By the early 19th century, these people of African descent had often formed communities near the Seminoles Native Americans. Together, the group formed a multi-ethnic and bi-racial alliance.
Today, Black Seminoles descendants still live in Florida, rural communities in Oklahoma and Texas, and in the Bahamas and northern Mexico.
In the 19th century, the Florida "Black Seminoles" were called "Seminoles Negroes" by their white American enemies and "Estelusti" (Black People), by their Native American allies.
Modern Black Seminoles are Known as "Seminoes Freedmen" in Oklahoma, "Seminoes Scouts" in Texas, "Black Indians" in the Bahamas, and "Mascogos" in Mexico.
In 18-century Spanish Florida, Black Seminoes became a distinct group, as escaped slaves were welcomed by the Spanish Government. Spain gave land to some Muscogee (Creek) Native Americans. Over time the Creeks were joined by other groups of Native Americans, such as the Micosukee and the Apalachicola, and formed communities. By 1822, they had formed a new nation and took the name of Seminoes.
The Spanish strategy for defending Florida was based at first on organizing the indigenous Native Americans into a mission system. The mission Native Americans were to serve as militia to protect the colony from English incursions from the north. But a combination of raids by South Carolina colonists and new European diseases to which they did not have immunity decimated Florida's Native population.
After the local Native Americans had all but died out, Spanish authorities encouraged renegade Native Americans and runaway slaves from England's North American colonies to move south. The Spanish were hoping these traditional enemies of the English would prove effective in holding off English expansion. As early as 1689, African Slaves fled from the South Carolina lowcountry to Spanish Florida seeking freedom. Under an edict from King Charles II of Spain in 1693, the black fugitives received liberty in exchange for defending the Spanish settlers at St. Augustine.
The Spanish organized the black volunteers into a militia. Their settlement at Fort Mose,(pronounced "Moh-say"), founded in 1738, was the first legally sanctioned free black town in North American. Not all slaves escaping south found military service in St Augustine to their liking. It is more likely that many more runaway slaves sought refuge in wilderness areas in Northern Florida where there knowledge of tropical agriculture and resistance to tropical diseases serve them well.
Most of the blacks who pioneered Florida were Gullah people who escaped from the rice plantations in South Carolina (and later Georgia). As Gullahs, they had preserved much of their African language and culture heritage and their African leadership structure. These Gullah pioneers built their own settlements based on rice and corn agriculture. They were allies to Native Americans escaping into Florida at the same time.
Florida had been a refuge for runaway slaves for at least seventy years by the time of the American Revolution. Communities of Black Seminoes were established on the outskirts of major Seminoes towns. A new influx of freedom-seeking blacks reached Florida during the American Revolution (1775-1783). Several thousand American slaves agreed to fight for the British in exchange for liberty and were called black Loyalists. (Florida was under British control throughout the conflict). During the revolution, Seminole Native Americans also allied with the British, and Africans and Seminoes came into increased contact with each other.
Members of both communities sided again with the British against the US during the War of 1812, solidifying ties and earning the wrath of the wars American hero General Andrew Jackson. When Africans and Seminoes first started to interact, the Native Americans were also migrants to Florida. Their community evolved over the late 18 century and early as waves of Creek Native Americans left present-day George and Alabama. By the time the American naturalist William Bartram visited them in 1773, the Seminoes had their own tribal name, derived from "cimarron," the Spanish word for runaway, which connoted the tribe's breakaway status from the Creeks. Cimarron was also the source of the English word "maroon," used to describe the runaway slave communities of Florida, the Caribbean, and other parts of The New World.
The Black Seminoles culture took shape after 1800 was a dynamic mixture of African Native American, Spanish, and slave traditions. In the tradition of the Native Americans, maroons wore Seminole clothing, strained Koonti (a native root), and made sofkee, a paste created by mashing corn with a mortar and pestle.
Initially living apart from the Native Americans, however, the maroons developed their own unique African-American. Black Seminoes inclined toward a syncretic form christianty inherited from their lives on the plantations. Certain cultural practices, such as jumping the broom to celebrate marriage, hailed from the plantations; other customs such as the names used for black towns echoed Africa as time progressed Seminoes and Blacks intermixed at high rates. Seminoles King Phillip even married a black Seminole and had a half black child with her.
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