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Miccosukee

For other uses, see Miccosukee (disambiguation).
Miccosukee Tribe of Indians
Total population
640 enrolled members
Regions with significant populations
United States United States
Florida Florida
Languages
Mikasuki, English
Religion
Traditional tribal religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Seminole (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and Seminole Tribe of Florida), Creek

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians (/ˌmɪkəˈsuki/, MIH-kə-SOO-kee)[1] is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida. Together with the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, it is one of three federally recognized Seminole entities.

The Miccosukee, along with the Florida Seminole, speak the Mikasuki language, also spelled Miccosukee. The language has been referred to as a descendant of Hitchiti[a], a dialect of Hitchiti, and another term for Hitchiti.[1][2][3][4]

By the late 18th century, the British recorded the name Miccosukee, or Mikasuki, as designating a Hitchiti-speaking group centered on the town of Miccosukee, a tribal town affiliated with the Creek Confederacy. The town spanned sections of present-day Alabama, southern Georgia, and northern Florida.[5] Under pressure from European encroachment into their territory during the 18th century, the Miccosukee underwent a period of increasingly frequent migration to Spanish Florida.[6]

The Miccosukee were displaced during the Seminole Wars (1817–1858), a series of three military conflicts between the United States and the Seminole people. During this period, many Seminoles were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory, forming the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.[7] A group of 200 or fewer Seminoles would stay in Florida.[3]

Descendants of those who remained in Florida were concentrated in the central and southern parts of the state. In the 1920s and 1930s, many Miccosukee established communities along the Tamiami Trail, a roadway completed in 1928 that ran through the Everglades and connected the cities of Tampa and Miami. The Trail Indians, as they were called, generally kept more traditional practices. They were less interested in establishing formal relations with the federal government than the Cow Creek Seminoles to the north, who started moving to reservations around the same time.[8]

In 1953, the Florida Seminoles were identified for termination of federal status. The Seminole Tribe of Florida organized and gained federal recognition in 1957. Due to political differences, the Miccosukee would form a separate group, gaining federal recognition in 1962. The Traditionals, or Independents, are Indians living in Florida who are unaffiliated with either tribe.[3] The Traditionals predominantly live in Big Cypress Swamp.[9]

  1. ^ a b c Martin, Jack B. (2017-05-24), "Muskogean Languages", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-39?rskey=bq62pl, ISBN 978-0-19-938465-5, retrieved 2023-12-04
  2. ^ Brown, Cecil H. (1998). "Spanish Loanwords in Languages of the Southeastern United States". International Journal of American Linguistics. 64 (2): 148–167. doi:10.1086/466354. ISSN 0020-7071.
  3. ^ a b c Weisman, Brent R. (December 2007). "Nativism, Resistance, and Ethnogenesis of the Florida Seminole Indian Identity". Historical Archaeology. 41 (4): 198–212. doi:10.1007/bf03377302. ISSN 0440-9213. S2CID 53460080.
  4. ^ Hardy, Heather & Janine Scancarelli. (2005). Native Languages of the Southeastern United States, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 69-70
  5. ^ Mahon, p. 189.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Mahon, pp. 190–191.
  8. ^ Alexander Spoehr, Camp, Clan, and Kin among the Cow Creek Seminole of Florida, Field Museum, Anthropological Series, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2 August 1941
  9. ^ Mahon, pp. 202–204.


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