Traditional Seminoles hold land only through a white family’s goodwill lease

Evidence

The traditional Seminoles have lived for the past four generations on some land near Immokalee, land which, according to the white man’s law, belongs to a family named English. In the 1880s, the first Englishes moved south from Georgia to grow winter vegetables and citrus crops. It was then, as the story is told, that some otherwise reclusive Seminoles, who used the name Billie in their interactions with non-Indians, were willing to help the English clan out, with some tips on how to make it in the subtropical jungle. That began a friendship and, a generation later, a deathbed wish that the Billies would always have a place for their chickees on the Englishes’ property. Today, the traditional Seminole community is nestled in the middle of this citrus farm. The story is that the handshake has been replaced with a lease for a dollar a year. The English family is a friend of the Billies and, when the state of Florida and Collier County have shown up with complaints in the past, the family has stood by its friends. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 218

Categorization

• XREF: The refusal of private ownership means the community holds land at the sufferance of a non-Indigenous title-holder — the precise legal gap Johnson v. M’Intosh and fee-simple doctrine creates for those who reject it, and a fragility under white-man’s law. — connects to: Federal land policy reserved property for whites by race alone, not competence — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 335; Black Seminoles marched from Florida to freedom in Mexico in 1850 — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 138
• QUESTION: What happens to the Billies’ land when the English family line or lease arrangement fails — is there any legal protection for de facto occupancy without title?

Broader Connections

• Federal land policy reserved property for whites by race alone, not competence #corroborates (0.75) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 335
• Black Seminoles marched from Florida to freedom in Mexico in 1850 #complicates (0.70) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 138