Did you know that the day after Thanksgiving is Native American Day, not just Black Friday?
In fact, the entire month of November is Native American Heritage Month.
Native American Heritage Month was established to honor and recognize Native Americans as the first people of this nation and to celebrate both their cultural heritage and integral importance along with the contributions they made and continue to make to our Nation.
Florida is a state rich in Native American history and my Father, Patrick Smith, captured part of that history and culture in three of his books, Forever Island, Allapattah, and his most renowned work, A Land Remembered.
To Celebrate this day, get these books at 15% off with coupon code NAHD while ordering. (Expires on 11/29/20)
These books feature Seminoles, but Native Americans were here thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Seminoles in Florida.
Paleo Indians in Florida
Twelve thousand years before Europeans landed in North America, “Paleo-Indians” arrived in Florida.
They were here before the extinction of the large animals living in the Pleistocene period. Archaeologists have found direct evidence that Paleo-Indians in Florida hunted mammoths, mastodons, bison, and giant tortoises.
Few clues remain of these people, but thousands of their stone tools survive to demonstrate their ingenuity and creativity.
- You can discover more about Native American history in Florida
through these books on Amazon.
through these books on Amazon.The Spanish Arrive
Accounts from Spanish explorers in the 1500s reveal that these cultures had developed into powerful chiefdoms including the Pensacola, Apalachee, Timucua, Tocobago, Calusa, Saturiwa, Utina, Potano, Ocale, Tequesta, Ais, Mayaca, Jororo, Chacato and Chisca, among others.
In 1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés destroyed a small French settlement on the St. Johns River and founded St. Augustine, he began the Spanish claim to La Florida. As part of the Spanish colonial strategy, Catholic missions were established to convert indigenous people to Christianity.
By the mid-1700s, most of the original inhabitants of Florida had been enslaved, devastated by disease and warfare resulting from the European invasion, or relocated or fled to other areas.
Seminoles
European settlers moving into North America and warfare among various Creek tribes pushed groups of Creek Indians off their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama and into Florida. At that time, Florida was nearly empty of other people.
Cowkeeper’s Cuscowilla band near the present-day town of Micanopy and Secoffe’s band near present-day Tallahassee began to act independently of other Creeks in Florida and eventually became known as the Seminoles, a Creek pronunciation of the Spanish word cimarón or “wild one.”
The early Seminole tribe had two main groups: one in the Southern part of the state and the other inhabiting the area near Lake Okeechobee. The tribe would remain in Florida, and continue to grow, including the addition of former slaves into their tribe.
By the early 1800s, as the Seminoles grew in number, they would end up fighting the United States government in the Seminole Wars in an effort to maintain their livelihood and lands in Florida. They have never signed a peace treaty with the United States.
Dad was very interested in the Native American heritage of Florida, especially the Seminoles.
A Land Remembered takes you back to the time shortly after these wars and follows three generations into the 1960s.
In Forever Island and Allapattah, Dad explored that continuing struggle into the last century and the result are moving stories of Seminoles striving to maintain their culture while living in a Florida becoming more populated and developed.
To Celebrate this day, get these books at 15% off with coupon code NAHD while ordering. (Expires on 11/29/20)
The 2000 census records show that over 53,000 people in Florida claim Native American descent, and 39 different tribes from across North America are represented in Florida’s population.
Archaeological remains, oral traditions, and living Native American cultures in Florida demonstrate the long presence and continued significance of Native American heritage.
Native American Heritage Day
America’s native people worked for decades to get “an American Indian Day” proclaimed. Finally, in 1990 President George H. W. Bush named November as National American Indian Heritage Month.
So, in addition to the ritual shopping frenzy of Black Friday, take a moment to recognize and respect not only the Florida tribes but all Native Americans on Native American Day.
- If you’re interested in discovering more about Florida Native American Heritage, go to VisitFlorida.com.
