The Seminoles were linked to the Spanish economy not only through gifts but through the cattle trade. Free blacks like the militiaman Juan Bautista Collins were often the intermediaries in that trade... They distributed gifts of cloth, handkerchiefs, belts, beads, sugar, tobacco, aguardiente, knives, powder, and shot among their Seminole hosts before getting down to the business of buying cattle. A roundup might take five months or more as the men traveled from village to village, buying animals to herd back to St. Augustine. On one trip through the Seminole villages, the men bought a herd of 125 cattle at Chisochate, 18 of which were sold to them by a black runaway from Georgia named Molly. In the Seminole villages, as in St. Augustine, women who had escaped from chattel slavery could control property and dispose of it as htey chose. This was also true for Seminole women. Collins bought cattle from Chief Bowlegs' sister, Simency, an on one occasion she traveled to St. Augsutine to testify on his behalf in a lawsuit. Seminole women retained their cattle herds, their traditions of financial independence, and their litigious behavior for some time after the United States acquired Florida. (182). (Landers: Atlantic Creoles)