Miccosukee (Amerind tribe)

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida.

They are part of the Seminole nation until the mid-twentieth century, when they organize as an independent tribe, receiving federal recognition in 1962.

The Miccosukee speak the Mikasuki language, which is mutually intelligible with the Hitchiti language, is considered its dialect, and is also spoken by many Florida Seminole.

Historically, the Miccosukee trace their origins to the Lower Chiaha, one of the tribes of the Creek Confederacy in present-day Georgia.

Under pressure from European encroachment in their territory, they migrate to northern Florida in the early eighteenth century, where they become part of the developing Seminole nation.

By the late eighteenth century, the British record the name Miccosukee or Mikasuki as designating a Hitchiti-speaking group centered on the village of Miccosukee in the Florida Panhandle.

Like other Seminole groups, they are displaced during the Seminole Wars (1817–1858), and many migrate or are forced to relocate west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory in 1842, after the second Seminole Wars, in which the Miccosukee chief Ar-pi-uck-i, also known as Sam Jones, proves an effective leader.

Descendants of those who remain in Florida are concentrated in the central part of the state.

In the 1920s and 1930s, many Seminole establish communities along the Tamiami Trail, a roadway completed in 1928 that runs through the Everglades and connects the cities of Tampa and Miami.

The Trail Indians, as they are called, generally keepmore traditional practices.

They are less interested in establishing formal relations with the federal government than those Cow Creek Seminole to the north who start moving to reservations around the same time.

In 1953, the Seminole are identified for termination of federal status; the Seminole Tribe of Florida organizes as a tribe and is recognized in 1957.

That process had pointed up cultural differences between the groups, and the Miccosukee gain state recognition separately this year, and federal recognition in 1962.

The Traditionals or Independents do not affiliate with either tribe.