A treasure trove of fascinating images

"These stunning photographs illustrate the Seminole world of adaptation, resilience, and survival between the Seminole Wars of the 1800s and the successful gaming era of the twentieth century."--Donald L. Fixico, author of The Daily Life of American Indians in the Twentieth Century

"This easily accessible book lifts the veil on that part of Seminole history, following the Seminole Wars, which is cloaked in darkness, as the Seminoles sought to rebuild their culture with little contact with outsiders."--Annette L. Snapp, Florida Gulf Coast University

In April 1905, A. W. Dimock, a New York financier, and his thirty-one-year-old son Julian motored their boat across Chokoloskee Bay. They docked at George Storter's store in the small outpost of Everglade on the southwest coast of Florida, at the very edge of Anglo civilization.
At Storter's, the Dimocks saw several Seminole Indians who came from their homes in the interior of south Florida to shop and trade for household goods. Survivors of three wars, these proud people kept to themselves. Julian, an accomplished photographer, set up his camera and expressed an interest in learning more about their lives. Over the next five years he would amass an unprecedented photographic record of the Seminole people and their surroundings. Now archived at the American Museum of Natural History, his six thousand glass negatives, unique for the time in that they were not taken for the tourist trade, are a national treasure.
Milanich and Root relate the adventures of the Dimocks among the Seminole Indians at a time when few whites ventured into the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp. Reproduced in rich duotones, Julian's photographs reveal fascinating aspects of Seminole Indian life in the depths of the Florida peninsula.

Jerald T. Milanich is curator emeritus of the Florida Museum of Natural History, contributing editor at Archaeology magazine, and author or editor of many books including Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Spanish Missions and Southeastern Indians. Nina J. Root, director emerita of the Research Library at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is coeditor of Camera Man’s Journey: Julian Dimock's South.

No Sample Chapter Available

Awards
Florida Book Award for Visual Arts, Gold - 2011

"Thanks are due to two authors who have brought forward a selection of 124 gorgeous duotone images from a much larger collection of images in the archives of the American Museum of Natural History."
--Book News, Inc.

"There is a wealth of information here for historical and ethnographic specialists, but there is a very human side of the photographs. Almost all the subjects are identified by name."
--Journal of Anthropological Research

"…a wonderful time capsule of a native people on the brink of entering what for them would be a strange new world." "… a delightful study of a part of Florida and southern culture that no longer exists."
--Journal of Southern History

"This book is essential for anyone researching Seminole Indian history, early Anglo settlement and exploration into the everglades, or simply anyone interested in a time and space in history that has been brought back to life through the photographs of Julian Dimock. "
--Southern Historian

"a superb collection of Julian Dimock’s photographs...the lighting, attention to detail, and artistry of poses give readers an inside look at individual Seminoles, their appearance and clothing, and transportation, along with some more intriguing aspects such as articles of natives and also commercial goods that they utilized in the early 20th century."
--Florida Historical Quarterly