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Wild Cat's bones: Seminole leadership in a Seminole cosmos
Abstract
This is the first scholarly assessment of the career of Coacoochee, or Wild Cat (c. 1807-1857), a prominent figure in the Seminole people's defense of their homeland in Florida and in their subsequent experience in the American West and Mexico. Viewed through the lenses of Seminole cosmology and the scholarly methods of chronology and ethnohistory, Wild Cat appears as a brilliant leader, plying an ancient tradition of government but adapting it to rapidly changing conditions. Wild Cat's career may be understood as his performance of duties adhering to his position. A member of the Seminole ruling lineage, he was obligated to preserve his community, whose well-being depended on relations with other human communities and with spiritual entities including the spirits of their ancestors. The Seminoles' resistance to removal from Florida was embedded in their devotion to the graves of their forebears. During the war in Florida and the forced removal to the "Indian country" (present Oklahoma), and as the Seminoles began their adjustment in the West, Wild Cat rose through the Seminole governmental hierarchy. In 1849, his ascent to the top position was blocked, so he led his community of some two hundred Seminoles to the Mexican state of Coahuila. There he made a treaty with the Mexican government and founded a colony. Most of the Seminoles declined to follow him to Mexico, but he recruited a community of black persons (maroons), who had been with the Seminoles in Florida, and a community of Kickapoos. Wild Cat's Mexican colony had a realistic chance of success. At the time of Wild Cat's death, the governor of Coahuila was supporting the recruitment of more Seminoles and other indigenous groups to the colony. Wild Cat's Seminole followers returned to the Seminole nation in present Oklahoma, and Kickapoos acquired the Seminoles' land grant in Mexico. Today, the Kickapoos use that land base to preserve their ceremonial ways. Wild Cat's Mexican colony might have provided a similar shelter for the ancient Seminole ceremonies.
Subject Area
History|American history|Latin American history|Biographies
Recommended Citation
Miller, Susan Allison, "Wild Cat's bones: Seminole leadership in a Seminole cosmos" (1997). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9734628.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9734628