Whitney Mills
Fss199
October 30, 2000


                   Miccosukees Fight for The Everglades

    The Everglades are a very young piece of land.  There is no other land 
formation like it in the whole entire world.  Naturally the land is fertile 
and many farmers want to cultivate this nutrient rich land.  When the farmers 
grow sugar crops the fertilizers seep into the water tables making it very 
unhealthy for people to drink the water and also very unhealthy for the wild 
life surrounding it. Because this land is inhabited bye native Indians many 
lawsuits have come about concern of the Everglades by the natives.  This 
leaves the Indians at war with the Government and the developers who want to
destroy their home.

The Everglades are also a very controversial piece of land. The Miccosukee 
Indians are at war with lawyers and consultants over who owns the land.  The
federal Government Finally granted the Indians 5 miles worth of land to live on 
forever.  The Indians had live on this land for the past 50 years and the lease 
that they had with the government was up in 2014.  This burden was holding back 
the Indians idea to put in 65 houses off of U.S. 41 south.  

In addition to the land that was granted to the Indians, they expected the 
government to pass new tougher laws to help to clean up the Everglades and to end
the Pollution caused by the sugar farms.  The Indians could control how strict 
the law would be forcing the government to clean up any of the bad chemicals from 
the sugar farms whenever they felt it was needed.  In September 1998 a Miami judge
agreed with the tribe that the government was being too lenient with the 
million-dollar plan to clean up the Everglades.

There are many more legal challenges brought about by the Miccosukee tribe.  
They blame the water managers and the federal workers for polluting the land
and for ruining their Cyprus hammocks by flooding them. This is a very important
case because even though there are only 400 members of this tribe their voices are
not overheard.  They just want to have their land for themselves and pass on their 
culture. They need their land to not be ruined by the sugar farms.  Their culture 
is very important to them and they want to pass on their culture.

The land in the Everglades affects the Miccosukee tribe.  Many different lawsuits 
were brought about to protect their land from being polluted.  Even though they are
a small peaceful community they state that they will not be taken advantage of. 
They just want to be an independent community who runs their own lives and share 
their customs.

The Miccosukee tribe had endured many hardships in their fight to maintain their 
homeland. The government has become sensitive to the destruction and pollution of
the Everglades, by allowing for new laws to be passed in order to help the 
Everglades.  The Everglades will be kept pollution free if the Government holds 
up to its promise of protection and funding. 


Bibliography
www.naplesnews.com
www.naplesnews.com/today/flordia/a34868o.htm
Sunday December 27, 1998
By: Robert P. King, The Palm Beach Post.