Red and Black- A Divided Seminole Nation: Davis vs. U.S.

Presented by: Joyce McCray PearsonDirector and Associate Professor of LawUniversity of Kansas School of LawMarch 18th, 2005

Seminole Negro Indian Scouts

Wilburt Cudjoe, sitting next to a faded photo of his grandmother and her twin sister, speaks about his black Seminole lineage July 16 in Oklahoma City. Cudjoe, 78, cannot trace his ancestry to at least one-eighth native blood. Tribal leaders say, therefore, that he is ineligible to vote in Seminole tribal elections or share in a $42 million federal judgment fund. (AP Photo)  

Lewis Johnson, assistant curator of the Seminole Nation Museum, pictured July 17 at the museum in Seminole says the tribe is not trying to rewrite history. He said the common fight for freedom that brought blacks and the native Seminole people together 200 years ago in Florida just doesn't apply anymore. (AP Photo)  

Ken Chambers, the elected Seminole chief, gestures during an interview July 17 in the Seminole Tribal Administration building in Wewoka. Chambers, a half-blood Seminole, insists that black Seminoles never had equal rights within the tribe and still aren't entitled to them.

Farmer Dave Carolina who recently discovered “a little oil”

After finding that Indian Territory was not exempt from slave raiders, some black Seminoles moved to Mexico in 1849-50, including the forebears of Dan Factor, who ranches near Nacimiento.