Seminoles, Native Americans and African Bloodlines - Global Black News (African American News)

"Often as a child my parents told me things they thought I should know. Some of the views altered my outlook on life and others would not become important to me until I reached adulthood. Telling me that my grandmother descended from Seminoles was an item that only in the past few years has become increasingly significant to me.

Growing up in a household that took pride in our African heritage and history, I didn't run around trying to claim Native American Ancestry out of false pride, it was just a fact that I learned about myself. However, as I learned more about the connections between Africans and Native Americans and kept witnessing the increasing problems that currently exist between the groups, especially the Seminoles, it has become necessary to speak out.

Every since Europeans have been documenting the contact between Africans and Native Americans there has been a history of cooperation among the two groups. They fought against slavery, imprisonment, removal from land and the ever encroaching European assault on Western land. Africans and Native Americans, for the most part have usually existed peaceably because they shared similar problems and aspects of culture."