156 Culture, Identity, and Community: From Slavery to the Presentcultural aspects as the dress, food, and shelter style of the
Seminoles. Further, there is evidence of West African infl u-
ences on Seminole artwork. However, although marooned
slaves did become incorporated into some aspects of Semi-
nole communities and maroons, and Seminoles did have
cultural infl uences on each other, this incorporation did
not always occur via the creation of kinship ties. In fact,
maroons oft en did not actually become members of indig-
enous Seminole communities or kinship circles. Intermar-
riage occurred, but infrequently. Seminole kinship is based
on matrilineality, which would have meant, for instance,
that babies born to black women would have been outside
the bounds of Seminole kinship.
Th e relationship between the African maroons and the
Seminoles was strengthened by their shared confl ict with
white Southerners and the U.S. government. Confl ict be-
tween the Seminoles and Africans and the United States
coalesced in the early 19th century, aft er proposals arose
that threatened to force the removal of the Seminoles from
Florida. Aft er 1812, white Southerners, who saw the Afro-
Seminole communities as threats to the slaveholding South,
were determined to try to remove the Seminoles from the
region. As a result, politicians conspired to relocate Native
Americans to “Indian Territory,” in what is now Oklahoma.
Th is confl ict resulted in the destruction of two Seminole
settlements in Florida and many Seminoles and Africans
fl eeing into the swamplands. Other confl icts resulting from
white interference ensued in the years that followed, in-
cluding battles against Andrew Jackson during the First
Seminole War, which occurred from 1817 to 1819.
On May 28, 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal
Act, which sought to address the concerns of white South-
erners in Florida who felt that the presence of the Seminole
communities encouraged slaves to abscond and that the
maroons and Seminoles threatened their livelihood. Kevin
Mulroy argues that the cooperative resistance mounted by
Seminoles and Africans was based on two fears. First, black
maroons became concerned that their freedom would be
threatened by this removal, and second, indigenous Semi-
noles feared the loss of tributaries from their slaves if they
were to be moved.
Th e Second Seminole War began in 1835, following
the proposed Indian Removal Act. Th e U.S. army employed
divide-and-conquer tactics that initially worked but ulti-
mately backfi red, given that whites were unsure what to do
with the black Seminole maroons. It was feared that if theycostumes, most historians have neglected fraternal societ-
ies despite their historic importance.
See also: Benevolent Societies; Prince Hall Masonry
David M. FaheyBibliography
Fahey, David M., ed. Th e Black Lodge in White America: “True
Reformer” Browne and His Economic Strategy. Dayton, OH:
Wright State University Press, 1994.
Marlowe, Gertrude Woodruff. A Right Worthy Grand Mission: Mag-
gie Lena Walker and the Quest for Black Economic Empower-
ment. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 2003.
Mjagkij, Nina, ed. Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of
African American Associations. New York: Garland, 2001.
Skocpol, Th eda, Ariane Liazos, and Marshall Ganz. African Ameri-
can Fraternal Groups, Civil Democracy, and the Struggle for
Equal Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
forthcoming.
Black Seminoles
Th e term Black Seminoles refers to escaped black slaves
and free Africans in the antebellum American South who
fl ed plantation slavery and joined indigenous Seminole
communities in Florida. Independent communities com-
posed of fugitives were known as maroons. Th e maroons
that produced Black Seminole people began in the late 18th
and early 19th centuries, as fugitive slaves headed south to
Florida in greater numbers.
Th ere were several ways in which Africans became incor-
porated into Seminole communities. Initially, Seminole peo-
ple, particularly those in powerful political positions within
the community, purchased black slaves. Seminole slavery
was quite diff erent from the plantation slavery in the Ameri-
can South. Blacks enslaved by Seminoles owed relatively
little to their masters and oft en had infrequent interactions
with them. Generally, Seminoles who owned slaves expected
only a yearly tribute from them. Enslaved people were also
sometimes captured from plantations. Th is happened fre-
quently during times of confl ict, when the Seminoles needed
to increase their fi ghting forces. Finally, runaway slaves from
white plantations also formed alliances with the Seminoles.
African maroon communities existed alongside Semi-
nole communities, and cooperation developed between
them. Cultural syncretism occurred between Africans and
the Seminoles in this context, as Africans adopted such