The "Wild Indians" of Andros: Black Seminole descendants identified in 1937 (Red Bays, Andros, Bahamas, 1821 to today)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1821 · Places: Florida, Caribbean
SUMMARYThe "Wild Indians" of Andros: Black Seminole descendants identified in 1937 (Red Bays, Andros, Bahamas, 1821 to today) [Connections: Miami & Lake Okeechobee, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDRosalyn Howard, "The 'Wild Indians' of Andros Island: Black Seminole Legacy in the Bahamas," Journal of Black Studies 37:2 (2006), 275-298: Black Seminoles began arriving secretly on Andros in 1821, after British authorities in Nassau failed to keep a promise to support them and the Seminoles against white attackers in Florida; in 1937 anthropologist John Goggin met Felix MacNeil, a descendant of the refugees, and concluded that the legendary "Wild Indians" of Andros were descended from the Florida Black Seminoles; most of present-day Red Bays descends from these exiles. Howard's book Black Seminoles in the Bahamas (University Press of Florida, 2002) puts the 1821 group at about 200 and Red Bays at about 290 people, mostly direct descendants
PATTERNA Bahamian community of people classified as Black was known locally as "Indians," and a professional anthropologist traced them to Florida's Seminole towns
LENS (WW9)In the islands they still called them Indians. Renamed Black. Born Aboriginal
OPENWhether any Red Bays families later went to Miami as laborers (cross-check 1900-1920 Dade census birthplaces "Andros"); Goggin's 1937 field notes
DISPUTED200 (Howard, book) vs. about 300 (marker) for 1821
SOURCEHoward 2006, Journal of Black Studies (UCF STARS record); Black Seminoles in the Bahamas (UBC Press listing).