Black Seminoles
Under the Black Seminoles will be understood from the plantations in Georgia and South Carolina to Florida fled into the tribal areas of the Seminole slaves of African origin and their descendants.
Some had also acquired by the Spaniards and the British the Seminoles. Most of them will have heard before fleeing to Florida to the Gullah. "Black Seminoles " is a contemporary term, as they called themselves at the time, is not known.
It developed after her escape to the Seminoles from the late 18th century independent settlements of the black Seminoles with a vassal -like relationship with the Seminoles ( fees to the villages of Indian Seminoles and in turn protection by the Indians). Upon their arrival they received tools and seeds for their villages. Their society was similar to the set up of the Indian Seminoles. The leadership of the loose tribe was mixed from the black and Indian Seminoles. They planted in agriculture, especially rice and corn and took over the American Indian clothing. The Seminoles took over the cultivation of rice and the music of the black Seminoles. After some time, there were also marriages between black and Indian Seminoles and thus mixed villages.
From the white settlers the inclusion of blacks was considered critical for the Seminoles and feared there could be further escape attempts of black slaves. The inclusion of blacks by the Indian Seminoles took Andrew Jackson as a reason for the invasion of Florida in 1817. During the two Seminole Wars ( 1817-1818 and 1835-1842 ), where the black Seminoles fought together with the Indians fled, some black Seminoles on the Bahamas. During the Second Seminole it came with the help of the black Seminoles to several uprisings of black slaves on the plantations in Florida and overflows of the slaves to the Seminoles.
Most of them were after the Second Seminole War, together with the Indian Seminoles in the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, deported ( Trail of Tears ). They lived by the white settlers and the supervision of the slavery also operated Creek partly again in a state of slavery.
Today, Black Seminoles live mostly in Oklahoma but also in Texas, the Bahamas and Mexico ( in Coahuila ). Languages are predominantly English and Spanish but also African- Seminolisches Creole (Afro - Seminole Creole ) and Muskogee.
In Mexico, they call themselves Indians Mascogos, in Texas as Seminoles and Oklahoma as Freedmen (English for Exempt people ).
Seminole Negro Indian Scouts and the Boy Scouts as in use for the U.S. Army were known.