The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida and now residing in Florida and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation was formed in the 18th century and was composed of Native Americans from Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, most significantly the Creek Nation, as well as African Americans who escaped to Florida from slavery in South Carolina and Georgia. While roughly 3,000 Seminoles were forced west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal, including the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, who picked up new members along their way, approximately 300 to 500 Seminoles stayed and fought in and around the Everglades of Florida. In a series of wars against the Seminoles in Florida, about 1,500 U.S. soldiers died. The Seminoles never surrendered to the United States government, hence, the Seminoles of Florida call themselves the "Unconquered People." Today they have sovereignty over their tribal lands and an economy based on tobacco sales, tourism, and gambling and entertainment.

The "Seminoles" are the symbol of the athletic teams of Florida State University. The university negotiated to gain agreement for use with the 3,100-member Seminole Tribe of Florida and the 6,000-member Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, which officially approved the relationship and details of the images and costumes.

History

After the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, the indigenous people of Florida were decimated by disease. It is believed that the few survivors were evacuated by the Spanish to Cuba when Florida fell under British rule in 1763.

In the 18th century, members of the Lower Creek Nation began migrating into Florida to remove themselves from the dominance of the Upper Creeks. They intermingled with the few remaining indigenous people there, some recently arrived as refugees after the Yamasee War such as the Yuchi, Yamasee, and others. They went on to be called "Seminole", a derivative of the Mvskoke' (a Creek language) word simano-li, an adaptation of the Spanish "cimarrón" which means "wild" (in their case, "wild men"), or "runaway" 1. The Seminole were a heterogeneous tribe made up of mostly Lower Creeks from Georgia, Mikasuki-speaking Muskogees, and escaped African-American slaves, and to a lesser extent, Indians from other tribes and white Europeans. The unified Seminole spoke two languages, Creek and Mikasuki (a modern dialect similar to Hitchiti), two different members of the Muskogean Native American languages family, a language group that includes Choctaw and Chickasaw. It is chiefly on linguistic grounds that the modern Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida maintain their separate identity today.Fact: date=February 2008

The Seminole were on good terms with both the Spanish and the British. In 1784, the treaty ending the American Revolutionary War returned all of Florida to Spanish control. The Spanish Empire's decline allowed the Seminole to settle more deeply into Florida. The Seminole were led by a dynasty of chiefs founded in the 18th century by Cowkeeper. This dynasty lasted until 1842, when the majority of Seminoles were forced to move from Florida to the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) after the Second Seminole War.