Book Review

The Tree That Bends is the story of the native Floridians who survived the Spanish conquest, colonial wars, and the American acquisition of Florida. This fascinating study by Patricia Riles Wickman provides a well-researched and new look at the enduring people and culture still left in Florida.	1
The history of that survival is not one that is exemplified by Spanish, English, or American humanity toward the indigenous peoples; they survived in spite of what they suffered for so many years. And, though few in number, descendants of the earliest people to populate the peninsula have managed to endure even to this day. Their survival seems almost miraculous considering the exterminating effects of European diseases, seemingly incessant Anglo-Spanish and French colonial wars involving and exploiting the native peoples, and the nineteenth-century American efforts to expel them from Florida.	2
But, amazingly, after all those annihilating events, marking four centuries of Florida history, the descendants of the early native peoples are still alive, even if small in number. Wickman argues that the Maskókî—the Creeks, Miscosukees, and Seminoles—share a common pre-Columbian origin and Mississippian background. The Maskókî also share survival with some 3,000 still in Florida and 10,000 living in Oklahoma, where they were unwillingly exiled in the nineteenth century.	. . .