People of SPIRIT

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A historical perspective:

From the beginning of US history,
American Natives & Africans had
a historical relationship.

Indians who escaped
European enslavement
helped free
enslaved Africans.

Whites feared
an Indian/African alliance.
The 1st recorded fight for
rights & freedom on US
soil occurred in 1526.
The struggle was organized
& executed by coalitions
of Africans & Indians.

Whites feared communities
of escaped Africans.
The largest of these
communities, the
"Republic of Palmores,"
originated in the 1600s,
& at its peak had a
population of approximately
11,000. This community was
composed of Africans & Indians.

It contained (3) villages,
spiritual gathering places,
shops, and operated under
its own legal system.
Its army repelled white
military attacks until 1694.

White reaction to such
communities was extreme
despite their limited numbers.
Whites sought to keep the
two peoples separated
and, if possible, mutually
hostile. They taught Africans
to fight Indians & bribed
Indians to hunt escaped
Africans promising lucrative
rewards. Further sowing
division, Whites introduced
African slavery into the
Five Civilized Nations in
the United States.

The most powerful
African-Indian alliance
linked escaped Africans
who had settled in
Florida, and Seminoles,
who were fleeing the
Creek federation.

The Africans taught the
Indians rice cultivation,
and the groups formed
an agricultural and
military alliance.

In 1816, a US soldier
reported that prosperous
plantations existed for
fifty miles along the
banks of the Apalachicola
River. The African-Seminole
forces repeatedly repelled
US slaveholders' posses
& the US Army. The purchase
of Florida from Spain was
the US attempt to eliminate
it as a refuge for runaways.

Before the Civil War, many
Native American nations
on the eastern seaboard
of the United States
became biracial communities.

African descendants were
represented in the
Trail of Tears.
(6) dark complexioned
Seminoles were members
of its governing council.

John Horse, a Seminole
Chief (having a dark skin
tone) was a master
marksman and diplomat
in Florida and Oklahoma
and by the time of the
Civil War.

Chief Horse negotiated a
treaty w/ the US. On
July 4, 1870. When his
Seminole nation crossed
into Texas, it was a
historic moment: an
African people had
arrived together as a
nation, under the
command of, Chief
John Horse.

Today, many
African Americans
can trace their
ancestry to an
Indian tribe.

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