DADE CITY – Six hundred years of the history of Seminoles was the topic of the Florida Tradition event Oct. 26 at the Pioneer Florida Museum & Village.
This was the second year that the museum has held the event.
“A Herculean effort by the community and the museum’s staff and volunteers was necessary to make this event possible because of the damage the museum sustained from Hurricane Milton,” Andy Warrener told event-goers.
Warrener, who has been the museum’s curator for five years, thanked those who helped make the event possible.
This year’s event focused on 20th century Florida and Seminole history, including two demonstrations of alligator handling provided by conservationist and educator Pharaoh Gayles; a 16th century arms exhibition; lectures from Annette Fromm, Patsy West and Dale Cox; and hands-on artistry and demonstrations with the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum and Seminole Tribe of Florida.
Florida Humanities provided a Community Project Grant in partnership with the museum for the second successive year to help fund part of the event’s expenses.
Pharaoh Gayles, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission-licensed handler and alligator wrestling champion, explained that it was customary in the past for Seminole Indians to capture, transport, kill, cook and eat alligators to provide nutrition for themselves, their family and/or tribe members. The alligators weren’t killed where they had been captured because their bodies could decay as they were being transported back to where they were going to be consumed, Gayles said.
He then demonstrated the method by which alligators could be handled safely after they had been captured. One of the most dangerous aspects of that was to hold the alligator’s closed mouth between his head and his chest as he fastened something around its head so the alligator couldn’t reopen its mouth.
Little Big Mountain, an educator and entertainer, told onlookers about the different types of weapons that Native Americans used as far back as 7,500 years ago. He and a partner then showed some of the types of weapons that were available to Native Americans 500 years ago. Spears of different types were then thrown to demonstrate both the length and accuracy they could attain.
This was followed by a 45-minute lecture by museum specialist/folklorist Annette Fromm.
Part of her presentation included showing digital copies of a large number of paintings that numerous artists, including some Seminoles, had painted over the past few hundred years.
She discussed how Native Americans of several different tribes had existed in North America for thousands of years prior to its “discovery” by explorers in the late 1400s. She added that those indigenous people were the real discoverers of North America.
She also talked about how safe the Native Americans had been prior to immigration by people from England, France and Spain as well as from other nations from the early 1500s onwards.
Those newly arrived people didn’t realize how peaceful and well-organized Native Americans were, Fromm said. They were mistakenly considered savages, and people new to North America in those days sought to either kill them or force them to relocate to places far away from where they had lived for generations, Fromm said.
This led to three Seminole wars that occurred in 1817-18, 1835-42 and 1855-58.
In addition, the “immigrants” misunderstood the leadership of the Seminoles as well as that of other Native American tribes, Fromm said. Chiefs did lead the tribes but there were also other rankings or hierarchies within the society of those tribes, she said.
For instance, many people were mistaken about the role of Osceola, one of the most well-known members of the Seminoles. He wasn’t a chief, Fromm said. Rather, he was an influential leader during the Second Seminole War who was renowned for his strategic thinking, charisma and ability to unite different factions of the Seminole tribe against common threats.
Although he was renowned as a warrior, Osceola died of malaria in a prison where he had been confined after Gen. Joseph Hernandez had captured him on the orders of Gen. Thomas Jesup. Osceola was attempting to surrender under a white flag when he was captured, according to Fromm.
About the museum
The Pioneer Florida Museum & Village is located at 15602 Pioneer Museum Road. Call 352-567-0262 or visit pioneerfloridamuseum.org to learn more about the museum.