First Female Seminole Chief Dies

[Zephie]

By Cosette Paneque
January 15, 2011

HOLLYWOOD – The only woman to ever lead the Seminole Tribe of Florida has died.

Betty Mae Tiger Jumper passed away Friday morning at her home on the Hollywood Seminole Reservation. She was 88.

Tiger Jumper was born in 1923 and grew up during a time in which Seminole children were not allowed to attend public schools in Florida. But Tiger Jumper wanted to preserve the stories she heard from the older members of the tribe and began attending a boarding school for Native Americans. She became the first Seminole to learn to read and write English and then to graduate from high school. She continued her education in nursing and made improved health care a priority for her tribe, traveling to many Seminole towns to care for others. Tiger Jumper married Moses Jumper in 1946. They had three children. She started a tribal newsletter that became The Seminole Tribune in 1950.

In 1967, Tiger Jumper became the first female chair, or chief, of the Seminole tribe. She improved the tribe’s finances as well as its health and education programs, and helped establish federal recognition for the Seminole Tribe of Florida. In 1970, she was one of two women appointed by President Nixon to the National Congress on Indian Opportunity. Tiger Jumper was awarded an honorary doctorate from Florida State University.

Tiger Jumper wrote two books, …and with the Wagon Came God’s Word and Legends of the Seminoles. Her biographies are A Seminole Legend: The Life of Betty Mae Tiger Jumper and the children’s book She Sang Promise: The Story of Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader.

inducted into the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994.

http://pncflorida.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/female-seminole-chief-dies/

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. What an amazing woman! Thank you for sharing this.