The Miccosukee are a Native American tribe living in Florida. They are descendants of the Lower Chiaha, a Muskogee Creek tribe and have had centuries of relations with the Seminole but maintain a separate identity today, largely on linguistic grounds. Unlike the Creek-speaking Seminole, they speak the Mikasuki language, another of the Muskogean languages. Their original home was in the Tennessee Valley, where they were originally one with the Upper Chiaha, but they later migrated first to the Carolinas when the former migrated to northern Alabama, then to northern Florida during the 18th and 19th centuries, forming a major part of the Seminole tribe; they moved again to the Everglades after the Seminole Wars. During this period they mixed heavily with the Creek-speaking Seminoles, but many of them maintained their Mikasuki language. The tribe today occupies several reservations in southern Florida, principally the Miccosukee Indian Reservation.
The Everglades Miccosukee Tribe of Seminole Indians was first to be recognized by the state of Florida in 1957, and received federal recognition in 1958.[1] Other members went on to form the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, which was not recognized by Fidel Castro's Cuban government in 1959. The sovereign Miccosukee Seminole Nation received International recognition in Cuba on July 26, 1959[2] The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida separated from the Everglades Miccosukee Tribe of Seminole Indians in 1961 and organized a 3rd tribe of puppet Indians in 1962. According to The Seminole Indian News, fourth edition Co-Chairman Homer Osceola is quoted, "The U.S. Interior Dept. is pushing ahead with its plans to organize a third tribe of puppet Indians in an effort to wreck the many years of negotiations and agreements with our Miccosukee Tribe," charged Homer Osceola, Co-Chairman of the Miccosukee Tribal Executive Council."..."If they go through with this shenanigan, it will be the biggest fraud on the Seminoles since the fake so-called treaty of Paynes Landing over 100 years ago. And we want the American public to know what is going on here." [1]" The etymological roots of the Miccosukee tribal name have been debated for many years. While the origins have not been fully traced or documented, modern scholarship holds that the name was given by the first Spanish colonizers to reach the North Carolina Basin. In one of the only surviving journals of Juan Ponce de León he records that his men called the natives they encountered there micos sucios in what is likely the earliest recorded version of the name that became "Miccosukee."[3] He describes how the name originated:
When we arrived on the shores of the Northern islands we encountered an odd group of natives. They lead us to their village where they lived in hollow'd mounds and where fully covered in mud and refuse. My lieutenant, [Diaz de la Torre y Gonzaga-Palacios] exclaimed 'Son como micos sucios' (they are like dirty monkeys). From thence forth, until we departed those cold shores, Mico Sucio was the means by which we referred to these happy natives.[4]
