Seminole of Florida. Indian Census, 1930-1940, With Birth and Death Records, 1930-1938; by Jeff Bowen; viii + 194 pp; Paperback; Published: 2011; ISBN: 9780806355474; Item # CF9648

Following the Seminole Wars of the 1830s and 1840s, the federal government forcibly removed thousands of Seminoles to the Indian Territory (future Oklahoma), where they were settled on the western part of the Creek reservation. A few hundred more were sent in 1858 at the end of the Third Seminole War. A handful of Seminole stayed in Florida despite the government’s removal policy, and their descendants numbered nearly 13,000, according the 1990 census.

The work at hand, extracted from National Archives Microfilm Series 595, Native American Census Rolls, 1885-1940, identifies the members of Florida Seminole households that were enumerated in the annual censuses taken between 1931 and 1940. Transcribed and arranged in alphabetical order by household by Mr. Jeff Bowen, each census entry gives the householder’s census number, given name, sex, age, relationship to head of household, degree of Seminole blood, marital status, whether living at jurisdiction where enrolled, and allotment, if any. Whenever possible, Mr. Bowen has supplemented a given census year’s family enumerations with records of Seminole births and/or deaths occurring the same year. In all, he makes reference to thousands of Seminole descendants still living in Florida during the decade of the Great Depression.