The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1919-11-06
ONCE POWERFUL
SEMINOLE INDIANS
SOME INTERESTING FACTS RE-
LATING TO THEM
Given in An Interview by the Gov
ernment Observation-Disclosures
able People Discussed

Referring to our mention of last
week of the visit of Hon. r. E. Bran
don to Punta Gorda for the purpose
of comforting with the supervisor of
the census on the subject of getting
correct enumeration of the Indians.
we find the following interesting
article in the West Palm Beach Trop-
ical Sun:
1t was the Sun reporters privilege
to meet the United States govern
ment supervisor for the state of Flor
ida in charge of the Seminole Indians
He is working directly under the
supervision of the Indians friend,
Hon. Cato Sells. F. z. Brandon is
an Indian himself, but an educated
one, and chief in his own right in
the Shawnees. He has had exper-
fence in the north and west in the
agricultural, horticultural and in
dus:rial education of the race and is
personally fitted to instruct them in
the path of progress. Besides he
carries that air of command and sup
eriority and all-sufficiency that shows
he is born to rule by firmness and
evident physical strength. 1t re-
quires some third degree of solicita-
ton to get through the barricade of
the Red Mans wall of reserve and
superstitious fear of intrusion, but
when we bosomed up to his eagle eye
and told him of our boyhood life
with the Sacs and Foxes and the Mis-
quakies with whom we grew up he
became eloquent in the relation of
his educational work in the devel-
opment of this tribe and he pictures
their life and ambitions. And then
Supervisor Brandon quietly and
forcefully spoke:
your readers have heard of the
Seminole Indians in Florida, the
remnants of once powerful tribe,
and you have heard of their struggle
for existence during late years: how
they fought when threatened with
removal from their homes; how they
retreated to the everglades and the
vast tangled swamps, where not even
the best of the United States army
could capture or dislodge them;
numbers and strategy could not COM
pete with Indian knowledge of hidden
paths through tropical swamps which
extended for more than a hundred
miles into a then unknown wilder
ness.
1--WE call them Seminole Indians,
but no one knows just how long they
have lived in Florida; for at least a
hundred years they have roamed
over the floral state. lived under
three governments and their great
hope in the past as well as the pre-
sent is to live the life their fathers
lived, worship the Great Spirit OF
their people and when they pass on,
TO join their fathers in the great
hunting ground where white men
and Indians may live as friends and
not fight over land on which to build
their homes.
"Thorugh all the years they have
lived Gas it were) on the doorstep
of civilization surrounded on all |
other sides by the southern seas, |
their homes in the jungles and |
swamps, a land that no one desired. |
They have no desire to open the door |
to the white mans knowledge, the |
tribal laws forbid their young to ac-
quire the customs of civilization and !
the penalty for disobedience is swift |
and sure. Their moral standard is
as high if not higher than that of |
any other race. The penalty for
breaking the moral laws Of the tribe
is death for the man and disgrace for
the woman and the penalty is carried
out.
THE hope of the present day
Seminole is that he may be let alone
to till his small field, to stalk UNI
molested through the wild forests of
palms and pines in search of wild
game, to exchange his furs and skins
to a fair-dealing trader for the few
articles he requires from white men
and to be a man, an Indian, such as
was his father and his fathers father
before him and that the white mans
civilization may not be pushed on
him SO hard that it becomes a bur-
den.
His ambition is to grow strong
and true to the teachings of his peo-