In 1823, a young Miccosukee warrior arrived at a traditional ballgame wearing the tail of a Florida panther, earning him the nickname “Tigertail” and the respect of his peers. He would go on to be one of the craftiest strategists of the Second and Third Seminole Wars.
Tigertail was born to the Panther Clan in the 1790s. According to Gov. Richard Call, he had lived in the Tallahassee area all his life, and after the First Seminole War (1817-1819) worked in the employ of Gov. William Duval as a huntsman. Tigertail attended all public meetings in Tallahassee, and was a frequent guest at the tables of the Duval, Brown, and Gamble families.
Early frontierswoman, Lizzie Brown, remembered him regularly stopping by with a dozen of his compatriots and venison to serve all. Duval’s son recalls him as the “professor” who taught him woodcraft.
The Miccosukees are Elaponke-speaking (Mikasuki-Hitchiti) people, whose towns ranged north to the foothills of the Appalachians and south into Florida’s hills and swamps. The capital of the Miccosukee peoples, the Miccosukee Tribal Town itself, was located on Lake Miccosukee since the beginning of recorded history, until Andrew Jackson’s forces alongside Muscogee Creek Nation allies from Alabama and Georgia burned the town down in the Battle of Miccosukee, on April 1st, 1818.
After the First Seminole War, Tigertail and his community moved east to the Aucilla, near Greenville. However, the Napoleonic Prince Achile Murat, an early colonist, pressured the removal of the Miccosukee farther to the south.
In 1835, five years of failed negotiations after the Indian Removal Act, Tigertail executed a daring surprise attack on a battalion commanded by Major Francis Dade that was marching to reinforce a Fort Osceola was preparing to attack. Victorious in a pitched battle that saw few American survivors, the Seminoles and Miccosukee succeeded in halting the removal negotiations and beginning the Second Seminole War. The war would be the costliest Indian War in U.S. history, with the highest level of junior officer resignation of any war fought by this country.
Tigertail became one of the most famous commanders of the Seminole Wars, repeatedly catching the Army unaware. He next set up camp in Central Florida but eventually emigrated south into the Big Cypress Swamp in the Everglades. Almost everywhere he camped, he planted wild oranges, and to this day his descendants in the Miccosukee Tribe call themselves the Orange Grove People (“Yalaahe-Chaa-łe”).
He was thought dead after a badly beaten and bloodied Indian was found in a Miccosukee village in 1842, whose residents insisted that the unrecognizable figure was Tigertail. But according to late president of the Florida Historical Society Arthur Williams and Tigertail’s descendants, Tigertail faked his own death and again outwitted the Army.
Days after the Third Seminole War ended in 1858, the Wagner family (early settlers) were frightened to run into Old Tigertail and more than a dozen warriors on the road near Miami. But Tigertail introduced himself and shook hands with them all, before following them home and joining them for dinner.
After the passing of Abiaki, the famed Miccosukee wartime chief, his clan nephew Tigertail took up his mantle. Tigertail governed the Miccosukee until he passed in 1881, and his eulogy was published in the Tallahassee Floridian.
In his later years, he reminisced about his days in the territorial capital, asking after his old friends, the Gambles. Today, his descendants are returning to Tallahassee, and the newly-purchased Miccosukee Embassy is in sight of the Governor’s Mansion, harkening back to the days of Tigertail and Duval.
Nicholas Tigertail-Cypress, who lives on the Miccosukee Reserved Area, was born to the Panther Clan, and is an enrolled member of the federally-recognized Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, for which he serves as housing director and as an Embassy Fellow.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tigertail: Warrior, leader, and friend of the founding families | Opinion
Reporting by Nicholas Tigertail-Cypress / Tallahassee Democrat
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