Thread by @ChoctawFreedmen

#FreedmenHistorySpotlightSaturday: Today, we spotlight a #MMIW of Afro-Indigenous descent from the Seminole Nation named Che-Cho-Ter, or Morning Dew. She was one of Chief Osceola’s two wives and bore him four children and was of mixed Black and Seminole descent.

According to accounts at the time in the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine, Chief Osceola and Morning Dew traveled to Fort King (in present-day Ocala) to purchase supplies when Morning Dew was seized as a slave. “Evidently having Negro blood in her veins the law pronounced her a

slave.” This all happened while Seminoles still in Florida were struggling against forced removal on the Trail of Tears, objecting to being moved from their Indigenous lands in Florida. The Indians didn’t want to leave their lands and many free Black people in the Seminole Nation

fought with Seminoles to avoid re-enslavement as well. The capture of Morning Dew by slave catchers is, according to the article in the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine, what triggered the “Second Seminole Indian War.”

This war costed the United States government the lives of 1500 men and over $30 million, and ended in a loss by the United States. The war also ended with the first time that the United States ever declared that Black people could liberate themselves via military force/war.

Jesup’s Proclamation was the first time that Black people within the confines of the United States, were ever declared free by the will of military force. Black Seminoles were declared free by the end of the Second Seminole War, which is said to have been started by the

kidnapping of a Black Seminole woman. It is unclear what eventually happened to Morning Dew, but we hope to think that she escaped her re-enslavement.

It’s important to note that despite the documentation of this story at the time, many historians today question whether Morning Dew ever existed at all or whether she was ever kidnapped. However, there are many oral histories and local histories surrounding her centrality

in sparking the Second Seminole War among the Gullah Geechee, Yamasee, Creek, and Seminole people in the Southeast and beyond.

We want to make sure that she isn’t posthumously erased from her own tribal history, especially considering that she was reportedly kidnapped and re-enslaved, however we are also cognizant that lore can sometimes be constructed. Either way, it is interesting and sad history.

@threadreaderapp