles attended the Lower Creeks' annual meeting. In the 1796 Treaty of Colerain , the Creek Confederacy agreed that all Creeks in Georgia and Florida would return runaway slaves to their white American owners, an agreement that the Native Americans in Florida disputed because the Creeks did not speak for those living in Florida. Prior to 1812,

1495-532: The Creek national council was denying treaty annuities to the Tribes in Florida. The indigenous people in Florida were completely discrete groups from the Creeks by 1818 at the latest, following Andrew Jackson 's invasion of Florida. The Miccosukees eventually joined with the Seminoles in defending their Florida homeland against encroaching white settlers during the 1820s. Despite the need for such an informal alliance,

1560-402: The Creeks give up their American prisoners and also return all "citizens, white inhabitants, negroes and property" taken by the Creeks. The treaty describes when it would take effect. After the treaty had been signed but not yet promulgated, the U.S. Senate requested modification of two articles of the treaty. The first modification stipulated that the military or trading posts would be under

1625-668: The Everglades, which was largely unknown to the remainder of the U.S. The American Civil War during the 1860s meant that the U.S. let the indigenous people in Florida live their lives as they saw fit as American military attention focused elsewhere. From the end of the Third Seminole War in 1858 until the 1920s, the indigenous people in Florida lived their lives in Big Cypress and the Everglades , intentionally isolated from interactions with white Floridians except for

1690-474: The Everglades. Not long before the completion of the Trail, Florida outlawed hunting for alligator and fur-bearing animals. With traffic in the region increasing, various drainage and canal projects throughout Florida changing the water levels around the tree islands, and declining opportunities for economic stability, Indians began to relocate to sites along the Trail. Over a dozen camps, or villages, moved closer to

1755-761: The Florida Seminoles in Oklahoma gained their own reservation and federal recognition as the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma . Those who remained in Florida fought against U.S. forces during the second and third Seminole Wars . Both of these conflicts resulted in groups of Indians being relocated to Indian Territory. The Second Seminole War began in 1835 after the Indians of Florida retaliated for repeated abuses by white settlers in Florida, including theft, violence, and illegal entry into Indian lands. One of

1820-511: The Florida Seminoles were identified for termination of federal status. The Seminole Tribe of Florida organized and gained federal recognition in 1957. Due to political differences, the Miccosukee would form a separate group, gaining federal recognition in 1962. The Traditionals, or Independents, are Indians living in Florida who are unaffiliated with either tribe. The Traditionals predominantly live in Big Cypress Swamp . Historically,

1885-503: The IPA, is shown in angled brackets. There are three tones: high, low and falling. Vowel length is distinctive: eche [itʃi] ' mouth ' vs. eeche [iːtʃi] ' deer ' , ete [iti] ' eye ' vs. eete [iːti] ' fire ' . Nouns are marked with suffixes for various functions, some examples: Free pronouns exist ( aane ' I ' , chehne ' you ' , pohne ' we ' ) but are rarely used. Verb suffixes are

1950-624: The Miccosukee Business Council until 1985. The Miccosukee Tribe continued to pursue increased tribal sovereignty. On May 4, 1971, the Miccosukee Corporation assumed operational responsibility for all of the programs formerly administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. These programs included healthcare, law enforcement, and education, among others. The Miccosukee Tribe was the first Native American tribe in

2015-769: The Miccosukee Casino & Resort, in 1999, which includes gaming facilities, entertainment venues, bingo, and numerous restaurants and other amenities. The revenue from this enterprise has supported economic development and improvements to education and welfare. Most Miccosukees today reside in the modern housing on the MRA along a single road known as Old Tamiami Trail or an extension to the west known as Loop Road. Some tribal members live farther west along Tamiami Trail in traditional clan camps in Big Cypress, Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park , and Collier-Seminole State Park . Some Miccosukees live in suburban Miami. Old Tamiami Trail

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2080-694: The Miccosukees maintained their separate identity within the tribes of Florida. During this time in particular, the U.S. government and white settlers in Florida often viewed the Miccosukee Indians and the Seminole Indians as a single entity. About 2,000 Upper Creeks, known as Red Sticks , militant Muscogee-speaking Indians, joined the tribes in Florida after being defeated in the Creek War of 1813-1814. After this influx of people in

2145-564: The Miccosukees were a group that moved between present-day Georgia and northern Florida, with an extended range for hunting, fishing, and trading expeditions stretching from the Appalachian Mountains to the Florida Keys. By the late 1700s, Miccosukee-speaking villages had been built in the Everglades . According to scholarship published in collaboration with tribal elders, multiple groups of Indians joined together to form

2210-479: The Seminole groups. One issue that further divided the tribes in Florida was a small group of Seminoles filing with the Indian Claims Commission in 1950 to claim compensation for lands taken by the U.S. government. Many of the Miccosukees contended that they never reached an official peace with the U.S., and they wanted their land returned rather than financial compensation. The U.S. settlement of

2275-537: The Trail between 1928 and 1938. From these sites, Miccosukee Indians sought to improve their economic situation by offering airboat tours of the Everglades, indigenous crafts for sale, and other goods and services to tourists traveling across the state. Still viewed by many as Seminole Indians during this time, the Miccosukees who moved to live along the Trail also became known as the Trail Indians. The distinction between "Miccosukee" and "Seminole" began to grow as

2340-575: The Tribe as the current chief of staff. Government administration is further divided into departments including Land Resources, Water Resources, and Fish & Wildlife. The Miccosukee Tribe operates its own police and court system. It also has a clinic, day care center, senior center, and Community Action Agency. The tribe's educational system spans from a Head Start Pre-School Program through senior high school. Adult, vocational, and higher education programs are also available. The Miccosukee Tribe operates

2405-547: The U.S. relocated several thousand Seminole and hundreds of Black Seminoles , who lived in close association as allies, west to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The U.S. government still believed that the Florida Seminoles were a part of the Creek Confederacy, and the American agents involved in relocation attempted to place the Florida Indians with land under the Creek administration. Eventually,

2470-682: The U.S. to achieve this distinction by taking advantage of the Richard Nixon administration's stated preference in 1970 for self-determination among indigenous tribes. This preference for self-determination was later enshrined as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. The tribe today occupies several reservations in southern Florida, collectively known as the Miccosukee Indian Reservations . The most populous area

2535-632: The United States and the Seminole people. During this period, many Seminoles were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory , forming the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. A group of 200 or fewer Seminoles would stay in Florida. Descendants of those who remained in Florida were concentrated in the central and southern parts of the state. In the 1920s and 1930s, many Miccosukee established communities along

2600-556: The ancestor of Mikasuki. Hitchiti was one of the many Muskogean languages spoken by peoples of what is now the southeastern United States, and is considered by many scholars to be the ancestor of the Mikasuki language. It was spoken in Georgia and eastern Alabama in the early historic period, with speakers moving into Florida during the 18th and 19th centuries. Hitchiti was the language of tribal towns such as Hitchiti , Chiaha , Oconee , Okmulgee, Sawokli , and Apalachicola . Based on

2665-646: The boundary line between the Creek Nation and the United States. At the time of this treaty, the boundaries between Spanish Florida and the U.S. had not yet been established. This treaty formally allowed the Creek chiefs to acknowledge the negotiation for delineating the Georgia-Florida boundary with Spain. The treaty contained a provision that the President of the U.S. may establish a trading or military outpost . The United States demanded that

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2730-493: The brand-new Castro regime's celebration of the 26th of July Movement in Havana . This strategy was successful for the Miccosukees, as the U.S. government began negotiations upon the group's return to Florida. The Trail Indians gained federal recognition of their sovereignty in 1962 as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Buffalo Tiger became the first chairman of the Miccosukee Tribe, and he continued to lead as chairman of

2795-439: The claims with the Miccosukee and Seminole of Florida, as well as the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma , finally concluded in 1976; division of shares among the tribes took until 1990 to settle. Divisions between the Miccosukees and Seminoles peaked during the 1950s. Under the federal government's program of termination of recognition, it proposed terminating the U.S. recognition of the Florida Seminoles in 1953. The Miccosukee response

2860-456: The core group that became the Miccosukee Tribe in northern Florida; these groups included elements of the Oconee, Hitchiti , Eufala, and Appalachicola tribal towns in southern Georgia and northern Florida. Under continuing encroachment from European, and later, American, settlers, many Miccosukee ancestors from different locations found themselves in northern Florida by the early 18th century. By

2925-719: The dominance of English language media was seen as a factor inhibiting Miccosukee. As of 2011, the University of Florida Department of Anthropology is home to the Elling Eide Endowed Professorship in Miccosukee Language and Culture, for Native American languages of the southeastern United States. Presentations in the language have been featured at the Florida Folk Festival . The orthography, where it differs from

2990-491: The early 19th century, documented Indians in Florida numbered about 5,000. This entry of Muscogee-speaking Indians into Florida had the additional effect of pushing many Hitchiti-speaking (Miccosukee) people farther south. As early as 1827, and possibly earlier, Mikasuki-speaking Native Americans had a permanent presence in the Everglades. Although East and West Florida were under Spanish control at this time (1783-1821), U.S. forces under Andrew Jackson invaded Florida in 1817 under

3055-405: The former believed the latter were more willing to assimilate to the majority culture by moving onto designated Indian reservations in Florida starting in the 1930s and 1940s. The federal and state governments persisted in treating the Indians of Florida as a unified people, eventually including a third group, known as Independents or Traditionals, who did not affiliate with either the Miccosukee or

3120-466: The former moving onto reservations. The Miccosukee lived in communities that were affected by the early 20th-century construction of the Tamiami Trail , which brought tourists into the Everglades. The Miccosukee achieved federal recognition as a tribe in 1962. Both tribes have speakers of Mikasuki today. As of 2002, the language is taught in the local school, Miccosukee Indian School , which has "an area devoted to 'Miccosukee Language Arts'". Circa 2005

3185-498: The late 1830s, the dominant indigenous language in among Native Americans living in Florida as Miccosukees or Seminoles was Mikasuki or other variants of Hitchiti. Muscogee was the dominant language within the Creek Confederacy, but Hitchiti had traveled with those who settled permanently in Florida and became the primary tongue, despite Muscogee often serving as the lingua franca throughout present-day Florida, Georgia, and Alabama whenever indigenous people interacted with white people. For

3250-491: The longest, most expensive, and deadly conflicts between Native Americans and the U.S. military, the Second Seminole War is a nearly forgotten conflict that had an extraordinary impact on southeastern U.S. history, American military tactics, and modern development of the U.S. Navy. The Indians of Florida conducted a guerrilla-style war against a numerically superior and technologically advanced enemy. The result of

3315-598: The males as well. Their language with the "female" dialect was also known as the 'ancient language'. The language appears to have been used beyond the territorial limits of the tribe: it was spoken in Native American villages on the Chattahoochee River , such as Chiaha (Chehaw), Chiahudshi, Hitchiti, Oconee, Sawokli, Sawokliudshi, and Apalachicola, and in those on the Flint River, and also by

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3380-420: The new territory. Treaties such as Moultrie Creek (1823) and Payne's Landing (1833) were agreements that attempted to aggregate the Native Americans in Florida into isolated tracts of land, first in central Florida, and later in southwestern and southeastern Florida. Despite the appearance of numerous agreements between the tribes of Florida and the U.S. government, these negotiations were never balanced between

3445-430: The number of place names that have been derived from the language, scholars believe it could have spread over a much larger area than Georgia and Florida during colonial times. It was part of the Muskogean language family; it is often considered a dialect of the Mikasuki language with which it was mutually intelligible. The Hitchiti and the Mikasuki tribes were both part of the Creek confederacy. The Mikasuki language

3510-565: The numbers of these tribes, especially the Second Seminole War . The United States forcibly removed many Seminole to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Seminole and Miccosukee had gradually moved into the center of Florida and the Everglades, from where they resisted defeat even in the Third Seminole War. The US gave up efforts against them. In the 20th century, the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee split apart, with

3575-619: The occasional meeting for trade. Groups of Native Americans tended to gather in bigger camps until 1900, and then they began to separate into smaller groups in the face of increased development in Central and South Florida. The isolation of camps in South Florida began to end in the late 1920s with the construction of the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41). Construction of the Tamiami Trail as the route between Tampa and Miami concluded in 1928. This brought new forms of traffic through Big Cypress and

3640-483: The parties involved because of the presence of the U.S. military at these negotiations and difficulties in translation and understanding. There also was never true representation of all of the Native Americans in Florida because the groups of men who represented the Indians during treaty negotiations did not represent all of the bands living in Florida at that time. Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830,

3705-424: The purpose of hunting, fishing, frogging, and subsistence agriculture to carry on the traditional Miccosukee way of life." In 1990, the tribe opened Miccosukee Indian Bingo & Gaming to generate revenue for tribal members and facilitate developing new opportunities for tribal members. Following the great success of the bingo hall, the tribe opened the 302-room Miccosukee Resort & Gaming Facility , now called

3770-496: The tribe on tree islands, or hammocks , in the Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades ensured that the ancestors of present-day Miccosukees and Seminoles remained in Florida. The Third Seminole War began in 1855 after a small band of Indians led by Billy Bowlegs (Holatta Micco) attacked American encampments in response to repeated harassment and destruction of property by U.S. military forces. The result of this conflict

3835-445: The usual way of marking person. Mikasuki is written using the Latin alphabet. The vowel characters on the left represent the sounds on the right, transcribed phonetically: The consonants characters are: High tone is indicated with an acute accent (´), low tone with a grave accent (`), and falling tone with an acute accent followed by a grave accent. A long vowel with falling tone is represented by two accented vowel letters (áà). When

3900-568: The vowel is short, the grave accent is placed over the next consonant (áǹ): An epenthetic [ə] vowel appears in kl, kw and kn clusters in careful speech. Treaty of Colerain The Treaty of Colerain was signed at St. Marys, Georgia in Camden County, Georgia , by Benjamin Hawkins , George Clymer , and Andrew Pickens for the United States and representatives of the Creek Nation , for whom Indian trader Langley Bryant served as an interpreter, on June 29, 1796, proclaimed on March 18, 1797, and codified as 7  Stat.   56 . Colerain

3965-426: The war was many more indigenous people dead or deported but a U.S. failure at complete removal of Indians from Florida. By 1842, perhaps 300 Native Americans remained in Florida; more than 4,000 were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory between 1835 and 1842. The Miccosukee chief Ar-pi-uck-i , also known as Sam Jones (Abiaki, Abiaka), proved an effective leader during the Second Seminole War ; his strategy of hiding

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4030-445: Was a small community and the site of a U.S. Indian factory founded by James Seagrove . This treaty affirmed the binding of the Treaty of New York (1790) . The Treaties of Hopewell and the Treaty of Holston (1791) established boundary lines between the Choctaws , Chickasaws , Cherokee , and the U.S. The Treaty of Colerain bound the Creek Nation to acknowledge the boundaries established in those treaties. It also established

4095-409: Was historically one of the major languages of the Seminole people, who developed as a new ethnic group in Florida. It is still spoken by many Seminole and Miccosukee in Florida, but it has become extinct among the Oklahoma Seminole . Like Muscogee , Hitchiti had an ancient "female" dialect. The dialect was still remembered and sometimes spoken by the older people, and it used to be the language of

4160-419: Was the Buckskin Declaration in 1954, which a Miccosukee delegation personally delivered to one of President Eisenhower 's aides. The declaration stated that the Trail Indians wanted nothing from the U.S. government; the Indians only wanted to be able to live their lives on the land as they always had. Meanwhile, the reservation Indians in Florida became known as the Seminole Tribe of Florida after they developed

4225-412: Was the removal of Billy Bowlegs's band for Oklahoma, having accepted a monetary settlement. The sole remaining Indians in Florida in 1858 were those sheltering in the swamp and wetlands in the south. By 1858, perhaps 200 ancestors of the modern Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes remained in Florida. They survived by moving into central and southern Florida to take advantage of the topography of Big Cypress and

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