 Creeks, who were centered in modern-day Alabama and Georgia, were known to incorporate conquered tribes into their own. Some Africans escaping slavery from South Carolina and Georgia fled to Florida, lured by Spanish promises of freedom should they convert to Catholicism, and found their way into the tribe. Seminoles originally settled in the northern portion of the territory, but the 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek forced them to live on a 5-million-acre (20,000 km2) reservation north of Lake Okeechobee. They soon ranged farther south, where they numbered approximately 300 in the Everglades region, including bands of Miccosukees — a similar tribe who spoke a different language — who lived in The Big Cypress. Unlike the Calusa and Tequesta, the Seminole depended more on agriculture and raised domesticated animals. They hunted for what they ate, and traded with European-American settlers. They lived in structures called chickees, open-sided palm-thatched huts, probably adapted from the Calusa.
