The Seminoles in Oklahoma

In this episode, Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn discuss the origins of the Seminole Nation in Florida, how the Seminole Wars with the United States starting in 1817 led to their forcible removal to Indian Territory, and how the Civil War reduced the size of their reservation by over 1.7 million acres. They also delve into the impact of the discovery of the Greater Seminole Oilfield in 1923. Their guest is Jake Tiger, band chief of the Thomas Palmer Band and employee of the Seminole Nation's tribal preservation office. 

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
(upbeat music playing)(Trait Thompson) Hello and welcome to "A Very OK Podcast."
My name is Trait Thompson.
I'm the executive director of the OklahomaHistorical Society.
And with me, as always,is Dr. Bob Blackburn.
Bob is great to see you again today.(Dr. Bob Blackburn) Thank you. Trait.
It's always good to be here with you,especially in the spring
when the weather is so beautiful,and it's good to be outside
and seeing everyone having a good timeand being healthy.

(00:24):
(Thompson)Yeah. It's great.
We've had a good run of weatherwith some sunshine lately.
I was at Fort Gibson last weekend,and we had our Fort Gibson education days,
where we had a lot of folks out therethat were portraying living history,
everything from the fur trade and theSanitation Commission to Black soldiers
during the Civil War.

(00:44):
We had David Reed, one of our staffers,was showing kids
how the infantry worked duringthe 1820s and 1830s.
But it's a beautiful day out there.
But the ground was very soggy because ofall the rain that we have gotten.
And I walked down to the Neosho River,which was right at that point,
where Colonel Arbucklebrought his Seventh Infantry soldiers

(01:08):
in 1824 and decided to makeFort Gibson where
the first fort in Indian Territory,and the river was up quite a bit.
You couldn't even see that rock shelfwhere they landed
on over 100 years ago,or 200 years ago,
I'm sorry.
And, yeah, the river was up quitesome ways, and, yeah, it's been good.

(01:30):
The legislature hereis wrapping up its session right now.
And, you know,most agencies are getting flat budgets,
and as are we,
and we actually asked
for a flat budget this yearbecause I read the writing on the wall
and knew that we probably wouldn'tget that much of an increase.
But I am glad, it lookslike we're going to get a

(01:52):
$2.8 million, one-time appropriationfor a new HVAC system in this building,
and that will be a new chillers,new boiler,
new humidity controls, a new cooling tower.
As you're well aware,
because I know you've been workingon the article about it,
but this building is 20 years old.
And with that, it's time for a new climate control system in this building.

(02:13):
And of course, you also knowthat we have to keep this building
in the right temperature and the righthumidity because we have thousands
and thousands of artifacts that we haveto preserve for the long term,
and you have to keep those systemsin the right order.
(Blackburn)Yeah.
You know, one thing, you mentioned Fort Gibson
and one of the pleasures that I hadis that when I was in graduate school

(02:35):
at OSU, I was a consultant onhistoric preservation,
did a research topic onwhere was the original fort.
And we knew that it was not on the original site when the
WPA built the modern stockadebecause the railroad
went through part of the old,but no one knew for sure.
So we studied maps, and we did it,
and I did all these overlayswell, fast forward 25 years later,

(02:58):
Oklahoma Archeological Society.
Yeah, Oklahoma Archeological Society
and OU took it on to tryto find the foundations of the fort,
and they found them. And they go rightunderneath the railroad tracks there.
(Thompson)Right. (Blackburn) But it was like Roman soldiers built it.
It was a perfect line.I'm an old carpenter.
So I got down on my hands and kneesand eyeballed that thing,

(03:21):
and it was just as straight as could be.
So those soldiers knew whatthey were doing when they were building
forts and stockadesand other improvements across.
And the engineersknew exactly what they were doing.
Now, of course,we had to cover it up to protect it
after we finished, but I'll never forgetseeing that trench in those
sandstone foundations for the old stockadethat were there in 1824.

(03:42):
(Thompson)Most people don't know,
but if you were an infantry soldierin Indian Territory in the 1820s,
most likely you probably never firedyour gun in anger or in battle,
but most likely what you didall of the time was build roads.
(Blackburn)And if you and if you were dead, you probably died from disease.
(Thompson)That's right. (Blackburn) Rather than from a gunshot or an arrow.
(Thompson)They didn't call it the "Charnel House of the Prairie" for nothing.

(04:03):
(Blackburn)That's true.
(Thompson)Well, I'm excited about our topic today,
Bob, and I want to go aheadand bring our guest into here.
You know, one of the things that I love
covering is our NativeAmerican history in Oklahoma, because,
you know, we are Oklahomabecause of the tribes that either were
here at first or were moved herethrough the Indian removal process

(04:25):
and the chanceto learn more about those tribes,
I always embrace that opportunity.
And, this is Jake Tiger.
He is an enrolled memberof the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.
He also has lineage of the Sac and FoxNation and the Red Lake Ojibwe Nation.
He is from the Bear Clanand from the Thomas Palmer Band

(04:45):
of the Seminole Nation and the currentband chief of the Thomas Palmer Band.
He's been employedwith the Seminole Nation
Historic Preservation Officefor over five years now,
and he serves on the Board of Directorsof the Seminole Nation Museum in Wewoka.
And my good friend
Richard Ellwanger runs that museumand does a great job with that.
His passion is in living historyin the 18th and 19th centuries

(05:08):
of the Seminole peopleand showcasing material culture
in various museums in Oklahomaand out of state.
Jake Tiger, welcome to the podcast.
It is a great pleasure to have you here.(Jake Tiger) Oh thank you, Trait.
I appreciate you guys for having me on.
It's a, it's a great honor.
I've been listening to your podcastsince episode one when
you first started recording,so I'm really excited for this.

(05:30):
(Thompson)A long time fan
we have here, Bob.
(Blackburn)Well, I think we have one! (Thompson) That's right!
(laughter)(Thompson) We know there's, there's more than one.
There's at least four or five for sure.
But yes, Jake, I've had the opportunityto get to know you over the past few years
because you do great living historypresentations and demonstrations and have

(05:51):
participated in quite a few OHS events
over the time that I'vebeen here, as well.
And, always have greatconversations with you,
and I love your passion for,
for preserving this history,for portraying this history.
And so, you know, you and I were talking,you told me, you liked the podcast

(06:11):
so, I was like, well,we have to get Jake on the podcast
because, I'm sorry to say,this doesn't pay a lot,
but maybe it gets yousome notoriety in there.
(Tiger)Well, it's all, it's all for the passion.
I'm not here for the money.
I just like to talk about history.
It's, it's my passion.
(Thompson)Can you talk a little bit
about what you usually portraywhen you do living history?
(Tiger)So that it really varies, especially here in, in Oklahoma, Indian Territory,

(06:35):
I really focus on the removed Seminoles.
So, you know, just this past weekendI was over at Fort Days at Fort Gibson,
and I was talking about the historyof the Seminoles that were there
from the 1830s all the wayto the 1850s, you know, telling them,
you know, what the removal was like for usand, and starting new out here
and, you know, talking about, you know,I was the only American Indian out there.

(06:56):
So, you know, I didn't want to,
you know, exclude the Cherokeesand the Muscogee (Creeks).
I'd talk a little bit about their history,you know, just of different writings,
you know, especially,
you know, like Washington Irving,who came to Indian Territory in 1832.
And, you know, on his book of "A Tourof the Prairies," or if I'm talking about,
Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock,or if I'm talking about

(07:17):
Marcellus Duvall and his writingsthat were done at Fort Gibson.
So, it really varies.
And, you know, back out East,or I'll go to places
like Fort Toulouse and talk about whatlife was like in Alabama in the 1750s
or during the time of a treeor Fort Jackson,
or if I go back to Floridaand talk about the Seminole Wars there,
and then just thethe whole broad spectrum of it.

(07:38):
So it really kind of varies,where, depending on my environment
(Thompson)And a lot of what, when you're doing this, you're
dressed in period clothing, much of whichyou have made yourself, correct?
(Tiger)Yes. Everything I make, except for my silver work, is all done by me.
It's all hand-sewn, it's all researched on
everything I read and trade list,everything that's been documented through,

(08:02):
pictures that were doneby Charles Bird King
or George Catlin or, you know, John McStanley, those kind of works.
And so it's just,
you know, just a culminationof everything I've put together,
you know, different writings and,
and just even talking about
Washington Irving when he talks aboutsome of the Muscogees there.
You know, it's really neatto see that because we can see in writing.
But then, you know, me, I want to seewhat it looks like in person.

(08:24):
So I'll start to reproducewhat is, you know, what's written down
in black and white and bring out,you know, show it to the public.
That's probably the most rewarding thingabout doing reproductions.
(Thompson)Bob, I know that living history has been important to the
OHS for many, many years.
And, you know, it's so key,especially for our young people

(08:47):
that are getting interested in history,
that it's not just about goingand getting a lecture or reading something
out of the book, that theycan see and touch and feel.
(Blackburn)You know, our first reenactment was in 1987 at Honey Springs Battlefield.
And, we recruited some American Indiansbecause they were at the battle.
In fact the majority of the soldierswere American Indian at Honey Springs.

(09:10):
And, I'll never forget,I was a PhD in history,
head of publications at the time,not yet in administration,
and the Board of Directorswanted the reenactments.
So the director said, okay, Bob,you're in charge of it.
I said, what's a reenactment?
Was kind of my first question,
and but learn.
And then we recruited Whit Edwards.
And I don't knowif you ever worked with Whit Edwards,

(09:30):
but he was a geniusin terms of living history,
created the reputation for Oklahoma,because at that time, Missouri
was really the leading state in theAmerican West, west of the Mississippi,
dealing with living history,
Texas, probably number two.
Well, we earned a reputation as the placeto go for authentic reenactments,
doing it the right way, keeping the farbs out.

(09:52):
You know, the peoplewho thought they were historic.
And I do rememberrecruiting American Indians.
So I wish you had been around
30, 40 years ago,but you were not even a baby at that time.
But,
there's a difference.
A lot of American Indians look at historydifferently than Western Europeans.
Western Europeans are used to seeing,

(10:13):
you know, starting with Herodotusand ancient Greece
is that kind ofdetaching yourself from it
and looking at historyas something that did happen.
American Indianslook at history as it is happening,
and taking yourself out of this continuum
is difficult for some American Indians,so I applaud your efforts to get beyond

(10:33):
that to understand the importanceof representing a certain time period.
But I might say it'sprobably easier for the Seminoles,
and I've worked in Indian country for 40,almost 50 years now. And the Seminoles,
I think, have done a better jobof maintaining cultural materials,
culture of the songs, the dances, the way you come together

(10:57):
as a community, the clans, like, Ithink you go to the Cherokees,
they don't know what clan they arebecause that did not survive.
Seminoles, and Muscogee (Creeks) as well,
I think, are closer to that historythan a lot of the other tribes.
Kickapoos, the same way,I put them in the same category.
But, I've always admiredthe Seminole Nation,

(11:20):
the Seminole people. I had the opportunityto work for years with Kelly Haney.
And, Senator Haney was a real supporterof the Historical Society
and historic eventsand I think served your tribe
as this tribal chairman at least once,if not more.
But, yeah, living history, Trait.You're right.
It gives you the opportunityto present history a different way.

(11:41):
It's one thing to have a documentary film,to have a book, to have an article,
have museum exhibits.
These are all different tools.
But you've got to throw in thatliving history
because that appeals toespecially young people.
Education days are always my favorite daysat a reenactment.
(Thompson)Yeah. (Blackburn) Usually the Friday before the big public event, bringing
in those 80 school buses and watchingthose kids have a good time and get it

(12:04):
and will pay attentionto the living historians.
So it's a powerful tool.
And I think the Oklahoma HistoricalSociety has been
a pioneering organizationover the years to promote that.
(Thompson)Jake, let's dive into a little bit of the history we want to talk about today
with the Seminole Nation.
Of course, the Seminoles areone of the Five Tribes,
what we used to callthe Five Civilized Tribes.

(12:26):
And probably, if I'm if I'm not mistaken,the smallest of the Five tribes,
correct?(Tiger) Correct.
And so let's get into thatoriginal history, because,
you know, from my researchthat I was able to do, it started out
with the Lower CreekNation and around Georgia
that kind of separated themselvesa little bit and moved into Florida.

(12:49):
And we're talking inthe early 1700s here.
And then over time, they startedto develop their own identity.
Can you get into that a little bit?
(Tiger)Yeah.
So actually,
so diving back in oral history,that actually goes back even further.
So you know that that term Muscogee in it.
And not only doesthat talk about the Muscogee (Creeks)
but that also entails that the Seminolesand Miccosukees

(13:12):
and even then the Choctaws
and Chickasaws and Alabamas aswell because a lot of our oral histories,
they talked about how we were one people,
then over time, different migrationsor floods
would kind of separate usand all these different stories,
and so that that really falls under that.
But geographically,our traditional homelands
were in the southeastern partof the United States.
So that's, you know, Alabama,Georgia, and Florida.

(13:35):
And so all of our stories, you know, beginout there being a matrilineal society.
So what that means is our clansand our tribal towns
are determined by our mother's bloodlineand her mother's bloodline
that goes all the way down.
We still have that till this day.
And so that that's one waythat we help preserve that
that's been handed down to us.
So it's, you know, it's our honorto carry that, that that legacy

(13:58):
on, through our history, andthat's really how the Seminoles
were actually able to survive that waybecause we really believed in that.
And also trying to, hold on to that,especially after,
you know, years of wars and removal.
That's only that we had, we didn't haveno idea of currency or ownership.

(14:19):
Everything that we had belongedin our hearts.
So that's, that's, you know,we have to pass that on.
It's our, they always say thatseven generations ideology
that we carry, you carry everything onfor the next seven generations.
Everything you have to do has a benefitfor the next seven generations.
(Blackburn)One thing that's always intrigued me is that a lot of people don't know it,

(14:39):
but the Muskogean peoplewere part of the Mound Builders.
And when people go to Spiro Mounds here in Oklahoma
or Cahokia up in east St. Louis,they see these mounds and I think, oh,
those ancient people who disappeared.They didn't disappear.
They changed.
Instead of having the big citiesand the big mounds and the temples, they started

(15:00):
smaller villages,spreading out the different resources.
But the Muskogean speaking peoplesreally descend from those Mound Builders.
Are there any art formsthat really, that you've seen
that transcend from the Mound Builders?And some of the artifacts
we found at Spiro Mounds that we havein our collections to current Seminole

(15:21):
design?(Tiger) Yes, absolutely.
A lot of those designs,I would say they're evolutionary.
And what I mean by that,
I'm wearing a Seminole bandolier bag,but we can still see some of these designs
that are moved over from our shellcarvings or traditional tattooing.
And it's just human naturebeing evolutionary.
You know, even at our,what we call stomp dancing.

(15:43):
You know, back then,they used to use deer toes and turtle shells,
and people now use tomato cans,and it's just evolutionary,
right?
And I've seen a lot of commonalities.
Years ago, back in 2022,I was invited to the State Capitol
to present at Hispanic Heritage Daybecause they wanted me
to talk about the story of Coacoocheewho went to Mexico.

(16:04):
And so I told this story and,and there was some
people from Guatemala and, and Peru,and I'm wearing the same bandolier.
And,
they had the same designs on their skirts,and one woman had it painted on her face.
So I, we started talking aboutthen and come to find out,
we have a lot of commonalities,even though we're from the southeastern
probably United States and they'refrom South America and Central America.

(16:26):
So it's really interesting to see that.
And even I could see some stuffthat we use
that's even in Greek pottery, it's in Hinduism and Buddhists.
It's really interesting to see that.
Everyone kind of thoughtthe same way, way, way back then
and early human history.
(Thompson)That's fascinating.
The other thing I want to get intobefore we get too far down the road into

(16:49):
the history is the originof the word Seminole,
which, as I was reading it, came from thethe Spanish word cimarron.
And the Muscogee language had no "r"sound, so cimarrons
became cimallones
and then later to Seminoles.
Am I on the right track?
(Tiger)Yeah, that's that's one of the stories.
I talk with my good friend

(17:10):
Brian Spater from theSeminole Tribe of Florida, and
and one thing where we've kind of find outis if you ask five Seminoles a question,
you're going to find a different answer,
because we have, you know,we see things differently, right?
There's always a different sideto the story.
So that's one of I,I always don't discredit it
if it's, you know,a historical like that, especially
if it's oral history,I try my best not to discredit it unless,

(17:31):
you know, it's more recentrecorded history that we would know.
I usually just try to go with it
and then put my pieces togetherand then try and make it all fit.
And so that's one of theadvantages to that.
(Thompson)Well, I read it in a book, so it can't be wrong, right?
(laughter)(Thompson) It can't be wrong.
Well, let's get a little bitmore into this.
And, in 1783,

(17:54):
the Treaty of Paris gives Floridato the Spanish.
And then in 1819, we,Florida came to the United States.
And that leads us into the Red Stick War,
or also knownas the Creek War of 1813–14,
where you had Upper Creeksthat resented American settlers

(18:17):
flooding into the territoryafter the American Revolution,
and they decide to fight back.
Let's get into a little bit of this,because I think that's going to lead us
directly into how the Seminolesultimately get to Oklahoma.
(Tiger)Yeah, so setting the stage for that, we really have to
look at the the climatefor the United States.
So of course, the United States,they're highly in debt to

(18:39):
a lot of these European countriesfor even just for the American Revolution,
because they got to get their firearmssomewhere.
So they're buying itfrom Spain and France.
And that kind of pushed into whatwe call, you know, the Westward expansion,
and everyonewants to settle in the southeast.
If you guys have everbeen down to Alabama,
some of the best soil out therefor sugar cane,
tobacco, cotton,all kinds of crops out there.

(19:02):
But the problem isyou can't go and just take all these lands
because there's Muscogees,Seminole, and Choctaws down in Alabama.
And so we have rights to these lands.
We don't have ownership,but we use this land for hunting,
you know, for different seasons.We have to migrate,
you know, depending if there's a flood,we had to move up land.
And so that that really kind of setsthe stage for that.

(19:23):
But, you know,
we did a lot of fur trading down insoutheast and places like Fort Toulouse.
But what started the Seminole Wars,
in actuality, I always try to say it doesstart with the Red Stick Wars.
That's kind of thethe introduction to that.
And so, but the first Seminole battle,the Battle of Fowltown
in 1817, which washappening in Georgia.

(19:46):
Well, when that happened,the Seminoles would jump the border
into Florida. Well, the United Statescan go into Florida and start
firing weapons because then that's an international crisis.(Thompson) Right.
(Blackburn)Because it's Spanish territory. (Tiger) Yes. Correct.
But and so the years goes onand so Spanish relinquishes
"La Florida"to the United States and so
that gives the United States openaim to go after the Seminoles that are

(20:11):
attacking these settlements and southern Georgia.
And so now there isall these battles are going
on, and that's what startsthe First Seminole War in 1817.
(Thompson)And a general that
would make his way into American historyas a future president,
Andrew Jackson, makes his appearance here,and he's leading a group of Lower Creeks

(20:32):
and Cherokees to defeat the Upper Creeksat that particular point in time.
And as you said,the Upper Creeks will flee into Florida.
And that will, that will bolsterthe ranks of the Seminoles.
(Tiger)Mmhmm. And so
getting into that with,
I've spoken a lot with historians,and they try to say that

(20:53):
now the Seminoles got into Floridaduring the Seminole Wars.
we've been going back and forth.
We didn't have borders back then.
We just went wherever,wherever the deer was, wherever
the plants were growing at this time.
And so, you know,we did have permanent settlements.
And that's where that name Creekcomes from is

(21:13):
a lot of our towns were built alongriverbanks.
And so we, we traveled all over the placein the southeast through dugout canoes.
And we have stories of our peoplegoing up to the Great Lakes
and trading with the Ojibweor the Potawatomis up there,
or they get in in the canoesand they go on to, you know, Cuba
and Puerto Rico and CostaRica and trading with them.

(21:36):
And so when the Europeans saw that,
they said, well,we're going to call these people Creeks
because their permanent settlementsare located along these waterways.
(Thompson)Tell us a little bit about Osceola.
(Tiger)So Asi-yahola was
born in Alabama,not too far from actually present-day
Fort Toulouse out there,

(21:58):
there was a lot of townsthat were, in that region.
And actually my peopleare actually from that area as well
and not too far from Auburn,but Asi-yahola,
he was a Seminole.
He was a warrior.
He was he was never really seenas as a as a micco, a chief,
because that was a different ranking.
But he was seen as more of like a highranking warrior or general back then.

(22:22):
And but the way he
he carried himself, everyone followed thatbecause no one wanted to leave Florida.
No one can come in to our lands and tell us hey, you've got to pack your stuff
up and go west of the Mississippito these unknown lands.
And we're going to bring our peoplein and,
you know, we're going to plant all these crops and
and build farms on top of your ancestors'cemeteries, essentially.

(22:46):
And so during the Seminole Wars, and one thing I will say here,
since the Seminole Wars were so long,it's a 29-year-long
struggle against the United Statesof encroachment on tribal lands.
And so a lot of historians will saythe First, Second, and Third Seminole War.
But to the Seminole people,
we just call it the Seminole Wars.It's that 29-year-long struggle.

(23:08):
And so that that's essentiallywhat now really push that,
and what really amplified
it was the
Indian Removal Act of 1830 with President Andrew Jackson, who signed that.
And so and we, we've beenfighting Andrew Jackson since 1812.
Now we have stories of usfighting against him in
New Orleans and and Tallahassee,

(23:29):
at Burnt Corn Creek,all of his, his, his troops out there.
So he already had
an animosity towardsthe Seminole and Muskogean people.
And so, so then we kind of createda whole strong front.
And so that brings upa lot of our great warriors.
I'll say, with tough timesbrings a lot of tough people.

(23:52):
And Asi-yahola is one of those guys
that stepped up to the platewhen it was time to, you know,
really defend our homelandsand our traditional ideologies.
And so, yeah, he was reallyseen as kind of a patriot at the time,
not just to the Seminole people,but even across the United States.
Everyone loved this guy,
because they see that this is basically,you know, the little guys

(24:14):
getting pushed around by the big guy,and he stands up for himself.
We all love that story, right?
And so that that's the story of Asi-yahola
going up against the United Statesand even during the
the treaty signing of theTreaty of Fort Gibson,
where he walks up to the table and,you know, reaches into his,
reaches for the knife andand plunges his knife right to the treaty

(24:36):
and tells the agents there, you know,this is how I'll sign.
That's him saying,I'm not going to leave Florida.
I'm going to stay here and fight
until the last drop of Seminole bloodis on this hunting ground.
And so, you know, he was, he'sone of those really great guys I look up
to. And I always tell folks now,he was a great warrior, but
really look into what

(24:56):
he was fighting for. Don't idolize him as a person,but go after what he was thinking of,
you know, that that true form of freedom.(Blackburn) When Kelly Haney,
you know, Kelly Haney, was doing his painting of Osceola
in that famous scene with the knife,he went back to Washington, DC,
and they pulled the treaty out,
and there is a slit in itwhere the knife went.
And that's a true story.
And it's one of my favorite paintingsby Enoch.

(25:19):
And the defiance in his face,
Kelly captured that perfectly,and it was the kind of warrior
that would have been charismatic,and people would have said
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I'll follow you,
which was kind of the Indian way.
the natural leaders, peoplewould just say, yeah,
go on a raid with you,or I'll go on a hunt with you
because you can help me feed my familyor protect my family.

(25:39):
Whichever it might be.
And he was that kind of a leader.(Thompson) Bob, where is that painting today?
Do you know?(Blackburn) We have a print in our collections.
We have one here
because Kelly wanted to sell us one,and we raised the money and bought it.
The original is probablyin a private collection.
I don't know where the original is,but there are prints.
(Thompson)Yeah, I don't think I've seen that painting before,

(25:59):
so I'm going to have to go do some searching.
(Tiger)Yeah, yeah, if you get a chance to come to Wewoka, we have a copy of it in our gallery.
(Thompson)Okay. Fantastic.
(Blackburn)When you when you say that word, Asi-yahola,
Opothleyahola is a person
we'll talk about in the middle of the Civil Warwho's another natural leader
that people were willing to followinto the jaws of death
almost.
What is the "Yahola" part?

(26:20):
Is that the family name?
(Tiger)So the "Yahola,"
which means like, it's like a singereveryone got and bringing out a call.
And so in the Englishthey call him, Osceola.
But the Muscogee name isAsi-yahola,
so it's translated to the"Black Drink Singer."
They're referring to the yaupon holly drink.
And so that's one of thoseceremonial aspects that he picked up

(26:40):
when he became a warrior.
And so then they,
alot of those ceremonial leadersand miccos refer to him as Asi-yahola,
what he did during the ceremony,so that that's what he was known for
the rest of his adult life.
(Blackburn)Before we finish our conversation, I want to get back to the
the Light Horseman of the Seminole Nationin the 1890s, going through
those same ceremonial drinksas they would go out to enforce the law.

(27:02):
(Thompson)Okay. Yeah.
Stay tuned for a few minutesso we could get to that one.
Okay.
Well, in 1832, the Seminole's signedthe Treaty of Payne's Landing,
which relinquished all the claimsto the Florida lands and held
that the Seminoles would reunite on
Creek lands in Indian Territory,

(27:24):
and that sort of starts this migration.
So there's an exploratory partyof seven Seminoles
that come to Indian Territory in 1832.
They start to scout everything out.
They don't necessarily like what they see,do they, Jake?
(Tiger)No, no, they don't approve of Indian Territory.
But actually, at that time, the Indianagent signed off on their names.

(27:47):
So when he went back to Washington, DC,said, hey, these
these Seminole chiefswant to move to Indian Territory.
And actually theythey did not sign at all.
And he actually was fired for that,in Washington, for doing that act.
(Thompson)Okay. Yeah.
And so one of the thingsthat they didn't like,
which I thought this was funny,a little funny in my research,
is they didn't like the cold climatehere, which,

(28:08):
you know, if you've been in Oklahomain July, you're like cold climate?
And they didn't like the proximityto the Plains Indians.
And this is an issuethat crops up time and time again,
not only with the Seminoles,
but with other of the Eastern tribesthat are forced to migrate to Oklahoma,
is, you know,the Plains Indians are getting squeezed

(28:28):
and squeezed also,and they're having to come farther east
to find, you know, food and all of those kinds of things as well.
So you start to see a lot moreof the Plains Indians incursions
into the eastern part of
Indian Territory, 1820s, '30s and '40s.
And so they didn't really want anythingto do with the Plains Indians.

(28:52):
(Tiger)You had, and even at that time, during the Seminole Wars, there were a lot of,
paid American Indian scouts
and mercenariesthat were fighting against the Seminoles.
And then we,
we have records of the Shawneesand Delawares and even the Osage as well.
And, of course, you know,
why would we want to movenext to the Osage? We're fighting them
in the same exact people downin Florida over at the Battle of

(29:13):
Loxahatchee or whatever,you know, places like that.
And so,
you know, that they had this, you know,this, this controlled here, and then,
you know,
even Indian Territory,there's a lot of skirmishes
between, you know, the Osageand the Muscogee (Creeks)
that were in this area.I think in 1832, the Treaty of Holmes Creek
was signed toto say the Osage can't raid Fort Gibson
or the surrounding areas because the Muscogee(Creeks) and Cherokees are there now.

(29:36):
(Blackburn)You know, Trait, we always talk about the, you know, moving
the Five Tribesto the West, and a lot of people
assume that was unknown lands.
But many of these people of the Five Tribes
have been coming through Oklahomafor years hunting buffalo.
We have a lot of accounts.
I know the Chickasaws were here a lot.
They were very familiarwith the territory even.
And they were Cherokees who had been West.

(29:58):
And, and a lot of people don't
realize how mobilea lot of these Indian people were.
It was nothing to get up and, you know,traveled 200 miles for a purpose.
But the buffalowas a real draw for all tribes,
whether it's the tribesmoving out of the northern
Rocky Mountainsand getting onto the Plains,

(30:20):
getting a horse, becoming, you know,the greatest horsemen in the world.
Kind of like the Mongol hordesof Genghis Khan here.
He had this mobile society.
But the reason they'rethere are the buffalo.
So the Chickasaws and the Choctaws andthe Seminoles, they like buffalo as well.
They make money onthe pelts. You get the beef,
the buffalo meat.

(30:40):
And so a lot of these tribes were familiarwith Oklahoma and what was out here.
So they probably did not havea good impression at all,
just from previous generations and storiesthat would have been told
around the campfire.
(Tiger)Yeah, absolutely.
And one thing I want to say forthe viewers is there were buffalo in
the southeast and Florida and Alabamaand Georgia actually. And in the 1700s,
Bernard Romans,who was from the British actually,

(31:04):
was down in northwest Florida,and in his journal
and he writes about the Muscogeeand Seminole chiefs wearing bison horn
headdresses.
And it's a lot differentthan what you would see,
what the Pawnee would wear.Ours was just one horn
split down the middleand one at the temple facing forward.
And there there's a drawing that wasdone by Bernard Romans wearing that.

(31:24):
So we have a lot of storiesabout the buffalo
being down in the southeast as well.
(Blackburn)So as they were, as they were wiped out there.
They would have started moving westwhere the buffalo were.
(Thompson)It was surprising to me when I watched Ken Burns' documentary
on the American Buffalo thatthey showed a map in there
of how prolific they were all over the continent even,

(31:44):
it's all the way to the East Coast.
And that was surprising to me.
I always just assumed
that they were in the Central Plainsand in the west, but, it,
you know, they were everywhere.
With that, we'll take a quick breakfor a brief message.
(music playing)(Announcer) Grab your cowboy hat and saddle up for a wild ride
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(32:07):
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Stick around for the pre-show at seven,then hang on to your hats.

(32:30):
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Don't miss your chanceto experience the legend live!
(Thompson)Okay, we're back,
and I want to pick up where we left offbecause we were talking about the

(32:53):
Treaty of Payne's Landing, and on March 28, 1833
the Seminoles that were, had
come to Indian Territoryin this exploratory party,
they were essentially forcedto sign a treaty which basically said
that they liked the land that they saw,they were going to come here.
And that treaty, as well as the Payne'sLanding Treaty, was ratified

(33:16):
by Congress in April of 1834.
But the problem with that was,is that none of the Seminole leadership
back in Florida agreed to that treaty.
And this essentially kicks offwhat is known as the Second Seminole War.
(Tiger)Correct.
And so that actually what a lot historianswill say, the first battle of the Second
Seminole War is a Battle of Dade's,they call it Dade's Massacre.

(33:39):
But whenever a non-Indian is murdered,they call it a massacre.
But we historians,we now we call it the Dade's Battle.
And actually, that same day,
Asi-yahola actually assassinatedWiley Thompson at Fort King.
So while Thompson,who had played a big part in that
the treaty, was actually assassinatedby Asi-yahola over at Fort King

(34:00):
and in present day Ocala,and then you go down to Bushnell,
Florida, where the battle of,Dade's Battle happened, where Micanopy,
who was leading the attackon Major Francis Dade,
and that was the biggest battle.A lot of this referred
to as little,
The Little Bighorn, beforeBighorn was a thing

(34:21):
because all the Seminoles wiped outall the
the troops on that battlefield.(Blackburn) In thinking about that,
you know, we can call it an assassination.
But among the Seminoleand Muscogee (Creeks),
in fact, all the Five Tribesbefore constitutional government,
the basic law of, the law way of enforcing
traditional ways, was the the law of

(34:42):
blood revenge, is that individuals
were empowered to enforce the lawthat was accepted by their people.
And so when that so-called assassination
was held, it was himsaying, no, I am the law,
and he broke the law.
He broke what
the Seminoles will accept as a community.
So he was outside of the law at that time,and he was just enforcing it.

(35:04):
Same thing would happen with the Ross faction when they came west
and just wiped out the Ridges.
They signed that treaty.
A lot of people say those wereassassinations, but it was the law of
blood revenge, which was an ancient wayof keeping some kind of social order
within your community,whether it was tribe or clan or township.
And so that's a little bitof background there.

(35:27):
Now later we'll get into the Lighthorseand other law enforcement.
But at the time,
law blood revengewas a way to keep things together.
(Tiger)Yeah, that was the thing that was done.
Even Asi-yahola assassinated a Seminole chief who signed,
or actually did sign off the treatyand actually got a payment.
And actually, in actuality,he actually shot the Seminole chief
that he went by the name of Charley Emathla,and when Asi-yahola shot him,

(35:49):
he took all the coins that he was givenand threw them every direction.
And that was kind of saying,this is worthless to us. All your money's
out here, we have to gomove out west. And that even happened
with William McIntosh as well,when he was assassinated
by the Muscogee (Creeks) were giving up those lands in Alabama.
So then that's when we're along
what we call like it's an eyefor an eye type of justification.

(36:12):
(Thompson)Now, this was a very costly war.
Second Seminole War goes from 1835to approximately 1842.
And one of the fascinating thingsthat I read in preparation for this
is it's the most costly Indian Warever fought by the United States Army.
Over 1,500 soldiers died.
It cost $20 million to fight this.

(36:35):
Over 4,000 Seminoles werecaptured or surrendered.
But this was a brutal war,and this was guerrilla warfare
in swamps and forests,
and I can't imagine the conditionsof fighting down in Florida
where that occurred.
I mean, this was pretty rough stuff.
(Tiger)So one thing that we did in the southeast with a guerrilla warfare tactics,

(36:58):
because, well,
we saw it as ineffective for troopsto stand on a field and just line up
and just wait to get shot.
I always thought that wasan inaccurate way to settle disputes.
And so, so what the Seminoles did,you know, they, they use a lot of
guerrilla warfare.
They would,you know, hide in the tree lines.
It would actually be up in the treesas sharpshooters.
We had a lot of menthat would just strike like lightning.

(37:21):
One of the best ways I would say toreally visualize that is "The Last of the Mohicans"
when Magua, in all of hiswarriors on both sides, attacked
the British. That'sprobably the best way to visualize that.
But one thing that the Seminoles did,and during the during all these battles, is
our battleswere already kind of pre-planned out.
So, what we had werea lot of our warriors

(37:41):
would actually go out and track downthese troops that are going down,
going down the Fort King Roadand then heading out to Fort Brook.
And they would they would watch every,every move they're taking.
Then they go back to the chiefsand say this
where these guys are going,this is how many they have.
And that's when then we all show up, andthat's when we get attack out of nowhere

(38:01):
and then just disappear back out into theFlorida wilderlands.
And so that that's, that's one way
we fought, and another tacticthat we use, what we call treeing.
And what that means is we fought in pairs.
So we would have someone with us,you know,
because if you have black powder rifles,you only got one shot, right?
So we'd have one guy, you know, infront of us who's shooting from a tree.

(38:22):
When he fires, I move on to the next treein front of him,
I fire, he's already reloaded.
So we're just going down the line.
That's was one tactic that was reallypopular in the Eastern woodlands.
(Thompson)Wow. That's fascinating. (Blackburn) Mmhmm.
(Thompson)That is absolutely fascinating.
And along the way,as Seminole Indians are being captured,
they're being transported backto Indian Territory,

(38:43):
and so over time the attrition starts.
And ultimately the capitulation
at Fort Dade is signed on March 6, 1837.
Jake, you'll have to makesure I get this name right.
Micanopy?(Tiger) No. Micanopy.
(Trait)Micanopy. Okay. Thank you.
I need all the help I can get.When I give tours at the Capitol,

(39:06):
Bob, you know, of course, we havea lot of Native American art there.
And, you know, there's athere's a relatively new Choctaw painting
by Dylan Cavin about the Choctaw CodeTalkers, which we did a podcast about,
and I always have to apologize for my badChoctaw when I talk about that painting.
So, I appreciate all the help I can get Jake.(Tiger) No problem. No problem.

(39:27):
(Thompson)But that really sets the stage.
That is basicallythe end of Seminole resistance.
Although there is aa remnant of Seminoles that escaped
so far into the swamps
and in the forest that the United Statesgovernment never gets to them.
(Tiger)Yes. And so that that kind of sets for the Treaty of 1856, there was
was one Seminole chief by the name ofHolata Micco.

(39:49):
His English name was Billy Bowlegs,and he was fighting out in Florida.
And so a lot of the chiefsthat were out here,
one of the main componentswas, John Jumper, Heneha Mekko.
And he's, he's, you know, trying to negotiatewith the United States and Muscogee (Creeks)
and try to set aside landsbecause Holata Micco says well,
if you guys don't have lands andan Indian territory, why did I move here?

(40:10):
I already have a home in Florida.
And so the, as the years goeson, we get that treaty.
But, there were some Seminolesthat stayed behind.
The one was, Abiaka,Sam Jones and his people went into Florida,
and there was about 250to 300 of them, were able to, you know,
take refuge out in the Florida Evergladesand stay up there.
They're still out thereto this day a lot of the,

(40:32):
that's where we havethe Seminole Tribe of Florida at.
(Thompson)Now, is that why here, that the Seminoles in Florida
claim to be the only Indian tribenever conquered by the US Army.
(Tiger)Yeah, yeah, that's, that's that's what they go by.
And, yeah, at the same time,a lot of us were brought here,
through the Port of Tampa Bayat Egmont Key or Pensacola Bay,

(40:54):
and going up through thethe Gulf of Mexico and going into
New Orleans, Jackson Barracksand Fort Pike
and then going up the Mississippi Riverand branching off into
Fort Smith, Arkansas,and then coming into the Three Forks Rivers
and coming into Fort Gibson.
And but at the same time,
you know, this is same time the SeminoleWars are going on during the removal.

(41:16):
And so a lot of our, everyonewas brought here as a prisoner of war.
And so we have, you know, it'snot really shown in any portraits
that I know of or any anythingthat's done in modern media,
but not only werethe warriors brought here and chains
and shackles, but the women and the eldersand children were too.
Now I've actually gotten the chanceto see a pretty big collection

(41:38):
of shackles now that were used forfor Seminoles were brought here.
I was over at Loxahatchee Battlefield
three years ago,and they showed us about 17 of them.
And and they even showed usreal small ones
that would be used for a childthat's probably about five years old.
And that's, that's,the treatment that we got.
And so a lot of us were brought here alsoon decommissioned slave ships as well.

(41:58):
And then, and also on keelboats,
coming into Indian Territory.
(Thompson)That's fascinating.
I did not know that. That is horrifyingand fascinating at the same time.
By 1842, General Zachary Taylorreports there's
2,833 Seminoles, including Black people
in Indian Territory that had been either

(42:21):
captured or removed voluntarily.
And so now we are establishedin the Indian Territory,
but the Seminoles still don'treally have a home of their own.
They're still,
I think, at that point expectedto just live inside the Creek reservation.
And that's not good enoughfor the Seminoles.

(42:41):
They want their own plot of land.
And that leads us into the 1856 treatywith the Creeks.
(Tiger)Correct.
And so at the time ofof the signing of 1856 treaty,
that's exactly right.
The United States wanted us to be underthe jurisdiction of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
Well, that's not,that's not good enough for the Seminoles.
And even there was even some factionsother than the Muscogee (Creeks)
that were fighting against the Seminolesin the wars.

(43:03):
I believe in 1837, there was about 700
enlisted warriors that went into Floridato fight against the Seminoles.
And so, but Seminoles,we were told
we were going to go to Indian Territory,we would have our own lands,
and that that was a promise to us.
And so as as the years goes on and,you know, there's negotiations between
the United States and the Seminoles,there's a really great delegation

(43:26):
photo that was taken 1852that has Billy Bowlegs and John Jumper
in it and a few other band chiefsthat are in Washington, DC,
you know, and those negotiations and so itit took some time, but also finally on
August 7, 1856, theTreaty of the Creeks was ratified.
And so that recognizedthe Seminole Nation as a separate

(43:48):
sovereign Indian nationhere in Indian Territory.
(Thompson)And that gave the Seminole Nation over
2.1 million acresas a part of their own reservation.
And so, that's a that's a pretty largeswath of land for a fairly small tribe.
(Tiger)Yes. And in our lands,
and per the treaty, were everythingin between the two Canadian rivers.

(44:12):
So that's as kind of starting outin Pottawatomie County, where Asher is,
Oklahoma County,where we're sitting at right now,
in Canadian Countyall the way up to the Texas border
was, was landsthat were set aside for the Seminoles.
Unfortunately, as time goes on, theTreaty of 1866 kind of relinquishes that,
and that's result of the Civil War.

(44:34):
(Blackburn)So, you know
one reason for that kind of that linear,
that was access to the buffalo outon the Southern Plains.
Within the American leaderswould have said, well, if, if,
if they're going to take care ofthemselves, they need to be able to hunt
and feed themselves and access,just like the Cherokee Outlet
was there to allow the Cherokeesto go out and hunt the buffalo.

(44:54):
The Seminoles, Muscogee (Creeks)had this corridor
going all the way out onto the High Plainswhere they could hunt the buffalo.
(Thompson)Yeah.
And so, as part of the agreement,the United States government
agreed to cover the lossesin moving to the new reservation.
And they also agreedto help support schools
to help provide funding for agriculture.

(45:17):
They agreed to build a council housefor the Seminoles.
And so,
life startsto assume some bit of normality.
I think you start, you know,from the 18–, mid-1830s into the 1850s.
But this one thing comes,and it's a terrible thing
for the Indian nations in Oklahoma,and it's the Civil War.

(45:39):
(Tiger)And just, backing up, real quickly
before the Treaty of 1856was brought about,
and there was another Seminole chiefby the name of Coacoochee,
and he actually went to Mexicobecause he was
did not like the conditions here,in Indian Territory and,
and him and a group of Seminolesand, and escaped slaves
actually went into Brackettville, Texas,and then going into the

(46:03):
the mountains of Mexico andcreating a settlement out there.
And they stayed for about ten years.
He actually served as a colonel
in Mexican Army for about 6 yearswhile he was out there.
But that was kind of a result of,you know, the,
the attitude of the Seminoles were saying,why are we going to live here?
We had to be under someone else's rule.
And so that's why a lot of them packed upand went to Mexico. (Blackburn) And the Kickapoos

(46:25):
and even the Cherokees,
Sequoyah died while he was searchingfor a new home for the Cherokees in Texas.
And, and so, a lot of a lot of those tribessaw that as another opportunity.
(Thompson)The unfortunate thing about the Civil War is many,
most of the tribes found themselvescaught, because the Union

(46:46):
Army removed their soldiersfrom Indian Territory.
There goes that protection.
Most of the Indian agentswere Confederate, and the Indian agents
were trying to talk the tribes into comingon board with the Confederate States,
which all of the Five Tribesofficially did.
Although, as we know, we've talkedabout in previous podcast episodes,

(47:06):
it was certainly not a majority decisionof most of the citizens of those tribes,
because in any given case,probably half or more of the tribes,
not only did they not really want to alignwith the Confederacy,
they really just wanted to stay neutraland not really get involved.
But of course, the Civil Wardrew everybody into that.

(47:26):
And it was John Jumperwho signed the agreement with the
Confederate Nation to come on board, on behalf of the Confederate States.
(Tiger)Yeah. Oh, go ahead.
(Blackburn)But I was going to say, well, in all the tribes,
that was almost a new green lightto be able to seek vengeance

(47:47):
on your former enemies within the tribe.
And so that old fightthat you were talking about
with the Upper Creeks,Lower Creeks fighting, you know, 50 years earlier,
it's another reasonto go at it again.
(Tiger)Yeah.
And then the, you know
what, the Civil War, it really devastatednot only just Indian Territory,
but even the American Indian tribes.I believe there was

(48:10):
statistically about 40% of the childrenafter the Civil War were left as orphans
because so many Seminoleswere just brought into this war.
And, you know, we were at the Battle of Honey Springs, at Round Mountain,
you know, that was a group that that wonOpothleyahola up
to Fort Scott, Kansas, that were tryingto evade this, this whole conflict.
And in that pursuit, they were broughtright into that battle or the Civil War.

(48:35):
And so it was really,it was devastating to the Seminoles.
It was it,it wasn't really our conflict.
We weren't, didn't see ourselvesas Americans at the time.
We weren't even American citizens.
But they brought us,you know, into this battle.
And so we had to pick and choose.
And so, you know, we're, family'sfighting against each other once again.
And it's, you know, conflictsnever, never great at all.

(48:55):
I was always tell people,even with battle reenactments, and,
I always say that's, you know,the war should always be the last resort.
And in any instance, it's,
you know, for us,we were mainly a peaceful people.
We try to do everything diplomatically.
One of the best waysthat we've seen diplomacy being done

(49:16):
in the 1800s was a portraitthat was done in 1843 by John McStanley,
of all the Indian nations that meetup in Tahlequah, and that, you know,
the International Treaty Council of 1843,that's how we used to settle stuff.
But when this new kind of lifestyle,you know, they tell us that we have to,
you know, go to war with one another.
That was, you know, pretty odd for us

(49:36):
because we used to settle disputeswith stickball back then,
you know, we didn't inspilling blood of our brethren.
So it was it was a weird, new climate to us.(Blackburn) And part of that, too,
one thing that's always fascinated me,but American Indians
really did not have the same conceptof personal property
that Western Europeansand Americans had at the time,

(49:59):
whereas Americans said, oh,we need laws to protect personal property
and to protect my money,protect my land and all that.
That's where laws began.
And a lot of the mixed bloodIndian leaders
who wanted constitutional government
wanted it to protect their propertybecause they were accumulating,
but their traditionalistswould not have said that.
They would have said no,it belongs to all of us.

(50:19):
And so how can we fight each other?
Because it doesn't belong to us.
It belongs to all of us together.
And if we can find a peaceful wayto live together, it'll be harmonious.
And looking for that harmony,
it was so different
than the Western European traditionof land ownership and personal property
and laws to protect it, and armiesto protect your property and your land.

(50:41):
That was not the Indian way.
(Tiger)And so with the the Civil War finally
coming to an end and Indian Territorywas left in shambles.
And so, we're in the Reconstruction Era.
And so that that that bringsabout the Treaty of 1856 or 1866.
And essentially what that meant was the
Seminoles were going to be or being punishedfor fighting in the Civil War.

(51:04):
(Thompson)Right. (Tiger) With the Confederacy.
And so we were told we had to sell all thethat two million acres,
and we had to sell it for 15 cents an acre
back to the United States,and the lands that we want,
we have to buy it fromthe Muscogee (Creeks) at 50 cents an acre.
And so that, you know,we're getting,
you know, the short end of the stickall throughout the 19th century.

(51:26):
(Thompson)Well, ultimately, you go from over 2.1 million acres of territory
to a little over365,000 acres of territory,
which is essentially Seminole County,what Seminole County is today, correct?
(Tiger)Yeah, that is correct. Yeah. (Thompson) Yeah.
The United States governmentdefinitely exacted their pound of flesh
out of the tribes that alignedwith the Confederacy in that era.

(51:52):
And so that really sets the scene for,
you know, the 1860s and 1870s.
And of course, we get to,the end of the 19th century,
and we get into allotment nowand the preparation for statehood.
(Tiger)So little bit before statehood, you know, the Seminole Nation is rebuilding.

(52:12):
So we really amplify, our tribalLighthorse, tribal sovereignty,
even, you know, going against the,the Allotment Acts,
you know, going against the Dawes Commission in 1890.
And then education was a big thing also.
The Seminole Nationbuilt two schools that were fully operated
by the Seminole Nation,fully funded by the Seminole Nation.
So we built one school in 1891,which was Mekasukey Academy.

(52:36):
And then in 1894, we builtthe Girls Academy, which was Emahaka.
And those were fully funded by or by the by the Seminole Nation
up until 1906, where the federal governmentcame in and and seized our schools.
And they kind of labeledthis as is now quote unquote, incompetent.
And so they took the schools from usand then became a government schools.
But those were were, you know, those werethe ideas of Seminoles back then

(52:59):
where we're,
you know, even though
we're constantlyhave these struggles,
we still have to keep movingno matter what.
And so that that'sone of the things that we,
we look onto aroundthe turn of the century before statehood.
(Blackburn)And one thing too, Trait, that I always like to remind
people when I'm doing an exhibit or a book
is that the Seminoleshad a constitution by this time.

(53:20):
And so they had, you know,a judicial system, an executive branch,
legislative branch, and the Lighthorsementhat I referred to earlier
were still very active in the 1890s.
So at a time after the Land Run of '89,Oklahoma City is growing,
Muskogee is the biggest city,
in the Twin Territories with railroadsand movie theaters and opera houses.

(53:42):
Here are the Seminole who have their ownconstitutional government,
their own source of income,
And they would designatethese Lighthorsemen.
And the Lighthorsemen were giventhe authority of the government.
The way the old law blood revenge
would have been working,because a leader could do it.
Here you have the stateor the nation saying

(54:03):
and those Lighthorsemen weresome of the most effective law enforcement
officers in the 1890s, at a timewhen the Doolins and the Daltons and,
you know, all the famousoutlaws are running around,
you didn't mess with the SeminoleLighthorsemen, and they would go through.
And there's a great anthropologistgot to interview
a lot of these Seminole Lighthorsemen.
And so I did an article for the"Indian Law Review"

(54:25):
on constitutional governmentand law enforcement. And
those Seminole Lighthorsemenwere around long enough
where researchers got to interview themand witness drinking
the black tea, iswhat they call it at the time.
I'm not sure what really that is,but going to this ceremony
and it would kind of bring themall together and in a sense of protection

(54:49):
and some mind control, perhaps there couldhave been other things involved there,
but they would want to gothrough these ceremonies
that would protect themas they were going out after the bad guys.
And so that was surviving until 1898.
And the Curtis Act, when they said, no more tribal government,
no more law enforcement, no more schools.
And then that was the the road toallotment that would eventually happen by 1907.

(55:13):
(Trait)We have one more.
We're startingto get toward the end of our time.
And I want to be sureand get this in, too,
because there's one more big thingthat happens to the Seminole Nation,
and it is the GreaterSeminole Oil Field in the 1920s.
And that is a massive oil fieldthat's discovered
essentially in 1923with the Betsy Foster Number 1

(55:33):
well that's drilled near Wewoka,came in at 2,800 barrels a day.
That establishes the Wewoka field.Ultimately 39 separate
oil pools are developed within a region
with really Seminole Countyas the center of that region.
And overnight, all of SeminoleCounty becomes boomtown.

(55:54):
And with it comesall the good things about boomtown
and all the bad thingsabout boomtown as well.
Yeah, we actually have a photographat the Seminole Nation Museum of
where Mekasukey Academy sitsand then a whole,
It was an aerial shot,and it shows all of Seminole County.
I did see all this
oil derricks all over the place,and it's insane to see that.
But unfortunately, the Seminoles

(56:16):
actually didn'tget any of the profit from the oil money
because of the Allotment Acts.
And so only about 20% of SeminoleCounty actually belonged to the Seminoles,
to the Seminole Nation.
So we actually didn't seea single penny of that.
And we still haven't.
And so but, you know,when we get into the kind of more modern
modern day of the McGirt v. Oklahoma,which we're trying to look into now,

(56:38):
that that's that's, the climate of that,and we're trying to rectify
the error of humanity
because this is what this is,this is ours. This is what the treaty says.
You know, this is what you know, thefederal government said they would take care of us.
And so,
why would y'all move here and
then and then take all of our oil moneyand leave Seminole County
just dry?
It's, well, this is Seminole County,and Tulsa

(57:00):
were one of the richest placesin all of America.
(Thompson)Yeah. Peak production July 30, 1927,
527,000 barrels were pumped.
And in 1927 through 1929,
over 150 million to 200 barrels of oil
in that time.It was a massive oil field.

(57:20):
At one time, it accountedfor 2.6% of the world's entire oil supply
during that era. Is itstill prolific for oil and gas out there?
(Tiger)I've lived in Seminole for 26 of my 27 years, and it's pretty,
yeah, I would
say the main climate out there.

(57:42):
This is definitely oil.(Blackburn) Reversion. Reclamation.
They'll go on inand with some secondary recovery.
But, I remember my dad lived in,he helped to start Seminole Junior College
in the 1960s.
And, he had a chance to buysome stripper oil wells.
At that time, oil was $10 a barrel,and he could have bought these
for almost nothing.
People were trying to sell them to anybody

(58:03):
who would take them,because it cost more to service
a well at $10 a barrelthan it did in income.
So he missed an opportunity,or I might have not ever been a historian.
I might have been a rich kid, a rich kid of a of an oil man.
But, you know, the oil patchis still going there, and
some production, butit's mainly what they call stripper wells.

(58:25):
(Thompson)Bob, I don't know, I can't really picture you as an oil tycoon.
Yeah. So, I don't know.
You have too many scruples for that.
Well, and I want to mention too,
before we close, but during this time of oil discovery
and exploration in Seminole County,we have the first female chief
of the Seminole Nation,and that's Alice Brown Davis.

(58:48):
She served from 1922until her death in 1935.
What do you want to say about her?
(Tiger)So one thing that's really cool about Alice Brown Davis is
she's kind of our 20th century resistanceto the United States.
And at that time, before 1969,a lot of our principal
chiefs were appointedby the president of United States.

(59:08):
At that time, the United States
wanted to bail on these landsbecause of the oil rush.
And so one of the places that was
sought after was Emahaka School.
And so they they bring in different chiefslike George Harrison and
Hulputta Micco and, and then they bring Alice Brown Davis and they're saying, no,
we're not going to sell lands toyou guys. You've already taken plenty enough.

(59:28):
And so Alice Brown Davis stayedas a "no" person during that whole time
of her her reignas the principal chief of the nation.
And so we really look up to her as,as we know when that final resistance to,
you know, to the bigger portion of the forceon the government, you know,
but you know, later in the 1969on, on March 8, Seminole Nation

(59:49):
finally ratifies their own constitutionso we can actually operate
without any type of interferencefrom the United States presidents.
And so, that gives us the opportunityto elect our
our principal chief, our assistant chief,and our tribal council.
And we still go by that to this day.
(Blackburn)Two things, Trait,
I'd like to add to that is, a descendant of Alice Brown Davis

(01:00:10):
is Jesse Ed Davis, the famousguitarist. You know, we've already done
an entire podcast on Jesse Ed, buthe's related to her and I admire, her.
When I was added to "The Chronicles"in the 1980s, I published an article
by someone who did a biography of her,and I admire her a lot.
I use her as one of the womenin Oklahoma history we need to emulate.
But getting tribal sovereignty back has been so important,

(01:00:32):
not just for the Seminole people,but to me, it's good for the state.
We have some political leaderswho don't want to deal
with the tribes as equals, but they areequals in terms of federal law.
So if you look at the law of the land,
tribes have their own sovereigngovernments, and they're supposed
to be treated as equals in this giveand take between

(01:00:53):
states and cities and counties and tribesand the federal government.
But yeah, some people say,no, no, we want to disregard that.
We've got to respect tribal sovereignty.
People need to understand the importanceof that and how it's not just
a way to make up for past offensesand bad treatment,
but it should have always been there,and the tribes

(01:01:15):
never gave up all of theirsovereignty anyway.
They may have lost the abilityto have their own education
system or their own law enforcement,but they kept that sovereignty
in terms of being peoplewho had a community, a sense of community.
And what we've done now with the lawsince the 1960s and '70s,
starting with JFK and Lyndon BainesJohnson, even Richard Nixon,

(01:01:36):
and then finally in the 1970s and '80s,we start getting the ability
to resurrect tribal government,treating all of the community
with housing, with nutrition,with law enforcement.
And that's what we're dealing with now.
And because it's evolving,as the Seminoles have always evolved,
Seminoles are coming upwith their own version of

(01:01:57):
of industry, you know, business,government, the way it shapes.
And every tribe is different.
And it should reflect the waythe Seminole want their government to be.
And I know we've been throughsome troubles with tribal leadership,
but I think that we're goingto we're going to emerge from that.
And I think the Seminole people

(01:02:18):
will find this way in the future,
but we've got to respect that
it's your right to decidewho your leader's going to be
and how your government looks,not the way that we want it to be
just because we're in a state governmentor the federal government.
So I think that respecthas to be first respect,
and then the the actual ability to help,you know, people will be there.

(01:02:41):
(Tiger)Absolutely.
I always tell folks the treatiesare the supreme law of the land.
No matter where you arein the United States,
all those treatiesthat pertain to where you are,
regarding the Indian nationsthat are here, that's the
supreme law of the land.
So I appreciate you forsaying that Dr. Blackburn.
(Thompson)Well, I want to say,
Jake, it's been so great to have youon this podcast, sharing your knowledge

(01:03:04):
with everyone out there, which,as you all have heard, is extensive.
But also everything that you're doingto keep the traditions
of your people aliveand to keep those stories alive
and all of the ways that you sharethatn not only in your official role
at the Seminole Nation,but in all of the things that you do
as a volunteer to get out thereand share those stories.

(01:03:26):
So we appreciate you so much.(Tiger) Absolutely.
I, like I said last week,you know, Trait, as long as I'm here
I'll support our historic sitesand OHS and support education.
That's why I'm here.
(Thompson)Very good.
Well Bob, it's been another great episode.
I just always enjoy these conversations,and I can't wait to hear
what we're going to talk about next.

(01:03:46):
(Blackburn)Well same here, and thank you for joining us.
I always learn
when I deal with my Indian friendsand learning more about your culture.
So thank you for sharing.(Tiger) Mvto. (upbeat music playing)
(Thompson)With that, we will see you next time.
You've been listening to "A Very OK Podcast,"
hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn.

(01:04:07):
The podcast is produced by the OklahomaHistorical Society.
Visit us at okhistory.org,and find us on social media
by searching for @okhistory.
I encourage you to purchase a membershipto the OHS to help us continue our mission
to collect, preserve, and shareOklahoma's unique and fascinating history. (music fades out)