“The Free and the Dead”: Black Seminole Chief Defies U.S. in Forgotten War

The Seminole tribe of Florida considers the conflicts with the U.S. from 1817-1858 as 'The Long War,' a continuous colonial aggression. The Black Seminoles, an alliance of formerly enslaved people and various indigenous tribes (Seminoles, Mikasukis), were central to this resistance, forming a military alliance with the Seminoles around 1790.

The Seminole tribe of Florida calls it the long war. In American histories we divide it into three wars... The military alliance the black seinals really are first clearly in Florida and allied with the seinals around 1790.

Chief Abraham, a Black Seminole, held significant power and influence, serving as the 'chief of the dark people' (iste) for about 500 African Seminoles. He was not merely an interpreter but a close advisor and friend to Chief Mikopi, holding the formal title of 'sense bearer' or 'prime minister,' making him one of the most powerful men in the nation.

Abraham himself was called the chief of the iste which in the muscogi language means the chief of the dark people... He was his interpreter but also his adviser. They were just they were also clearly friends.

Black Seminoles primarily originated from enslaved people in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama who fled to Spanish Florida. Their integration into Seminole society was facilitated by Spanish policy offering freedom for military service and old Muscogi rules allowing children of prisoners of war to become full tribal members, contrasting sharply with Anglo-American transgenerational slavery.

There's an old Spanish policy in the late 1600s where if you were an enslaved person and you could make it down to Spanish Florida... you could join the army and your civil rights would be protected... children of a prisoner of war could be full members of the tribe.

The U.S. Army was ill-equipped and unfamiliar with Florida's terrain, leading to repeated military failures against the Black Seminoles and Seminoles. They resorted to 'con' tactics, sending agents to coerce tribes to move west, and later to kidnapping and extortion, using Creek mercenaries to seize women and children to force warriors to surrender.

The army is not doing well fighting them because they're sort of chasing them around. They're not good in Florida... The strategy that they end up using is not military. They end up using these Creek warriors to take the women and children and essentially extort the warriors to come in.

Even after the main conflicts, Black Seminoles continued to defy U.S. authority. In Indian Territory (Oklahoma), they ignored Creek Council acts prohibiting enslaved people from owning guns, maintaining their arms and freedom. Instances of U.S. officials attempting to re-enslave them were met with armed resistance from Black Seminole and Seminole allies, forcing officials to back down.

Frustrated by their defiance, the Creek Council had passed an act prohibiting enslaved people from owning guns. But the sense bearer and his neighbors simply ignored the decree and retained their arms and lived as they had for many years under no restraint whatever from their owners on lands where the laws were still written with powder and lead.