cover image Seminole Song

Seminole Song

Vella Munn. Forge, $23.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-312-85896-4

Florida of the 1830s was a tinderbox of tension between the native Seminoles and white plantation owners. Munn sets her fifth Native American historical (after Spirit of the Eagle) against a massive but little-known act of injustice and resistance. President Andrew Jackson has signed into law a Native American relocation bill, but the Seminoles of the Everglades have refused to give up their ancestral land to settle in Kansas and Oklahoma as ordered. Led by the ailing Chief Osceola, the Seminole tribes have been hiding in the wilderness, constantly on the run. Many runaway slaves have joined the Seminoles in their flight. In the midst of this desperate drama, the half-white slave Calida, lady's maid to planter Reddin Croon's homely but wealthy wife, Liana, frees a Seminole clan chief, Panther, who has been captured by Croon. Routinely brutalized and sexually abused by Croon, Calida witnesses his murder of Liana, then flees into the Everglades. There, she is taken in by Panther and his Egret Clan. Calida lives in utter terror of Croon, who is obsessed with hunting her down and killing Panther. And he is in an excellent position to do both, as he has rejoined the army charged with rounding up the Seminoles. Munn's knowledge of the period and locale is extensive, and she skillfully conjures the Seminole's agonizing and brave stand-off with the government, as well as the terrifying risk taken by the slaves who joined them. She brings into sharp relief both the hesitant attempts of slaves and Indians to bridge vastly different cultures and experiences in order to find love and freedom. (Apr.)