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The Seminole tribe began with the Yamasee War and the Oconee
Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121
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THE SEMINOLE The history of the Seminole is very well known in outline, and much has been written regarding our famous Seminole war; yet it is evident that much remains to be said, on the Indian side at least, before we can have a clear understanding of the Seminole people and Seminole history. The name, as is well known, is applied by the Creeks to people who remove from populous towns and live by themselves, and it is commonly stated that the Seminole consisted of "runaways" and outlaws from the Creek Nation proper. A careful study of their history, however, shows this to be only a partial statement of the case. Perhaps the best account we have regarding the beginnings of the Seminole is by Bartram. The destruction of the Apalachee towns in the manner elsewhere narrated ' had partially cleared the way for settlements in Florida by Indians from the north, and in the period immediately succeeding bodies of them gradually pushed southward from the large Creek towns on Chattahoochee River. The first impulse toward Florida of any consequence began with that great upheaval we have so often mentioned—the Yamasee war. The Yamasee themselves entered Florida almost in a body, but they arrived there as friends of the Spaniards, adding their strength to the decaying forces of the original Floridian tribes, and themselves shared in large measure the fate of those peoples—extermination or expulsion from the country. At the same time a movement was started which resulted in the invasion of the peninsula on its western side, and this, indeed, marks the real beginning of the Seminole. Bartram gives an account of it in describing his journey from the Savannah River to Mobile, and it has been reproduced in detailing the history of the Oconee Indians.2 By consulting this it will be seen that the Oconee Indians were a nucleus about which the Seminole Nation grew up. It is evident that for a considerable period part of them remained near the Chattahoochee, for they are recorded in the census of 1761 2 and their town is described by Hawkins in 1799.4 It disappears in the interval between 1799 and 1832, when the government census of Creeks was taken, and probably all had then moved to Florida.4 (Swanton)
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