RACES: Leave Them Alone

In the depths of the Everglades last fortnight were secret rejoicings. In many a primitive Indian village, protected from the inquisitive white man by evil-smelling swamps, warriors and squaws grunted their satisfaction at the news that, after a 100 years of botheration, the U. S. was at last to let them alone in their dank solitude.

In 1832 the U. S. made a treaty with the Seminole Indians* whereby they ceded their Florida lands to the U. S., promised to move to what is now Arkansas. They failed to move. The Seminole War (1835-42), fiercest of Indian struggles, followed. Defeated, the Seminoles fled, some to Arkansas, many more into the murky wilderness of the Everglades. Solicitous of their welfare, the U. S. began an attempt to round them up out of the swamps where they have remained to this good day. A 23,542-acre reservation in Florida was waiting for them if only they would come out of their retreat and live on it.

Lately U. S. Indian agents, weary with much swamp-chasing, returned to Washington, reported only the slowest progress in their century-old attempt to corral the Seminoles. Asked Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur: “How long have these Indians been taking care of themselves?” “As long as we have known anything about them,” was the reply.

Ordered Secretary Wilbur: “Well, then, leave them alone. Forget about putting them on a reservation.”

* Properly Simanoli, meaning “renegade” or “runaway,” because this tribe in the 18th century seceded from the Creek confederacy.