Seminole story lives on

For nearly 20 years, Indian River Magazine has tried to tell the stories of the people who made the Treasure Coast what it is today. Some of those stories go back much further than Fort Pierce, Vero Beach, Stuart or even the state of Florida itself.

The Seminoles were here before any of them.

Their history is particularly intertwined with the western reaches of the Treasure Coast, from Fort Pierce to Lake Okeechobee. Seminole families lived along Cow Creek and elsewhere across the region long before fences, highways and subdivisions transformed the landscape.

That history became an important part of the Cow Creek Chronicles, the series we published in Indian River Magazine in 2022 and 2023, and which was adapted and published as a book by University Press of Florida last year. Although the series followed the rise and fall of the Raulerson family’s Cow Creek Ranch, I quickly realized that you couldn’t tell the history of that land without telling the story of the Seminoles who had lived along the creek long before the ranch was established.

That research introduced me more fully to one of the most remarkable people in Florida history: Emateloye Estenletkvte, better known as Polly Parker.

In 1858, near the end of the Third Seminole War, Polly was among a group of Seminoles being forcibly removed from Florida aboard the steamer Grey Cloud. During a stop at St. Marks, she and five other women escaped and made an extraordinary journey of roughly 350 miles back to their homeland near Lake Okeechobee. Polly spent her final years living along Cow Creek in a palm-thatched hut known as a chickee, occasionally venturing out to trade in Fort Pierce and Okeechobee. 

Her story became a chapter in the Cow Creek Chronicles book, and we returned to Polly’s story in Indian River Magazine this year with “Unconquered,” a more extensive account of her escape, her return and the generations that followed her.

Now there is another opportunity to explore that history.

On Saturday, Oct. 17, the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibition “Americans” opens at the historical Okeechobee County Courthouse and runs through Dec. 5. Based on an exhibition created by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, “Americans” examines how deeply American Indians are woven into our nation’s history, culture and identity. The free grand opening runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will include Seminole speakers, displays, food and crafts, with participation by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Many thanks to Magi Cable and our friends at the Okeechobee Historical Society for helping to bring this exhibit to us.

I’ll be there Oct. 17, and I hope many of our readers will make the trip to Okeechobee as well.

The Seminole story isn’t simply something that happened somewhere else, long ago. It happened here, along the creeks, prairies and wetlands of the Treasure Coast.

And it is still very much with us.

 

 

 

 

Gregory Enns
Reach Gregory Enns or 772.940.9005.

See original article in print publication

Sept. 2026