The Enduring Seminoles
The Enduring Seminoles
From Alligator Wrestling to Casino Gaming
Florida Historical Society Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award
A history of the cultural tourism activities of the Florida Seminoles
In the early twentieth century, the Florida Seminoles struggled to survive in an environment altered by the drainage of the Everglades and a dwindling demand for animal hides. This revised and expanded edition of The Enduring Seminoles, now updated with a new preface, discusses the cultural tourism activities of the Seminoles over the decades that followed.
By the 1930s almost all of the Florida Seminole population was engaged in the tourist market. They participated in fairs and expositions in Chicago, New York, and Canada. In large commercial Seminole villages in Miami and Ocala, they sewed brightly colored patchwork, wrestled alligators, and opened their palm-frond chickees to the public. Their exhibition economy provided income for families, and today, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida promote their tourist activities to worldwide markets.
Drawing on interviews with many Seminoles and extending to the Seminole Tribe’s purchase of the Hard Rock Café business in 2007, The Enduring Seminoles provides a colorful social and economic history of an unconquered people.
“Deserves a wide audience. . . . It is sophisticated enough for a university seminar but filled with appeal for anyone interested in Native Americans, Florida history or the interaction of tourists and native peoples.”—Tampa Tribune
“Should make some scholars look again at what they thought were the effects of commercial enterprises on the lives of American Indian people in this hemisphere.”—American Indian Quarterly
“Engrossing. . . . West has shown us just how vital tourism has been to the Seminoles and the Miccosukees.”—Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“Packed full of stories and details about Florida tribes and tourism.”—Orlando Sentinel
Patsy West, director of the Seminole/Miccosukee Archive in Gainesville, Florida, is coauthor of A Seminole Legend: The Life of Betty Mae Tiger Jumper and author of The Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes of Southern Florida.
