Coacoochee's Bones: A Seminole Saga

Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003 University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. 2003. Hardcover. First Printing by Line Number. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: Near Fine; light bumping to head and tail; light smudge on textblock bottom. DJ: Near Fine; light bumping to head. Khaki cloth boards and spine with bright brown lettering on the spine. 264 pp 8vo. To Americans he was “Wild Cat,” to Mexicans, “Gato del Monte.” But to his own people he was Coacoochee, a warrior and diplomat who led the Seminole resistance to American injustice in their home territory of Florida and through the Spanish borderlands of North America. In the first in-depth study of this dramatic figure, Susan A. Miller, a historian and a Seminole, sorts out discrepancies between American history—where Coacoochee remains in the background—and Seminole tradition—where he stands as a great leader. Relocated in 1841 to the Indian country in what is now Oklahoma, the Seminoles under Coacoochee resisted colonization. Coacoochee instead led his people to Mexico, along with a community of black fugitives from slavery and another of Kickapoos, where they secured land in exchange for military assistance. The author draws on Seminole, American, and Mexican sources to help untangle the histories of various emigrant tribes to the borderlands. She also examines the status of Seminoles today in light of the suppression of Coacoochee’s story, including modern Seminoles’ attempts to recover their lost homeland at El Nacimiento. A clean very presentable copy.