Seminoles Fight On

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31376, 23 May 1967, Page 6

Seminoles Fight On

(From FRANK OLIVER, special correspondent N.Z.P.A.) BOCA GRANDE (Florida). Everything seems topsy-turvy these days and this is certainly so among the Seminole Indians of Florida,

through whose territory I have just been making a brief trip.

An Indian squaw has just been named, by election, the chairman of the tribal council of the Seminoles, the last of a tribe which fought three wars against the United States in the 19th century and which has yet to make a peace treaty with Washington. She is Betty Mae Jumper, a mother of three, the first Seminole to graduate from high school and who runs a camping ground in Seminole territory. She is the first known Indian to head an Indian tribal council.

Aged 44, Mrs Jumper Is described as a hefty squaw and her 2401 b husband, who obviously keeps up with things, says he is proud of her and that he feels like George Wallace: “She is my Lurleen,” he comments. Legal Claim*

Mrs Jumper intends to press the legal actions the tribe has had in motion against the United States for the last 20 years. Seminole land, says the tribe, has, over the years, been taken from them by the “Great White Father” in Washington and they want it back, including, of all things, Miami Beach, the real estate value of which must be a figure comparable to the United States national debt. This legal war is one the tribe is not expected to win any more than Lurleen Wai-

lace is expected to win her “war” against Washington.

The last United StatesSeminole war was in 1835 and after losing 1500 dead and spending 30 million dollars, the United States gave up the struggle (withdrawal with honour was apparently as possible then as it is impossible today in Vietnam). The Seminoles withdrew to the everglades, then almost impenetrable to whites, and resumed their tribal life. Today, the nation numbers about a thousand, scattered over three reservations, and just over 400 were entitled to vote for a tribal chief. The turn-out was good by American standards, 75 per cent, and although electioneering was carried on in the Miccousukee language, ballots had to be printed in English because the tribal language has never been reduced to writing. Mrs Jumper says the Seminoles will continue their war against the United States, hastening to add, “in the Courts and not on the battleground." The Seminoles still consider themselves at war and they claim most of the state of Florida which, they claim, was taken from them without compensation. “We’ll take back Miami beach,” she said, but took care to laugh when she said it The tribe wants a great deal of money if they do not get the land, but Mrs Jumper says she cannot remember the amount.