Africans and Seminoles: From Removal to Emancipation (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies: Contemporary Black Poets)

This narrative recounts the history of peoples of African descent among the Seminoles from the mid-1830s to the end of the Civil War.
Because Seminoles held slaves in a confusing system that was markedly dissimilar to institutionalized slavery, the federal government was challenged to identify which blacks in Florida were free and which were not. The two societies were so closely linked that, when the government implemented its program of removal, Seminoles and African Americans were transported to Oklahoma together.
However, once on their new lands Seminoles and blacks fell into strife with Creeks, Cherokees, and Arkansans. These disputes drove a wedge between the Seminoles and their black allies.
Until the Civil War, blacks were hounded by slave claims that had followed them from the east and by raids of Creeks and white slavers from Arkansas. Many blacks were captured and sold. Others fled from Indian Territory and settled in Mexico.