Known as Kahayatle, or the shimmering waters, the Florida Everglades is a unique and diverse landscape, home to the Miccosukee people. These flooded grasslands form a drainage basin that stretches from Lake Okeechobee down the Florida panhandle to the coast.

It’s difficult terrain — often described by outsiders as barren and inhospitable. But it became a source of protection and independence for the Miccosukee, who have lived among the sawgrass marshes, tree islands, and slow-moving waters of South Florida for centuries.

Before colonial expansion, the Miccosukee were part of the Creek Confederacy and lived in sections of present-day Alabama, southern Georgia, and northern Florida. In their creation story, people are believed to have descended from the heavens into Lake Miccosukee, swimming ashore and establishing their first town.

As colonial expansion encroached on their traditional territory in the early 18th century, the Miccosukee were pushed progressively southward. The Miccosukee continuouslyresisted, finally leading to the Seminole Wars, where the US government went on a campaign of Indigenous eradication in the South.

This led the Miccosukee and Seminole people to seek shelter in the kahayatle, hiding from the American troops and fighting guerrilla-style war against a numerically superior and technologically advanced enemy. The Miccosukee never surrendered and never signed a peace treaty with the American government, making it the only unvanquished tribe on Turtle Island.