Since the mid-19th century, representations of Black Seminoles have proliferated alongside their forced displacement from Seminole Florida. These works have developed discordant symbolic roles for Black Seminoles—as an unconquered male resistance force, an icon of racial mixture and solidarity, or a virulent symbol of Black and Native complicity in one another’s oppression. Many of these depictions reductively categorize Black Seminoles, in mutually exclusive terms, as either Black or Native. Others take Black Seminole history as evidence that the entire Seminole tribal nation is “mixed blood.” John Horse is, in many ways, the ur-Black Seminole, the model for many Black Seminole representations in literature, film, theater, song, painting, and sculpture. The ambiguous, incomplete, and “unresting” representation of Black Seminoles in broader popular culture is evocatively reflected in the fact that the final resting place of John Horse is still unknown. This is the basis for the literal and metaphorical meanings of the question: Where Rests John Horse?
Where Rests John Horse, Windy Goodloe, 2/17/25
Where rests John Horse
In the divide between Texas and Mexico?
In the division between Black and Seminole?
Where rests John Horse
Enigmatically between myth and truth?
Restlessly on his final route?
Where rests John Horse
In the stories of the former?
In the futurism of the latter?
For the man who died
And became a mystery
Maybe that was his final gift
A question that would always haunt his legacy
Where Rests John Horse (Duh wisseh John Horse duh rest?)
-And Does he Get to Rest at All?, Gabriel Sánchez, 3/3/25
Aho! Aho! Aho!
Said three times at a grave site
But who says it at John Horse’s?
And if we knew where to say it
Who gets to say it?
And how?
And why?
And what does it mean ?
Aho! Aho! Aho!
Said three times at a grave site
The linguist records in his notes
And had he not
It might be as lost as the site of John Horse’s final day
And it’s origins
It’s existence
It’s legacy
Just as complex as the man who brought the words
-already well-traveled-
Across borders and boundaries and further than the generations who first uttered it would have guessed
Where rests John Horse?
And does he get to rest at all?
And does he let us rest?
Horse, Hoss, Cavallo, Cawallo
Juan, John
Even the name doesn’t rest
A dancing swirl of languages
Of cultures
And of complications-
Did you know that the Seminole owned slaves?
That’s messed up right
Well even the Indians did it
Did you know that the Blacks escaped slavery and fled into the Seminole?
An example of red-and-black and black-and-red solidariry
An anti-colonial legacy
Uh poody tory
Did you know that the Black and the Seminole intermarried?
Did you know that the Seminole are Black?
That the word didn’t exist until there were Black people for it to be spoken along with?
Sabias que los negros escaparon a Mexico y que el gobierno Mexicano les dio tierra
Y libertad?
Did you know that they fought the Indians for the white man?
No rest in Florida
No rest in Indian Territory
No rest in Mexico
No rest in Texas
Always a war to fight, a slaver to evade, an escape to make
A resting place to earn
Do you know what a Black Seminole is?
It’s….(take your pick)….(and do you have 45 minutes)?
Slaves of the Seminole, freedom among the Seminole, a hybrid people….
And John Horse…
A product of all of the above
But not simply any of the above
A combination, a contradiction that refuses easy categorization
Refuses easy summaries and click-bait simplifications
And book-jacket beautifications
of the Black-Indian legacy
A person as complex as the people he led
As shifting as the borders he rode through
Refuses to rest at any kind of simple conclusion
Refuses to conclude
Refuses to let us rest
Unless we want to
Cut off
Slice
Erase
Bury…deep in the ground
A little slice
Slices
of inconvenient history
Wice de kyan-crow dem
-de john-crow dem-
Studdeh duh circle roun
Temuh a big grabe
Een de dut?
Ebbuway?
Fuh we kin say
Aho! Aho! Aho!
Where Rest John Horse, Corina Harrington, 3/21/2025
WHERE REST JOHN HORSE
A MAN WHOM THE SOUND OF HIS NAME BRINGS TO MIND
A MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE
A WILD AND POWERFUL CENTAUR
BORN OUT OF THE SWAMPS OF FLORIDA
A BLACK SEMINOLE WARRIOR
REST ASSURE HE’S NO MYTH
HE FOUGHT FOR HIS PEOPLE’S FREEDOM IN FLORIDA
AT NO TIME WILL HE ALLOW THEIR FREEDOM
TO BE JEAPORDIZE IN OKLAHOMA
BECAME THE TREE OF LIFE FOR
THE NEGROS MASCOGOS IN MEXICO
A SON, A BROTHER, A HUSBAND, A FATHER
AND A CHIEF
HIS WORDS WOULD BE REMEMBERED
“EVERY CHILD IS MY CHILD ….
ALL CHILDREN AND OLD PEOPLE
ARE MY CHILDREN AND MY OWN PARENTS”
IF YOU LEARN, TEACH, SPEAK
OR WRITE ABOUT HIM
JOHN HORSE RESTS IN YOU