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Seminole of Oklahoma - Oklahoma (U.S.)

Native American

image by Donald Healy, 31 January 2008

The band
The flag

See also:

The Band

map image by Peter Orenski based on input from Don Healy

Seminole of Oklahoma - Oklahoma

The majority of the Seminole were removed from Florida in the 1830s and resettled in Indian Territory [see Seminole of Florida]. However, the Seminole of Oklahoma retain their traditional ties to the lands of their ancestors and their symbols recall those homelands.

The Flag

The flag of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is white with the tribal seal in the center (Letter, Dena Brady, Acting Executive Secretary, 15 Feb. 1995). The seal (Annin & Co.) has a braided border in yellow and black around a white ring with THE GREAT SEMINOLE NATION above and OF OKLAHOMA below, all in black.

Inside a narrow yellow ring is a typical scene from the life of the Seminole in Florida's Everglades: a warrior in a dugout canoe paddles toward a village and the lush green forest. All elements appear in natural colors (Official Seals of the Five Civilized Tribes, The Oklahoma Chronicles, XVII:4, Dec. 1940, 357-359). The seal echoes the old seal of the Seminole of Florida [see Seminole of Florida].

This flag may have been inspired by the design created for the Seminole Nation by the Alabama Department of History in 1940 when the Seminole people, as former residents of Alabama, were included in the opening of the Alabama Hall of Flags.

This was not the first flag of the Seminole Nation. During the U.S. Civil War, the Confederacy presented flags to members of the "Five Civilized Tribes" allied against the Union. Miss Alice Leeper, daughter of the Confederate agent to the Indian Territory, presented a flag to the Seminole [True Democrat, Little Rock, AR, 29 Aug. 1861; The Looking Glass, March 1991]. The flag was "a crescent and red star in a green union . . ." with "bars of red and white" . . . "for the Seminole, with the exception of diagonal bars" (comparing to the vertical bars of the flag presented to the Creek Nation) [see Muskogee].

[The seal is currently being updated with slight enhancements (Letter, D. Brady). The new seal has not yet been received by the Executive Directorate of the Seminole Nation, but it will likely result in a modification to the flag.]

© Donald Healy 2008
information provided by Peter Orenski, 31 January 2008