Between 1817 and 1859 … the Seminole people were reduced from a powerful confederation of thirty-six towns to a mere handful of left-over families. One observer, writing in 1869, dubbed the three hundred-odd remaining Seminoles a “remnant of a remnant.” Be that as it may, this ragtag remnant showed surprising resiliency in adapting to life in southern Florida. Abandoning the settled agricultural ways of their Creek ancestors, who had raised cattle and cultivated large commercial farms, the remaining Seminoles adopted a mixture of hunting, fishing and small-scale agriculture perfectly suited to the Everglades. At the same time, the Seminoles ceased building the large cabinlike structures favored by the Creeks in Georgia, and began to construct “chickees,” small thatched-roof structures open to the subtropical breezes of south Florida. For transportation, the Everglades Seminoles perfected the cypress log canoe, whereas their ancestors had mainly traveled on foot. The Seminoles also changed their appearance, abandoning the buckskins they had worn in northern lands in favor of loose-fitting tunics and turbanlike head dresses better suited to the subtropics. The Seminoles even adopted American technology, if it suited their needs; one visitor to the Seminoles in 1879 was surprised to find that the Indians possessed a well-constructed sugarcane mill.

Excerpt from Tropical Surge: A History of Ambition and Disaster on the Florida Shore, by Benjamin Reilly (Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 2005), pp.56 - 57.