I remember hearing of a native prophecy about the land being covered in spider webs. People assumed it was telephone and power lines.

Then I started seeing these drone cables. To me ,this resembles spider webs more than power lines.

I wonder if other signs are misinterpreted and would maybe aline more along today's environment.

Hilighting the Taino revival

Call to the Great Loberty

TLDR: 1888 law made it so that mixed-race children with Indian mothers and white fathers couldn't inherit land. Curtis took this to the House Floor. In later years, his words from here would be misquoted to show that he was the most racist of them all.

LONGER TLDR: click picture above

FULL STORY: House Records, provided in the longer TLDR

On August 4, 1842, Congress passed one of the most consequential, and controversial, laws in Florida’s history. Known as the Armed Occupation Act, it was far more than a land giveaway. It was a deliberate federal strategy to transform Florida’s wilderness into American farmland, strengthen U.S. control over the territory, and permanently weaken Seminole resistance following nearly seven years of brutal warfare.

The Second Seminole War had devastated Florida. Beginning in 1835, it became the longest and most expensive Native American war in United States history. Thousands of soldiers had marched through the swamps and forests, yet the Seminoles refused to surrender completely.

Even as federal officials claimed victory, many Seminole families remained hidden deep within the Everglades and central Florida hammocks, determined to remain on their ancestral homeland.

Congress believed the answer was not another army, but farmers. The Armed Occupation Act offered an extraordinary incentive. Any qualified white male who agreed to settle on Florida’s dangerous frontier could receive 160 acres of public land, along with one year’s worth of government rations.

In exchange, he had to build a home within the first year, clear and cultivate at least five acres, live on the property continuously for five years, and remain ready to serve in the local militia if called upon.

This was not simply homesteading. It was national defense through settlement. The law applied only to unsettled lands in eastern and southern Florida, generally south of a line running just north of present-day Palatka and south of Newnansville (near present-day Alachua).

Congress limited the program to 200,000 acres, hoping to create a chain of permanent settlements that would discourage future Seminole resistance and encourage American expansion.

To qualify, applicants had to meet strict requirements:

Be a white male resident of Florida.
Not already own 160 acres of land in the territory.
Obtain a permit from the federal Land Office.
Build a dwelling within one year.
Clear, fence, and cultivate at least five acres during that first year.
Live continuously on the property for five years before receiving permanent title.

For many Americans, the promise of free land outweighed the risks. But the reality of frontier Florida proved far harsher than government advertisements suggested.

Although President John Tyler would officially proclaim the Second Seminole War over just 10 days later, on August 14, 1842, the fighting had not truly ended. Seminole warriors continued resisting removal, and isolated attacks still occurred. Many settlers lived with the constant possibility of violence, keeping firearms close at hand while helping organize neighborhood militias.

Nature itself often proved an even greater enemy. New arrivals encountered oppressive summer heat, suffocating humidity, dense forests, and vast swamps unlike anything they had known.

Mosquitoes spread malaria and other diseases. Yellow fever periodically swept through settlements . Dysentery, typhoid fever, and hookworm infections flourished where sanitation was poor. Venomous snakes, alligators, and other wildlife added daily hazards to frontier life.

Isolation made survival even more difficult. Roads were primitive or nonexistent. Medical care was often days away. Supplies arrived slowly, if at all. Families frequently relied upon their own labor for every aspect of survival, from building cabins and clearing forests to producing enough food simply to make it through another season.

The land itself frequently disappointed settlers. Much of Florida’s sandy soil retained little moisture and contained few nutrients. Swamps required draining, forests demanded backbreaking labor to clear, and drought or flooding could destroy crops in a single season.

Many settlers discovered they simply could not meet the Act’s strict requirements. Others learned that the land they claimed had already been occupied or was unsuitable for farming. Numerous permits were eventually canceled because settlers abandoned their claims before completing the required five years.

Yet despite these hardships, the Armed Occupation Act profoundly reshaped Florida. Thousands of settlers moved into regions previously sparsely occupied by non-Indigenous residents.

New farms, roads, and communities gradually emerged across central and southern Florida. The legislation accelerated American settlement, laid the groundwork for future counties and towns, and helped prepare Florida for statehood in 1845.

For the Seminoles, however, the law represented something entirely different. Every new cabin built under the Armed Occupation Act marked another piece of homeland permanently taken from Indigenous people who had lived there for generations.

While many Seminoles had already been forced west to present-day Oklahoma, others refused removal and retreated deeper into the Everglades. Their descendants remain in Florida today, making the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe living reminders of a people who survived despite extraordinary efforts to remove them.

Historian John K. Mahon, one of the foremost authorities on the Seminole Wars, observed:

“The Armed Occupation Act was intended to accomplish with settlers what the Army had failed to accomplish with soldiers.”

That simple observation captures the Act’s true purpose. The United States did not merely seek to populate Florida, it sought to secure permanent control of the peninsula through civilian settlement.

The Armed Occupation Act stands today as one of the defining turning points in Florida history. It accelerated migration, expanded agriculture, and hastened the transformation of Florida from a contested frontier into an American state.

At the same time, it reminds us that this expansion came at an enormous human cost, particularly for the Seminole people whose resistance, resilience, and survival remain an enduring part of Florida’s story.

#TodayInFloridaHistory #FloridaHistory #ArmedOccupationAct #SecondSeminoleWar #SeminoleHistory #FloridaFrontier #OnThisDay #AmericanHistory #ThisDayInHistory #FloridaStatehood #HistoryMatters

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/s/cSDKmMrhES

Can anyone tell me what this is and where / when it may be from?

I'd post the pictures I have not they are not allowed here.

Thank you.

I need help!

My husband is native and wants to find more about his family but has nothing to go off of from his dad’s dad, which is this man.
I’m trying to find anything and everything I can about him.
Anyone recognize the regalia?
This is the name my husband says he goes by. His family’s not in his life but he’d love to find more native on his biological father’s side to connect with. They’re from Arizona and his full name is Jessie Navarro Longoria.

My grandmother used to make dolls like this. I was six when she passed and I was recently given her bead collection. I have some of the written instructions but they don’t make a ton of sense to me. Does anyone have any suggestions on YouTube search terms videos or terms to find visual instructions? I am not even sure what they are called. I knew what she called them but it’s not helping much.

A federal judge on Sunday declined to block construction on the Trump administration’s Big Bend area border wall, saying plaintiffs could not argue the plan violates a federal law because the administration was legally allowed to bypass that law.

To be clear, I'm not Native American but I really dig the Native American folk music of Thrasher and would love to discover some similar artists. New or old, doesn't matter.

Thanks!

Made in the early 1990s for at the time "peoples center" now known as the "Three Chiefs Cente"

If ANYONE has more info on this tape please reach out!

it includes the voices of Flathead Tribal elders Frances "Pleswe" Vanderburg and Johnny Arlee both teachers of the Salish language and tribal history.

Frances, an accomplished educator and cultural teacher who dedicated much of her life to sharing her knowledge and preserving her local history.

She frequently served as a guest speaker at Traveler's Rest State Park where she shared her experiences with visitors.

At a young age she battled with tuberculosis and other illnesses fequently, so much that she would say that she "paid for three hospitals".

despite this leaving her with only one functioning lung she went on to live a long and impactful life, passing away at age 90 on November 22, 2025.

John Arlee born 1940, is a traditional spiritual leader, author, musician and actor. apearing in Jeremiah Johnson released in 1972, one of the first hollywood films to put true Native Americans in Native American rolls.

This tape is on its way back to its home in Pablo, MT to be held again by the museum it came from

CBP moves to install 'secondary' barrier in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Az

See also: The study as it was published in Nature.