UNCONQUERED

A young Seminole woman’s defiance in 1858 helped ensure her people’s survival in Florida — and shaped generations to come

While being deported by steamer to Indian Territory during the Third Seminole War in 1858, Polly Parker led five other women in a daring escape that returned them to their homeland near Lake Okeechobee. AI -GENERATED IMAGE

BY GREGORY ENNS

History almost lost her. Florida didn’t.

In 1858, as the final Seminoles were being forced out at the end of the Third Seminole War, a young woman named Emateloye — later known as Polly Parker — stepped off a military steamer under the pretense of gathering medicine and disappeared into the woods.