![]() The also say the Park Service is guilty of hypocrisy because it maintains about 300 buildings within the park, including a motel and concessions.Įnvironmentalists say the Miccosukees have not been sterling stewards of the land. The Miccosukees maintain legislation creating the park in 1934 granted them the right to live anywhere in the park. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., and three Florida colleagues recently introduced a bill that would allow the Miccosukees to do what they want in their 333 acres. The tribal chairman said his people cannot live in "clusters" because it would create jealousy and disharmony, particularly if different clans were lumped together. "He wants to give orders, not listen," Cypress said. Cypress said he no longer speaks with Ring. "What we're trying to do is make hard decisions that balance the need to restore the Everglades and the need to have the tribe there in Everglades as part of a living culture," he said.īut Cypress describes the Park Service as heavy-handed micro-managers who fight all of the tribe's development plans. What the Indians want, Ring said, "is a housing development right in the middle of the Everglades. ![]() Richard Ring, superintendent of Everglades National Park, described the situation as "a long, unfortunate, frustrating process unfortunately resulting in litigation." They believe birds and animals are reasons for the parks." "The Park Service, nationally, does not like Indians in their parks. "They want them to cluster their houses together in a slum," said Dexter Lehtinen, who is representing the Miccosukees. Moreover, park managers say, the bulk of the new housing should abut 100 existing homes, eliminating those "Everglades-front" vistas. The park managers say they will allow new Indian homes to be built, but that they must be "clustered," hidden by privacy fences and landscaping and set back from roads. National Park Service officials are fighting the Miccosukee housing plan, and the issue is before a federal court in Miami, where a judge might soon have to balance rights of the Miccosukees against the Everglades National Park. The tribe, which numbers about 400 adults and is flush with cash from gambling and cigarette operations, is aided by a high-powered, politically plugged-in former U.S. They live in tract housing along the Tamiami Trail, complete with cable TV, septic tanks and a lot of new pickup trucks.Ĭypress sits in a spacious office, surrounded by fax machines and computer equipment. Now they are the entrepreneurial overlords of bingo, employing non-Indians to work in their restaurant. Years ago, the Miccosukees lived as subsistence hunters, then as touristic alligator wrestlers and day laborers. What the Miccosukees want is to remedy a housing shortage and build about 65 houses, each with an "Everglades-front" view along a road on 333 acres set aside for them as a "special-use-permit area" just inside Everglades National Park. Most everyone agrees the Miccosukees have a right to live in the Everglades, but what are the limits? Could they build a resort? A casino? A bingo hall? The battle is not about ancestral hunting grounds but a clash of conflicting ideals - how to protect the ecosystem vs. ![]() Similar fights involve Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. The Miccosukees are among several tribes battling to keep their homes in federal parks. "The United States tried to get rid of us before," said Miccosukee Tribal Chairman Billy Cypress. They say their sovereignty, their culture, their existence - and, more specifically, their right to build a 65-house subdivision in the middle of precious public lands - are at stake. The Miccosukees say they are at war again, this time with the National Park Service. Driven by soldiers and settlers into the hidden heart of the Everglades, a small band of Miccosukee Indians fought the Army to a standoff more than 100 years ago in the Third Seminole War.
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