From 1817 to 1858, a series of conflicts known as the Seminole Wars took place between the United States and the tribes of Florida as they battled for the land.
Within this unconquered territory, formerly enslaved mothers and fathers and Seminole families had lived side by side for generations, building communities in the interior, beyond the reach of the growing United States. But in 1835, the young country took up arms against them, seeking to forcibly remove all Indigenous people and return their allies to slavery. In the face of this terror, tribes and bands came together across racial lines to preserve their freedom from federal interference. As the fight waged on, two men—Abraham, a free Black American, and the esteemed Creek warrior Osceola—worked together to save their lands and their people, against overwhelming odds, from America’s formidable Army of the South.
A powerful and vivid exploration of an overlooked revolt and historical alliances between Afro-descendant families and Indigenous tribes, The Free and the Dead is a timeless work of history that sits alongside Empire of the Summer Moon and The Demon of Unrest.
PRAISE
“At a moment when America’s leaders are both repressing discussion of our country's brutal past, and making those brutalities part of our present, telling the story of the Seminoles is part of the struggle for American freedom. Jamie Holmes tells it brilliantly.”
—PETER BEINART, author, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
“Through extensive archival research and vivid writing, Jamie Holmes thrusts his reader into the violent and complex era of the Seminole Wars and the multicultural and multiracial dynasties that once occupied the exotic landscapes of northern Florida. A striking portrait of Antebellum America.”
—JANE LANDERS, professor at Vanderbilt University and author of Black Society in Spanish Florida
“Read this book before it’s banned. It is just the sort of history that Donald Trump wants to expunge from the Smithsonian. With extraordinary research and rich storytelling, Holmes brings to light the lost world of America’s longest Indian conflict. Buy it before they won’t let you.”
—SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL, author of All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln 1856–1860
“Finally, we have the Seminoles’ story of their resistance to removal. The Free and the Dead should serve as a model for studies of the removals of other tribes.”
—DANIEL F. LITTLEFIELD, director of the Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock
“A brilliant, page-turning work of history by a master storyteller. This fascinating, forgotten tale of profound narrative power reminds us that discovering the truth about our past moves us closer to ‘a more perfect union.’”
—TY SEIDULE, Professor Emeritus of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point and author of Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
