Florida's Political and Military Leaders

[MUSIC PLAYING] He was a heroic American Indian leader fighting to keep his lands from being taken unfairly by an unjust law, a law the US Supreme Court judged unconstitutional. As a war chief, he was never defeated in battle by US troops. Indeed, his defiance of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 not only inspired his fellow Seminoles' resistance, but he gained the respect of Americans throughout the country. He was the courageous war chief, Osceola. Osceola was born in 1804 in the village of Tallassee, Alabama. He was a man with a foot in both white and Indian worlds. His mother, Polly Coppinger, was part Muskogee and part white. His father was a creek Indian. In the 1820's Osceola moved to south Florida where, over the next 10 years, he earned a great reputation as a hunter and war leader among the Seminoles. When the US government asked him and the Seminoles to leave Florida, Osceola was prepared to resist. In 1835 at a ceremony to sign the documents to leave for Indian Territory in present day Oklahoma, the young war chief-- brandishing a knife-- let the assembly know his thoughts on immigration. The only treaty I will ever execute will be this. With that, Osceola plunged his knife into the treaty on the negotiating table. "There remains nothing worth words. If the hail rattles, let the flowers be crushed. The stately oak of the forest will lift its head to the sky in the storm, towering and unscathed," Osceola at Fort King. His heroic act ignited the Second Seminole war, a seven year game of cat and mouse against federal troops. Osceola used lightning swift tactics to defeat US Army troops. He might have continued indefinitely, but on October 21, 1837, US General Thomas Sidney Jessup tricked Osceola at a peace conference. Instead of honoring a flag of truce, the General had Osceola arrested. Eventually, the young war chief was imprisoned at Fort Moultrie South Carolina. Three months later, this heroic war leader was dead from malaria at the age of 34. The Seminole, emboldened by Osceola's brave defiance, continued to carry on his fight to stay on their lands. Though hundreds were captured and sent to Indian Territory, others took refuge in Florida swamps and never surrendered. Finally in 1842, after spending millions of dollars, the US government gave up. A third Seminole war broke out in 1855. The war officially ended in 1858 when Seminole leaders agreed to move west to Indian Territory. But a few Seminoles, defiant like Osceola, retreated into the Florida Everglades, never surrendering. Here their descendants live to this day.

By the 1840s, Jewish Americans were active in every part of American life, enlisting in the military, owning land, starting thriving businesses, and, in the case of David Levy Yulee, entering politics. [MUSIC PLAYING] In June, Florida celebrates Yulee Railroad Days, an annual event commemorating the first trans-state railroad from the Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Mexico. The Yulee Railroad was the brainchild of America's first Jewish American US senator, a brilliant entrepreneur and talented politician, David Levy Yulee. Starting with the first Jewish immigrants arriving in Manhattan in 1654, Jewish Americans were determined to fit into American life, to become American, to become American while maintaining their religion and culture. From the beginning, they were part of the great American experiment. They enlisted in the militias, started thriving businesses and trading ventures, owned land. During the Revolutionary War, they fought for American freedom and civil rights. And in the beginning of the 19th century, as the fledgling United States expanded westward to the Mississippi River, Jewish Americans went too. But by the 1840s, there was still one area left for Jewish Americans to excel in, national politics. From 1844 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861, the door for Jewish Americans to enter national politics was blown off its hinges by Florida's illustrious David Levy Yulee. Descended from a long line of Jewish advisors to the sultans of Morocco, Yulee was born on June 12th, 1810, in the Virgin Islands. He came to Florida as a young boy. Here, he proved himself to be the perfect symbol of the American dream. A lawyer at age 22, he joined the Florida militia in 1833, built that celebrated railroad that opened central Florida to settlers, became Florida's territorial representative to the US Congress in 1841, was instrumental in Florida's becoming the 27th state in 1845. And in that same year, David Levy Yulee was elected the first Jewish American senator to the US Senate. Yulee supported the South during the war. And when the war ended, he was briefly imprisoned at Fort Pulaski in Georgia. After his release, he returned to Florida to rebuild his beloved railroad and help Florida rejoin the Union in 1870. In the decades following the war, Yulee saw others follow in his footsteps. Indeed, by the end of the 19th century, 25 Jewish Americans would serve as congressmen and senators. In the 20th century, that number would double. And at the beginning of the 21st century, a Jewish American would be on the national presidential ticket for vice president, Senator Joe Lieberman, all thanks to the groundbreaking efforts of men like David Levy Yulee. [MUSIC PLAYING]