Seminole Tribe of Florida

A nation today

An American alligator resting beside the paved boardwalk of the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm, Everglades National Park.
judygva, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0

Background

The Tribe describes itself as the only tribe in America never to have signed a peace treaty. The Tribe notes that Seminole is not a Seminole word, and that the Spanish used the word Cimarrón during colonization. Congress recognized the Tribe in 1957, the same year its constitution established a two-tiered government of a Tribal Council and a Board of Directors, with elected representation from each reservation community. In 1962 a group of Seminoles won separate federal recognition as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The Tribe is a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Hollywood, Florida. The Tribe counts more than 4,000 members, and its federal trust holdings in Florida run to more than 90,000 acres.

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Visit and learn

Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum

Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, 34725 West Boundary Road, Clewiston, Florida·museum

The Tribe's official museum. In the Seminole language Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki means a place to learn and a place to remember. The museum holds more than 200,000 works of art and historic objects, has a mile-long boardwalk into the Everglades, and is open seven days a week from 9 am to 5 pm.

https://www.semtribe.com/services/ah-tah-thi-ki-museum

Earth Day the Native Way

·event

An annual free Earth Day event the Tribe holds each April, with tribal craft and food vendors. The current notice is on the Tribe's Earth Day page.

https://www.ahtahthiki.com/earthday/

Seminole Tribe of Florida's own site

Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.

Parks on its homelands

An American alligator resting beside the paved boardwalk of the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm, Everglades National Park.Everglades National Park

The Tribe's own history says about two hundred of its people followed the leader the Americans called Sam Jones into the Florida swamps rather than be removed west, and that the Tribe counts more than five thousand members today. It also records the Spanish name for its people, cimarrones, runaways, and that the Spanish bought their cattle and their leather. Source

Programs

  • Environmental Resource Department

    Created by the Tribal Council in October 1987 to protect and evaluate the Tribe's land and water. The EPA has delegated Clean Water Act authority to the Tribe, which adopted water quality standards for the Brighton reservation in 1996 and monitors water quality across all its reservations, trust lands, and properties.

    https://www.semtribe.com/services/environmental-resource-management-department·land

  • Native Learning Center

    A model activity program of the Tribe's Housing Department, set up with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2008, offering free training and technical assistance on the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act of 1996.

    https://www.semtribe.com/services/native-learning-center·education

  • Tribal Historic Preservation Office

    The Tribe's THPO runs its archaeology, collections, compliance, and research sections from the Big Cypress Reservation, and has published a story map on how its GIS program manages cultural resources.

    https://www.semtribe.com/services/tribal-historic-preservation-office·preservation

Sources

Checked September 2026.

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