The selling of America has begun, the flyer above speaks volumes.
The selling of America has begun, the flyer above speaks volumes.
The band was one of the two major elements of Seminole Society. Originally, each band was a separate Tribe which later joined with the others to form the Seminole Tribe in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Throughout the history of the Seminole Nation, the band was of primary importance to the Seminole people.
The band was the center of religious life; first with the great annual ceremonies such as the Green Corn Dance, and later with the churches. It was also the center of political and legal life. The band Chief, his assistant, and one of the band counselors from each band formed the Tribal Council. Within the band, the band Chiefs and the counselors made the laws for that band and served as a court to settle disputes within the band. The band also was a focus of economic life for the Seminole. Each band had a communal field which was worked by all of its able-bodied members. The produce of the field was under the control of the Chief and was used to feed guests, provide for orphans and the destitute, and to help with the expenses of running the band.
Through time, the number of bands has been steadily reduced, as some bands died out or joined with other, related bands. In the 1830’s in Florida, there may have been as many as 35 bands, in 1860 there were 24, and by 1879 there were only 14 bands – the current number. In 1866, two new bands were recognized. These were both Freedmen bands composed of Negroes who had been associated with the Seminole since before removal.
They are the Dosar Barkus Band
and The Caesar Bruner Band
Band membership was determined by birth and a person belonged to the band of their mother. While it was possible to change bands, this required the permission of both bands; and band membership was usually for life. Bands were frequently known by the name of their Chief and therefore the names would frequently change when a new Chief was selected. The bands were also known on occasion by their old tribal names.
The 14 band monuments can be found on the grounds of the Mekasukey Mission, south of Seminole, Oklahoma
Representatives of the Seminole nation of Oklahoma convene at Fort Pike, New Orleans on June 14, 2009 to honor tribal patriot Seminole War Chief Jumper.
It is with honor and gratitude the Seminole Nations returns to this historic site to pay tribute to a great warrior who served his family, relatives and fellow Seminoles in a time of great upheaval as a resistance leader in the war against Indian Removal. Seminole War Chief Jumper epitomizes the Spirit of the Seminole and his undying will to serve his country and his people. The Seminole Nation honors all of its men and women who dies at Fort Pike and Jackson Barracks while in route to Indian Country as prisoners of war. The Seminole nation honors all of our ancestors whose will and determination was to be free.
The Seminole Nation Honor/Color Guard recognizes and honors this Freedom Spirit in its service to the Defense of the United States of America and thanks to the Louisiana Office of State Parks and Louisiana National Guard for its participation in the military ceremonies conducted in honor of Chief Jumper.
The Seminole Burning Case was one of the most sensational of Indian Territory. There was almost a full page in the New York “Herald” of June 18, 1899, describing the crime which instigated the burnings and the trial held before Judge R. Thomas relative to the mob action. A court scene is depicted, along with pictures of Judge Thomas and some of the principals in the case as well as the Muskogee jail. The account was given as follows:
Men who lynched Indians by burning must pay the lawful penalty-conviction of the ringleaders of Oklahoma mob which wreaked vengeance on two young Seminoles suspected of an awful crime creates a sensation in the Indian country.
With the conviction of several members of the mob who in January, 1898, burned two Indians accused of an atrocious crime, lynch law in the Indian Territory and Oklahoma has received a blow which will go far to exterminate it. Fifty-two indictments were found against members of the mob, and only one of the five whose trials have been completed have escaped conviction, although it is hardly likely that the large proportion of convictions will be maintained, as the evidence being presented at the trials now going on is hardly direct as in the first few trials.
The crime for which Lincoln McGeisey and Palmer Sampson, young Seminoles, were burned at the stake, while a howling mob, maddened with liquor, danced around them, was a most revolting one, but whether they were guilty or not, it is not likely will ever be known. What purported their confessions, it is true, were offered in evidence, but if they were confessions, they were wrung from perhaps innocent men after the cruelest torture to which they were put. Time and again they were strung up until the life was nearly choked out of them. Their death was one of the most horrible imaginable. As is in mockery of justice, when the brush had been heaped about them, an man-a minister of the gospel-knelt beside the doomed Indians and prayed with them. As he arose from his knees, the evidence in the recent trial shows, it was he who applied the torch.
Stoically, the Indians went to their death. One of them, it is true, when the pain was unbearable, leaned forward and sucked the flames into his lungs. But the other, like the braves among his ancestors who had silently borne the worst tortures enemies could devise, stood erect until the flames ended his life, a dreadful punishment at the best made still more dreadful by the thought that the victims might have been innocent of the crime laid on them.
Crime An Atrocious One
On the farm of Thomas McGeisey, one of the leading members of the Seminole tribe, lived a young farmer, Julius Leard, a white man. On December 30, 1897, while Leard was away, his wife was attacked by two Indian boys. The children of the Leards saw their mother slain and were the only witnesses to the tragedy. They were unable to identify any of the score or more of Indian boys whom the infuriated whites seized and brought before them.
Shortly before the murder was discovered, a frenzied mob of Oklahomans, under the leadership of Nelson Jones and Sam Pryor known as “Tex” or “Texas Ranger,” scoured the country for miles, and Lincoln McGeisey was the first arrested. Leard’s child said he was not the man who killed his mother, but Jones put him in chains and held him prisoner with John Washington and George Harjo, two other Seminoles, from Sunday until the next Friday night, January 7,1898 when Palmer Sampson was brought in by Pryor and others.
The crime for which Lincoln McGeisey and Palmer Sampson, young Seminoles, were burned at the stake, while a howling mob, maddened with liquor, danced around them, was a most revolting one, but whether they were guilty or not, it is not likely will ever be known. What purported their confessions, it is true, were offered in evidence, but if they were confessions, they were wrung from perhaps innocent men after the cruelest torture to which they were put. Time and again they were strung up until the life was nearly choked out of them. Their death was one of the most horrible imaginable. As is in mockery of justice, when the brush had been heaped about them, an man-a minister of the gospel-knelt beside the doomed Indians and prayed with them. As he arose from his knees, the evidence in the recent trial shows, it was he who applied the torch.
Stoically, the Indians went to their death. One of them, it is true, when the pain was unbearable, leaned forward and sucked the flames into his lungs. But the other, like the braves among his ancestors who had silently borne the worst tortures enemies could devise, stood erect until the flames ended his life, a dreadful punishment at the best made still more dreadful by the thought that the victims might have been innocent of the crime laid on them.
Crime An Atrocious One
On the farm of Thomas McGeisey, one of the leading members of the Seminole tribe, lived a young farmer, Julius Leard, a white man. On December 30, 1897, while Leard was away, his wife was attacked by two Indian boys. The children of the Leards saw their mother slain and were the only witnesses to the tragedy. They were unable to identify any of the score or more of Indian boys whom the infuriated whites seized and brought before them.
Both Indians Tortured
During the week, McGeisey and Washington had been hanged and tortured by the mob in an effort to compel them to confess their guilt or guilty knowledge of the crime. Each of them, although most fiendishly tortured, denied any knowledge of who murdered Mrs. Laird. Sampson was taken to a lonely and secluded place and there hanged and tortured until almost dead.
Whether or not he confessed the crime will probably never be known, but his captors reported that Sampson had confessed to being the murderer of Mrs. Leard, and that he had implicated Lincoln McGeisey.
Immediately, McGeisey and Sampson were loaded with chains, and in compliance with instructions of Deputy Marshall Nelson Jones and on the orders of Pryor, they were forcibly put into a wagon and guarded by a mob of from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five persons, driven across the line into Oklahoma, where they were chained to a tree and amid the frantic howls of the mob, burned to death.
The Territorial authorities of Oklahoma, while deprecating the lawless deed and deploring the unwarranted and unjustifiable conduct of this large number of its citizens of the Chickasaw country, found themselves thwarted in every effort to apprehend and bring to justice the guilty parties. Finally the United States Courts took the matter up and proceeded with an investigation. The Department of Justice employed Horace Speed of Guthrie, I. T. to assist the United States District Attorney and his assistants, Wilcox and Parker, in collecting the requisite testimony to be brought before the United States Grand Jury.
When the United States Court met at Vinita, I. T., in February, 1899, John R. Thomas, Judge of the United States for the Indian Territory, presided. Indictments were returned against fifty-two men. When the first case was called for trial, the defendants demanded a severance, which under the statute they had a right to do. The former Deputy Marshal, Nelson M. Jones, being the first defendant named in the indictment, was first put upon trial.
It was shown during Jones’ trial that he had recommended torturing the Indians, that he declared there was nothing too bad for the guilty men if they were caught, that he made no attempt to notify the marshal or to overawe(?) the mob, but that he had himself directed the mob to take the suspected Indians across the line into Oklahoma, so as to be out of the jurisdiction of the Indian Territory Courts. On this evidence, Jones was convicted on May 18th.
The conviction of Andrew J. Mathis quickly followed. It was shown that Mathis had knelt and prayed with the Indians just after they were fastened to the stake by chains. It was proved that immediately after praying with them, he had set fire to the brush that was heaped around them.
Not only did the Seminole Burning Case create a sensation nationally, but it was the lead story in every newspaper in both Indian and Oklahoma Territory.
The Congress awarded each of the families of the Seminoles $5,000 or $2,500 for the prosecution of the lynchers.
The trial continued until all 54 persons indicted were tried. As time passed some of the accused were acquitted, and others received lesser sentences.
The trial was changed to Wewoka, September 22, 1899. It was the first United States Court held in the Seminole Nation. An article in the Purcell “Register” stated that “Judge Thomas’ charge covered the usual ground but was uncommonly eloquent and patriotic even for the gifted jurists.”
The commissioner’s report of 1899 concerning indemnity granted indicated that a total of $13,078.75 was awarded, $5,000 for the burning of his son Lincoln McGeisey and $1,113.25 for property that had been destroyed. John Washington was awarded $500 for personal injury and $35 for loss of property. George Harjo was awarded $300 for personal injuries, as was William Thlloco. George Kernell received $100 for personal injuries. Seventeen others received $25 to $50 “for arrest and deprivation of liberty.”
“The Muskogee Times” of April 21, 1905 had an interesting article related to the Seminole Indian Burning Case. It stated that Nelson Jones, the Deputy United States Marshal, who was convicted for participation in connection with the lynching, sent Judge Thomas a cane made of leather inlaid with Masonic emblem.
This May Be the Last Time
2013, 90 min.
United States, Documentary
Director: Sterlin Harjo (Seminole, Creek)
In 1962, filmmaker Sterlin Harjo’s grandfather disappeared in Sasakwa, Oklahoma. As the Seminole and Creek community searched for him, its members sang their traditional ancient hymns of faith and hope. Harjo’s first feature-length documentary, This May Be the Last Time explores the disappearance of his grandfather and the origins of these songs. Interviewing community members, religious leaders and a musical historian, Harjo traces the creation of the their hymns, and their roots in Native, Scots-Irish, and African American musical traditions. The film shows that the hymns have been a source of support during times of duress, including the brutal Trail of Tears when the people were forcibly removed from their Southeast homelands to Indian Territory, well into the present. Harjo mostly interviews elders, with gentle rapport, but these scenes are also a poignant reminder that, if traditional hymn-singing is to continue, a younger generation must take it on.
For more information: www.thismaybethelasttimefilm.com
“One-place studies are a branch of family history with a focus on the entire population of a single village or community, not just a single, geographically dispersed family line.”
Honoring
Lighthorseman Billy Cully
Captain Thomas Cloud
Captain Sam Cudjo
https://www.odmp.org/agency/5032-seminole-nation-of-oklahoma-lighthorsemen-police-tribal-police