Seminoles

Seminoles, North American aborigines, a branch of the Muskhogean family (q.v.), formerly numerous and powerful in Florida and neighbouring districts, but in 1890 reduced to 2,539, of whom 200 still survived in Southern Florida, while all the rest had been removed to the Union Agency, Indian Territory. The Seminoles do not appear to bave been the primitive inhabitants of Florida, which was first held by Timuquanan tribes; but after the expulsion of the Apalachi by the English in 1702-8, the Seminoles, with the kindred Yamasi, were the only natives in occupation of the peninsula. Here they were gradually compelled by the progress of white settlement to give up agriculture and take refuge in the watery district of the Everglades, where they lived by the chase and fishing till removed to the Indian Territory.