The Omaha guide., 1945-04-21
1.-THE Negro in Latin America"

called EXileS and who escaped to
Florida, then Spanish territory and
a part of Latin America. from bond
age in Georgia and the Carolinas.
Protected by the Spanish armies a.
gainst raids from slave catchers
from across the Dixie border. they
were living in independent prosper
BUS communities, filling their fields
and tending their herds, when thir-
revolted and formed the United
States of America.
In 1850, they welcomed into their
country the Seminole Indians who
had seeded from the Creek tribe of
Georgia and Alabama--in fact. the
name Seminole is simply the Creek
word for runaway" Negroes and
Indians have always been allies in
the great liberation struggles of the
Western hemisphere. These Negro
Indian runaways on the Sewanee
liked each other from the start and
npresently began to intermarrying
so that even today there is no Semi
mole in Florida or Oklahoma with
out admixture of Negro blood.
BLACK PROPERTY
But when the United States be-
came a nation, it permitted the state
of Georgia to invade Spanish ter
ritory and to send raiding expedit-
ions across the Florida border to
enslave the peaceful Exiles. Even
Negroes, born of mixed parentage in
the mixed Exil-Seminole villages.
were claimed as lawful property
the sons and grandsons of the men
who had owned their fathers.
The wife of the great Semonile
chief. Osceola--beautiful Negro
Indian girl--was kidnapped and sold
into slavery when her husband and
other chiefs were comforting with
United States authorities under a
flag Of truce. Villages of the Exiles
were invaded; homes and crops
burnt, women raped, and children
carried off into captivity first by
soldiers of Georgia and later by
soldiers of the United States in
what historians politely call the
Seminole Wars.
The Exiles and the Seminoles
wished only to be left alone by their
new neighbor-.the United States.
and it is another lie that the So
called Seminole Wors'' were pre-
cipitated by Indian-Negro raids a.
cross the border of this country.
ally sided with the British in the
War of 1912. With the help of the
British, they built a citadel. later to
be known as "the Negro Fort on
Apalachicola Bay and then concen-
trated their settlements in a radius
Of so miles Of the fort in order that
their wives and families might be
protected.
c The the barbarous Colonel Clinch
of the United States army marched
int their country and had the fort
shelled by gunboats. Of the 334
people in the fort. 270 were blown
to death and 81 wounded, and only
three were not injured. Many Of
the wounded were then turned over
to the Creks. who still claimed jur-
isdiction over the Seminoles for tor
ture.
But il was not until 1S43 that the
Dixie ~slaveowners could say that
they had finally destroyed the Sc
vance republic. BY hat time,
pressure from Shareholders in Con-
gress had forced to Spain to Sell
Florida to the United States and the
Seminoles, who had always refused
to make treaties which did not in
clude their Negro brethren. we've
transported with man Of the Ne
groes to what is now Oklahoma.
But even in Oklahoma. they were
not allowed to rest in peace. Bands
Of slaveowners or Greeks in the pay
of the slaveowners still CONTINUED