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RECENT INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
COMMUNICATION WITH
CUBA
Miccosukee Seminole Nation (MSN) Meets with Cuban Government to Sign
Treaty of Recognition, Friendship, and Mutual Assistance
July 1959
Miccosukee Seminole Nation (MSN)
Arrival in Cuba
MICCOSUKEE SEMINOLES
NATION
MAKES TREATY IN CUBA
Miami Herald
by Bob Reno.
Seminoles Win Cuban Approval
Miami Herald story
By Bob Reno
Cont. from page 1
"...extend their visit for another week.
The visit of the Indians reached diplomatic proportions when the Miccosukees presented
Castro with a declaration written on buckskin praising his "victory over tyranny and
oppression" and giving the revolutionary government formal recognition.
In return, Castro recognized, "duly constituted government of the sovereign Miccosukee Seminole nation."
Castro in a signed document, saluted the Miccosukee leaders for "the long struggle of
your Miccosukee Nation and the perseverance and courage of your indomitable and
freedom-loving people..."
MICCOSUKEE SEMINOLES WIN CUBAN RECOGNITION, By Bob Reno.
* See Harry A Kersey Jr., AN ASSUMPTION OF
SOVEREIGNTY, (University of Nebraska Press 1996) pp. 126-127.
* Also see www link (Article ID: 0001050605), THE
MIAMI HERALD, Saturday, January 1, 2000.
"...The government wanted to pay us money
to shut up. We wanted land set aside for us and to be left alone. No one in Washington
would listen to us. So when [Fidel] Castro took over [in 1959], I went over there and
smoked some cigars with him and Che Guevara and I asked them: 'Do you recognize the
Miccosukee Tribe?' Castro said he did. He said that if the United States would not give us
a place to live, we were welcome to go over there and he would make room for us. When we
got back, there were all kinds of phone calls from Washington. The government started
dealing with us seriously then.''
-- Buffalo Tiger, of the Miccosukee Indian tribe, December 1997
(at this point the December 1961 issue
of the "Seminole Indian News"
(the then first and only newspaper of the Miccosukee Seminole Indians) reported the
following significant news story (4th edition, p. 1):
"U.S. PLANNING 3rd FLA. TRIBE"
"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.
"We predicted this when we gave this story to the newspapers last October.
They obviously plan to try to trick the public into
believing that what their puppets do has been authorized by our Miccosukee Tribe.
"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....."
(in this regard, it is interesting to
also note the following excerpt from Peter Matthiessen's book "INDIAN COUNTRY"
(The Viking Press, New York, 1984) at pp. 62-63) (re-typed for clarity):
p. 62
"In early January of 1983, the state of Florida granted Buffalo Tiger's
Miccosukee Tribe its long-sought lease on 189,000 acres of the FCD's Conservation Area No.
3, together with $975,000 for "economic development." In the opinion of
the Osceola family, the lease contract is a government payoff to a "puppet
Indian." As Homer Osceola told a reporter for the Miami Herald on January
9, 1983, "He's not doing things the Indian way at all. He can't live like the
old Indians used to live. . . . If the Indian people are going to change, let nature
change them not some money-hungry guy telling them what to do. Far as we're
concerned, Florida is not part of the United States in the first place, because we've
never been conquered. . . . How can the white man give it to us when we already own it?
To this, Buffalo Tiger retorted, "Just because their last name is Osceola, they still
think they're great leaders like Chief Osceola, but they're wrong. The man died
long, long ago. These people better wake up and be like everybody else."
Hearing that he had been criticized for driving a "1983
gold-colored Cadillac," he said, "It's only an '82, but it runs pretty
good."
In recognizing Tiger's disputed right to speak for all his Miccosukee people, the U.S.
government and the state of Florida tried to extinguish all future treaty claims by
Florida Indians, and President
p. 63
Reagan, who signed the agreement into law, promptly received an angry letter protesting the unlawful
sale of "our Everglades homeland" by "Mr. Tiger and his fake tribe."
The letter was written on ancient stationary that still carried the name of Buffalo
Tiger, who had resigned from the General Council in 1961; it was signed by Homer, Howard,
Bill, John, Leroy, and William Osceola, together with a nephew, Rainey Jim."
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