The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3572 - Trump's DOJ; America's Forgotten War w/ Jamie Holmes

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

It's News Day Tuesday on the Majority Report On today's program: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is asked by Laura Ingraham whether there will be consequences for men who "partied with Epstein and engaged in relations with minors." Blanche responds, "It is not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein." Two days before those comments regarding Epstein were made, Todd Blanch tells George Stephanopoulos that his job is to execute the priorities of the president. Writer Jamie Holmes joins the program to discuss his book The free and the Dead: The Untold Story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel, and America's Forgotten War. In the Fun Half: Andrew Schulz says that the recent ICE murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good were a breaking point for him. AOC emphasizes the need to repeal this massive increase in DHS funding, which lacks guardrails and effectively serves as a blank check for Palantir to build a facial-recognition database on Americans. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) says that republicans didn't want to talk about Epstein until they needed a distraction from ICE.   Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers is asked whether he stands by his comments calling the killing of Renee Good a murder, and he doubles down. Donald Trump calls into Dan Bongino's show and seems a little peppier than usual as he goes on a never-ending stream of consciousness rant.   Chuck Schumer posts photos with Maria Machado with captions that express what an honor it was spend time with the "leader of democracy in Venezuela".   Colin Allred posts a bizarre video responding to alleged comments made James Talarico.   all that and more To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: ZOCDOC: Go to Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY and download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE and book a top-rated doctor SHOPIFY: Get 15% off of your first order at blueland.com/majority  SUNSET LAKE: Now through February 9th you can use the code VALENTINE26 to save 30% on all of Sunset Lake's gummies, chocolate fudge, and Farmer's Roast infused coffee beans at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

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Head over there. We'll put the link in the podcast and YouTube description with that coupon code. Now time for the show. with Sam Cedar. It is Tuesday, February 3rd, 2006. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal

in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Jamie Holmes, writer and author of The Free and the Dead, the untold story of the black seminal chief, the indigenous rebel, in America's forgotten war. Also on the program, day three of a partial shutdown, Republicans teeing up a vote today. Meanwhile, a judge temporarily blocks Trump's rescission of temporary protected status for 330,000 Haitians. thousands of Epstein docks taken down after they supposedly inadvertently identified victims.

Meanwhile, a lot of people have a lot of things to answer for. Fulton County to sue the Trump regime over seizure of the 2020 election records. This after reports Tulsi Gabbard, who was sort of oddly on that trip, called Trump from the election site so he could talk to the FBI agents. Put me on speaker. I just happen to be in Atlanta. This, as Donald Trump calls for Republicans to take over federal elections. Well, just in the states I lost.

Seems bad. Not all of them. They're like 15 places. Federal thugs in Minnesota now outfitted with body cams. that come with still complete lack of accountability. French prosecutors raid ex-offices as part of the investigation into Grox, new generations and algorithms. Maryland House passes a gerrymander for one more Democratic seat.

Unclear if it gets Maryland Senate passage. Bill and Hillary Clinton, remember them? They've agreed to testify before Congress about Epstein. Maybe because he's not really featured prominently in this latest document dump. France issues warrants against two French Israelis charged with obstructing humanitarian aid to Gaza. All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It is... Newsday, Tuesday, kind of not really.

Because we have a guest, but excited about the guests. Yeah. Well, we'll cover some news as well. But there you go. I mean, it's Tuesday, Tuesday. It's... We just do it because it rhymes. Yes, exactly. As we've talked about, once the Trump 2.0 regime started,

the amount of news that accumulates over the weekend makes it quite difficult for us to keep to our branding on the schedule front. The format has been certainly tested over the course of the past, I want to say, 12 and a half months. And we're still figuring it out. And I don't know that we will actually figure it out. I have a feeling that's sort of the nature of the era we are in. But that's where we're at. Somebody's asking, are we going to cover the sharting, shart gate? We did yesterday.

Did we? We didn't think it was that impressive. It sounded like electronic disturbance. Right. Maybe there's other angles. I mean, I do not think we need to get further into this story. Something stinks. We'll wait.

We'll wait for the Trump pooping cam. So we'll wait for that. In the meantime, Ed Martin, you'll recall him. He was at one time the Washington, D.C., U.S. attorney. He is the one who got together with Pulte, who was over at the FHA, and they started doing all these hit jobs on people like Lisa Cook and Tish James by combing through their mortgage and trying to find some problem in their mortgages.

Ed Martin has been demoted. and is now down to like his portfolio is just like pardon lawyer at this point. Unclear what that means at the DOJ, but it does suggest that there has been some power balance within the DOJ that has changed. I don't know how relevant it is really because it's really just like one set of cronies versus another set of. of cronies, but we haven't seen Pam Bondi out very much as of late. And it's unclear whether that's because maybe she's screwed up something with the Epstein files or maybe she's out of favor with Donald Trump at the moment. But the guy that's been sent out a lot is Todd Blanche.

He is the number two at the DOJ, Deputy Attorney General. And just to remind you, it is February 3rd. So this time plus three weeks last year, he was Donald Trump's top defense attorney. And he was the guy that paid a little visit to Galane Maxwell. And she told him all Trump's not implicated, pretty much. And then coincidentally, she moved to a low security prison. She got a puppy. Things worked out quite well for her.

against all Bureau of Prison rules. So that just gives you a sense of what Todd Blanche's job is. And he made the mistake of acknowledging that on ABC's this week Sunday. This is number four. This is number, oh, I'm sorry, this is number three. This is on Fox News. Yes. It's on Fox News.

to give you a sense of what his job is, this is what he said on Fox News last night regarding the Epstein files. Well, some of the people we saw on camera at the rallies, is there any chance that any of these individuals who partied with Epstein and engaged in relations with minors will be prosecuted. Pause for one second. I just want you to remember how she asked that question, who partied with Epstein and engaged in relationships with minors, are they going to get in any type of trouble? And you're going to be very surprised to which part of that sentence Todd Blanche did not hear.

You know, relations with minors will be prosecuted. Any chance? I'll never say no. And we will always investigate any evidence of misconduct. But as you know, it is not a crime to party with Mr. Epstein. And so as horrible is it's not a crime to email with Mr. Epstein. And some of these men may have done horrible things. And if we have evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will.

But it's also the kind of thing that the American people need to understand that it isn't a crime to party with Mr. Epstein. It isn't a crime to have lunches in. And it looked like that's all that was going on on some of those photos. I mean, if the photos could speak, some of them look pretty bad. That's right. And unfortunately, photos can't speak. And so we need witnesses. Are there videotapes that you all have?

What do you mean you need witnesses? You have dozens and dozens of victims who are saying we are willing to cooperate right now. And photos don't necessarily speak, but they sort of show. And that's what they do. But just in case you were wondering why he goes out and says this stuff, the two plus two in this is two is he was Donald Trump's defense attorney. And the other two in this is that in many ways,

he's still Donald Trump's defense attorney. This is him just two days ago. America's safe again. We're working hard every day. And those handful of investigations or cases you just show don't change that. Those indictments of James Comey and Leticia James came after the president explicitly said, they're guilty

as hell and justice must be served right now. They came after career attorneys refused to bring the indictments. And both cases, have been dismissed? I don't know what it means that it come after people. I mean, listen,

if you're a prosecutor in the Department of Justice, you are expected to effectuate this administration's priorities. Like every single prosecutor in every administration, there are some prosecutors within the department

who have chosen to leave. They don't want to do that. That is their right. That is fine. But if you're going to work in this department, you are going to execute on the president's priorities, and that's what we do.

And yes, there are cases that have been dismissed by judges. They're under appeal. That's what happens our system and that doesn't make the cases wrong or right. It just means that they've been dismissed and they're under appeal. Well, you just actually made my point right there. You says the president's priorities. The president calls for them publicly to be prosecuted says they're guilty as hell and then they're prosecuted. Now that's not the president's priorities. That's a truth that he sent

out. The president's priorities are executing on making America safe again. And that's what we're doing. And so when we go to prosecutors and we say, you are going to do violent crime, you are going to do I don't think we need to hear anymore at that point. How would you define a priority? So the truth, what he says on truth social is distinct in some way from his opinions in other areas or his agenda. His priorities are a function of how they are communicated. And it's just a total coincidence that they went after multiple people with completely

loser cases that people resigned rather than take that, were dismissed summarily that took multiple grand juries to try and find an indictment. And even at that point, they had to lie about what they got indicted and lie to the grand jury and to the judge. But they weren't listening to what the president said. It was just a coincidence because all he had put out was a truth post. It's incredible that we're living through this moment in history where it's just basically taken as a given that the Department of Justice is going.

going to basically function as a retribution vehicle for the pettiest man alive, who's a pedophile protector at the very least and is declining before our very eyes. It's crumbling empire stuff, as is even this Epstein story, where you see how, like, his, he was essentially, he was a global elite in the, and a connector and a fixer, and his influence network was very much within the, crumbling world order that even Carney talked about where it's like the the Israeli intelligence the military industrial complex like US financial firms and that kind of corruption and these people being exposed in many ways is unmasking that like elite that that's transnational elite that rules us all outside of nation states

are you still talking about Jeffrey that was same I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more about the Epstein stuff going forward on top of everything else. I want Democrats to pull on the thread about Q&N potentially being a right-wing psychological operation, by the way. The fact that Epstein met with the 4chan founder and was working this closely with Steve Bannon, it very much feels like that whole online phenomenon that radicalized so many online young men and conservatives was about deflecting from Trump's and Epstein's connections. And if Democrats take back power, they should really look into that.

Also, the Brexit stuff. Also, people should look into that. Epstein talking about buying on the way down after things collapsed because of the Brexit vote. This stuff is, I mean, it's crazy. This is, this blows the Nixon tapes out of the water. Absolutely. And I'm a big Nixon tapes fan. Yeah.

And I think to Emma's point, the, the way that this guy moved through, the world and and the people that he was talking i mean larry summers for instance yeah has had as much influence on our economic policy over the past 15 years maybe a little bit more 17 as any individual in in the country maybe and um this guy was of trading different favors, including, like, seeking advice on how to date girls. So pathetic. But pathetic, but also, like, it just shows that there is just an immense amount of corruption built into the system. And it is Matt Stoller had an interesting thread about how this is indicative of.

of so many failed institutions across the board that allowed for someone like this to come in in short circuit all of the supposed trappings of the meritocracy and of the, I guess, the rules-based system. And I saw Ryan Grimm's reply just really quickly saying, it's no coincidence that this system that Epstein exploited really began with Iran-Contraud. And with their involvement in arms dealing and stuff like that, that is where this all, you know, I think you can trace it all back to this. Accountability. I mean, and we saw that sort of like crumble a little bit with Nixon. You got pardoned ultimately all, you know, bygones be bygones. But it was Iran-Contra where we really started to see the failure of these institutions to hold people accountable. but we will talk more about this in the coming days.

We have a couple of sponsors, and after which we'll talk to Jamie Holmes, writer, author of The Free and the Dead, The Untold Story, the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel in America's Forgotten War. Raise your hand if you've been putting off a dental cleaning. Thank you. I am. Thank you, Brian.

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in the dead, the untold story of the black seminal chief, the indigenous rebel, and America's forgotten war. We are back, Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland, on the Majority Report. Pleasure to welcome to the program, Jamie Holmes, writer, and author of the Free and the Dead, the untold story of the black seminal chief, the indigenous rebel, and America's forgotten war. They're the book in actual, like, book form here. Old-fashioned.

Very old-fashioned. Well, it's a history book. And so, Jamie, welcome to the program. Let's just start with, like, you know, why don't we just discuss, like, why, how you came upon this story. The Seminole Wars are just not ones that, frankly, I feel like we cover, you know, this is not something that my kid is going through high school is ever going to, hear about as far as I can tell. What was it that drew you to this? Thank you, first of all, for having me on. I was, I don't remember what I was Googling, but I came upon a letter to the editor in the New York Times. I want to say it was written in 1991. It wasn't recent. And it said something

to the effect of there was a Rainbow Coalition in Florida in the 1800s between Native and African-Americans, that fought off the U.S. Army for 40 years, and nobody knows the story because of our Eurocentric view of history. That's what sort of set me off, and then I began to dig into the archives and what had been written about it. To your point, you know, if you look in U.S. history books today, what you'll really see is usually you'll see a description that says, the seminal Asiola was the leader of the war, and he passed away, and there's a few sentences on it. Asiola was not a seminal. He was not the leader.

The story is so much richer and so much more interesting than it gets credit for. So I sort of, I set out to tell the twin story of who Osceola was. I wanted to get behind the mythology of it and see who he really was, the historical person, not the mythologized character. And then the second person I started off focusing on was the Black Seminole chief. Abraham, whose Indian title is Sawa Noctoscanuki or Shawnee Warrior. That's where, that was my jumping off point. And then later I began to learn, as I got deeper into the research, the importance of the Mikazuki chief Sam Jones, who I focus on in the back half of the book.

And I didn't realize his importance when I started off. All right. Well, let's, I mean, set the table for us. We're in the 18, 10s, 20s, the United States has essentially purchased Florida at that point. But it is, I don't see, it's like the Wild West, but it's sort of like the Wild West on some level. And Andrew Jackson, who was president at that point, is dreaming of his retirement home. and so not really paying that much attention. Just set the table for us and how this sort of story begins.

Yeah. So in American history books, there are three seminal wars. The first is 1817, 1818, 1835, 1842, which is the focus of this book. And then the third is 1855, 1858. The Seminole Tribe of Florida refers to that entire period as the long war. a period of colonial aggression. This, in 1835, where the story really starts to, starts from, every, every territory east of the Mississippi River is a state, except for Florida and Michigan.

So Florida is lagging. It was Spanish. It's formerly U.S. territory in 1821. Florida doesn't become a state until 1845. There's only 35,000 people in San Francisco. in the Florida territory at this time, 45% of those are enslaved people and about 5,000 indigenous people

known to the colonists as the Seminoles, but in reality, constituting a number of different tribes, the Seminoles among them. And yeah, in 1830, Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act into law, which nationalizes what was a more haphazard policy of removing families from their homes.

achieved through a course of treaties and military actions and settlers coming crowding out the land. And so the story is the resistance of the Seminoles and their allies to this act of force removal. More or less they say, I'm really your friend. You have to leave. And if you don't leave, we're going to go to war and we're going to force you out. And additionally, this attempts by private citizens under the Senate. sanction of people in the U.S. government at high levels to enslave the Black Seminoles and transfer them to private plantations, private forced labor camps. How many during the course of like that, I guess over the course maybe the 15 years in there,

I guess it is, how many indigenous people, most of my understanding, go to Oklahoma at that point or are forced to Oklahoma. That's right. The population is estimated at 4 to 5,000 at the start of the war. In 1858, at the end of the third Seminole War, the estimates that are about 600 people remain in the Everglades under the leadership of the Seminole chief, William Bollegs, Billy Bollags, also known as Holatomico, and Chief of Biacca, also known as Sam Jones. So nearly everyone

went west. But there was a core resistance that did win, that was unconquered, that never signed any surrender. And those descendants are still in Florida today, and that that's their heritage, the unconquered people. So let's start with Osceala, who is, mis-categorized, I guess, was miscategorized, like you say, as Seminole, but was, in fact, Creek. Tell us about it. He comes out of the Red Sticks in what is now Alabama and Georgia, and his boyhood, he would have seen this split in the Creek people.

So the Seminoles break off from the Creek Confederacy of the Muskogee people and come down in several waves, 1750s, 1790s, 1814, around then. And there's a split in the Creek people, and there's a war, 1813, 1814, between the red sticks where Asiola comes out of and the white sticks who are allied with, then General Jackson. And there's a Battle of Horseshoe Bend in which 800 red sticks are killed, and widows and children, Osceola, among them, make their way down into Florida. Osceola is probably around 10 years old at this time. If you date his birth to 1804, which some people do. And he is, he has a memory of this loss. He watched his people divided.

He watched this, you know, known of in any case, this brutal defeat. And then the general who is responsible for it becomes the president of the United States, sends down a functionary into Florida to give him this spiel about friendship. Really, they're trying to save money. They want them off the land cheaply without a war. And he is oriented towards payback, righteously so. He gets it. He does pay with his life.

He dies of some ailment. We're not sure exactly what. In American newspapers and even abroad, he becomes the face of the war. And he becomes one of the most famous. Native Americans in American history, in American history textbooks, why is this? That's a question all on its own, is at the start of the war, he's not a creek. He's loyal to the Mika Zuki chief, Sam Jones. How did he become the face of the war? So part of the book deals with that. And as far as I could tell, it's because of a few actions that he is chose, is responsible for. He killed

Wiley Thompson. He was a prominent voice in the meetings, the negotiations that they had. He was quite vocal. And he is useful to a degree to Americans who are trying to sell this as a war rather than a forced eviction of families, including women and children. It's a much better story to say, here's a, here's a warrior, and this is a war, and he's brave, or he's whatever he is, he's quote-unquote savage. However, you frame it, whether you're sympathetic or not, a warrior and a war is a better story than what was actually done, which was this sort of brutal forced emigration. It sounds very familiar.

I mean, it literally, you could be describing Gaza today, the way it's described and the campaign of ethnic cleansing. But I don't have too much to add to that. I just wanted to point that out. And this is sort of another iteration of sort of, it's analogous to the also to the lost cause. Like the way that history wants to remember these things,

it makes it much more palatable if this was two belligerent groups versus, you know, one of ethnic cleansing. We should just say that Wiley Thompson that you mentioned was the Indian agent sent by, or he was yeah jackson's so-called indian agent uh sent down to um uh you know try and convince him to just leave essentially um right so let's talk about uh abraham or uh you know the i i i'm not going to be able to say uh his uh his other name um but uh i'm not you're going to try um but uh well what are the implications of like they're being freedmen like how did how did were they freedmen or were they like how were who were these people yeah so again to your point about what stories you know

get told in which don't um there's a history of of writers who discuss this story who more or less ignore the Black Seminole story as well. The population is comprised of several different quote-unquote categories. There's Black Seminole royalty who are formally free, who have papers to document their freedom. That includes Abraham and his family and a Black Semino. I can't forget if he's a chief or sub-chief, Tony Barnett, I think he's a chief and his family. Of the estimated 500 black Seminoles who are there at the time, probably about 100 in these ratios, there are several different estimates of these ratios. But as best we know, 20% or 100 of those are servants, according to the old Muskogee Way. This is not chattel enslavement. It's, as far as we know,

the only requirement of this form of slavery is that you pay a portion of your crop, of your corn, as tribute, which sounds quite a bit like a tax to me, and not enslavement. And then 400 or 80% of those are self-mancipated, either people who freed themselves by escaping the plantations in Florida or further north or children of POW prisoners' wars who are captured, some by the creeks, who allied with the British in the Revolutionary War. Their children, by the old Muscogee rules, could be full members of the tribe. But in essence, you know, you have, when Florida drafts the state constitution, there's a clause in there.

It wasn't passed this way, but that's how it was drafted, trying to ban all free black people from entering the state. So unlike when the Spanish had it and you had three classes and a large population of free people of color, what Florida is trying to institute is really a two-tier system of white settlers and enslaved people. So there's really no space for a group of 500 free black people in the interior of Florida. So what they do is they pretend to be enslaved.

They all pretend to have been purchased by the Seminoles. And if you look at their rights, you know, the rights under chattel slavery generally, and these rules vary. Movement is restricted. You need to pass. You cannot accumulate vast wealth. You can be sold and separated. as property. And after 1831, after Nat Turner's rebellion, there are laws which ban the ability

to teach an enslaved person to read. So if you compare them to what the Black Seminels, the rights the Black Seminals had, there was a law according to Wiley Thompson Jackson's Indian agent that they could not be sold. Laws are broken, but there was a law against it. They traveled freely. They had vast livestock. And they were knowledgeable. Some of them were trilingual, bilingual. They were worldly. So all of the, all of that, and they were, and by the way, there's the, the governor of the territory of Florida is writing a letter in one letter, he says, they're slaves but in name. So there's several references. I knew, I know a seminal chief. He owns 80 quote unquote enslaved people. He is none the better for owning them. He's poor. He can't even afford to feed his own family.

So, uh, the majority of them were, were free and, and, and, uh, pretending to have been purchased by the Seminels for self-protection. Chief Abraham owned his son, Renti. So that tells you guys, Renty is not his, it's not an enslaved person. This is protective ownership. How did that, like, how was that arrangement made? Like, I mean, was it, I mean, it, it's, you know, like, how sophisticated were they about creating that they create documents?

I'll be like, what would, would have been the requirements for the Seminole to prove? that they owned these freedmen. And how was that arrangement, like, struck? Or was it just that the Seminole no, like, we could see the writing on the wall and we just need as many sort of allies as we can get? Yeah. So there's an old Spanish policy beginning in the late 1600s,

which would recognize civil rights in exchange for military service. I think you had to say you were Catholic, but enslaved people who escaped down into Spanish Florida could say they were Catholic, fight in the militia, and they would recognize their civil rights. So there's a history in Florida and the British do this as well of exchanging civil rights for soldiery. This is in the United States today. You can get a fast pat, a track to citizenship if you serve in the armed forces. So what it looks like is that part of the story is that the Seminals just adopt this policy. We are welcome. A gun is a gun in Florida. Come down. We'll grow our military and you'll be offered some protection under Abraham and in these allied villages. But the situation with a question you're asking is how do you prove how can and the answer is that they can't. So if you're a POW or a child of a POW taken in a raid or if you've liberated yourself, there's no documentation on you. So this is in a way is a double edge sword because.

Nobody can prove that they own you, but also you're vulnerable. There's a book called Rokes Paradise, which talks about how kind of lawless Florida was at the time. There are a lot of profiteers. There are speculators. There are people who see black seminal population as a vulnerable population and who are making claims on them. The former Indian Asian Gat Humphreys illegally enslaves 29 black Seminoles on his private plantation. But in Abraham's case, there's a newspaper article which says that his freedom paper papers trace to Alabama. Later on, he says there's credible evidence that he was born among the Seminoles.

He's asked directly in 1852. He says, I don't know where I was born, but I was born among the Seminoles. The reporter says that that language, which is the Muskogee language, is his mother tongue. So I believe that that document was forged because you would have to take that document and go to, you know, the cities or the army bases, and you would want it recorded in the record books. So there is a record book in which Abraham must have presented that document to secure his formal emancipation.

But the lack of documentation is a constant problem for them throughout this period and when they travel west to the Indian territory with what became Oklahoma. And that documentation became a problem because they're going through territories or states at that point that are when they see a black person, they're like, oh, you're a runaway slave. The claims on them continue, even when they head west. Some of those claims are being made by creeks who have adopted the ways of chattel slavery. some of them are quote unquote half breeds or you have settlers having children and some of those part of the schism in the creek nation is that you have a group who are starting to adopt the ways of chattel slavery so some of those claims are being made on the black seminals by creeks in the west but yeah that happens that's something there's a group of them that actually go down to mexico to which is in which slavery has been outlawed to escape those persistent claims um okay good well i

I mean, I'm wondering in the dealings with the Americans, was there, were you able to trace some sort of understanding of like how dealing with Spanish colonizers versus the Americans versus what, you know, Andrew Jackson was trying to do here? What, how did the Semmel's differentiate in their dealings with, with these two colonizing groups? and is there anything that informs the other? Yeah, it's a good question. There's a historian of early Florida named Jane Landers at Vanderboh. She did an interview. She said something like, it's difficult for the American audience to understand

that neither the Saminels nor the Spanish nor the black Saminels thought of themselves as slaves. Only the Americans did. Right. I found that they were very discerning. So first of all, when America takes over in 1821, a lot of free people of color leave and they go to the Bahamas. They know what it means.

They know that the relative freedom under Spanish rule is not going to persist and they exit. At the beginning of the war, black seminal envoys went to the settlers that they liked, that they had good relationships with and warned them. So they were discerning in that sense. There's another description of attacks on shipwrecks on the coast in which there's a French ship that wrecks on the coast and they're spared because they're not American. So the Seminoles know very well that the ideas about skin color that the Americans are bringing are quite different.

There's a Claudio Saint who is an expert on the Creek Nation. generally on indigenous people. He has a scholarly article, which is titled something like, the British are of a mind to make slaves of them all. So this is what the Americans inherited. It really was a much more brutal and polarized idea of what we still call race that they were bringing. So let's move forward in the story to John Horse and to tell us about him. John Horse is a seminal sub-chief. He is Afro-Indigenous. His mother was a black seminal.

His father was a seminal, we think, one of the tribesmen. There's a lore about John Horst because he's one of the people that travel to Mexico, I want to say, in 1850 to escape these claims that I was talking about. There's a story of him when he's young. He's also known as Gopher John. His Indian name is Hokepis Hajo. There's a story of him selling the same two gopher turtles to a military officer again and again. The officer puts them in the cage and they escape and he sells them back. the next day. There's a lot of lore around him. The scholar Kenneth Porter, who has written about

this, and is sort of the source of the strand of historical research that focuses on the Black Seminoles on the left, writes extensively about John Horst. I don't write much about him. I don't follow him much. It's mostly Abraham. But he's one of the figures, and he also commands 15 warriors. So he's one of the fighters as well. And he was involved in the jailbreak in November 1837, in which 20 prisoners of the U.S. Army

escape out of the Castello de Saint-Markos, this massive Spanish fort in St. Augustine, by climbing out of this small loophole in the wall and making a rope out of their bed covers. And two women were involved in that escape as well during the night. It's a very dramatic escape in late November 1837. And I guess lastly, like, where do we end up? What is the in the, towards the end of this as the sort of like the, we remain with 600 seminal in the, how was it just a question of we're moving into.

a different part of Florida and we're out of like eyesight. But how do we get to the point of where I guess the Seminole just no longer represent a threat to the, those, the newly created of state? Yeah. The U.S. government more or less gives up and declares victory. It's sort of a unilateral. surrender. What happens in Florida is, so in the Second Seminole War, there's about 1,500 regular deaths, soldiers who die. Only about 330 of those are combat deaths. So the majority of deaths are

happening because of Florida, because they're getting sick, malaria, disease unknown, is often recorded. What happens in 58 and the way in which Sam Jones, Chief of Biaka, was able to wear down the army was because they set up towns in the Everglades on these hammocks, these kind of tree islands, and they would carve out places for villages and places to grow things and places for cattle and to live within these that you couldn't see from the outside. And they had a network of canoes. So whenever one spot was discovered, they would go to another spot. And the army couldn't catch them. And so it became a test of wills. It became a test of wills. a war of attrition where you're sort of wandering around, dying of disease, not finding anyone.

And this was land that the settlers couldn't farm on anyway. Everglades, even after it was drained, a lot of that land is not farmable. So the argument, it became a question of, to what degree is this worth the cost in lives and in treasure? And the government has just decided it wasn't. And, you know, in 42, when the Second Seminole War ends, Tyler makes a speech, and he says something like, we've won, and it's very noble of us to leave those remaining there

because it's a noble restraint. But really, they were worn down, and the country was tired of the war. And so they just gave up. I mean, in many respects, it's sort of like our first Vietnam. and the parallels there are pretty striking. And what ultimately became, as we go through forward of not just of Jones, but I mean, of those seminal who are basically hiding in the Everglades or unreachable because, you know, the lamb they have at that point is not what.

worth to the colonial project what the costs associated would be essentially, at least at that time? Yeah, the seminal tribe of Florida and the Mekizuikizu Ks of Florida today, those are the descendants of those survivors. And there's a Seminole nation in Oklahoma, too. So they, you know, in the 1950s, I think a hundred years later or something, there is some ceremonial signing in which the state of Florida and the tribes and the chiefs sort of agree to put the past behind them. But, you know, they exit the Everglades. Part of the Everglades is drained. and their oral histories are recorded in the 1950s. And, yeah, it becomes the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Mikizuikizu Kis of Florida.

It's a fascinating story. Jamie Holmes, writer, author, The Free and the Dead, the untold story of the Black Seminole Chief, the Indigenous Rebel, and America's Forgotten War. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

That was fun. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, thanks. Thank you. All right, folks. We're going to take a quick break, head into the fun half. Fun half. I don't know.

It's going to call it the despondent hour. Yes. It just seems like a desecration, but you go ahead. What was that about again? That was when people were asking about the Epstein files after a bunch of people in a flood in Texas. Oh my gosh, right? You know, Trump, who respects the sanctity of all of those things.

I definitely thought about all those people that died because of the negligence of Texas public authorities, not doing sirens for floods. I thought about them a lot. Like after the L.A. wildfires, when he went there and just kept talking about sweeping up the leaves, he's just, I mean, natural disasters can't conjure much from him. We'll get into this, but I should just tell you that I have on my calendar. Oh, yes. Let me just double check here.

But where did I have it? Oh, yesterday I had Trump getting his juice. So I don't know. He was around this weekend, though, right? But is he out in public today? I did some phone interviews I saw. I did Bonjino. But he did on the phone.

He did. Sitting down on video, I think. That's the notable change is he keeps doing these press conferences from the Oval Office every time so he doesn't have to get up. Well, also, so they can clean up the, they can clean up after it. Yeah. I thought we weren't buying that. I'm not buying it.

It's just fun. Well, let's put it this way. I'm selling it. Apparently he does. I'm not saying, I'm not saying. I'm not saying that that clip is indicative of him pooping his pants. But I'm also not saying that it doesn't happen all the time. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, just from the way that he waddles, you can tell these. He's got a diaper on and there's probably some extra baggage. Somebody made the point that like when we played that yesterday, we didn't take it, we didn't do the video all the way through because everybody gets ushered out of there immediately after that. because he does say at the end, I watched the tape again, just, you know, out of curiosity. He does go, oh, that's great, that's great. Okay, everybody. Okay, thank you.

We're all good. Okay, everybody out. It just kept like it. And, you know. Susie Wiles walks in with a big bag. Right, right. Susie, open my window for you. We've all been in compromised situations.

And if you have the ability, If you have the ability to say like, okay, it's a good seeing you. Everybody, goodbye. I got a lot of stuff to do. Which is what he says. It did feel like he was trying to get everybody out of the room. But also, like, you know, one way, if you really need people out of the room is you stand up and you usher people out. But if you can't stand up, you start waving like, okay.

Everybody go. Everybody go. I honestly, I shouldn't even step to you on this. Like you have a six sense with fecal matters. That's actually true. I can pick up on like... I think that's one of the regular senses. Yeah. Through the TV, though?

Folks. This is what I'm saying. This is your super, this is your superpower. Some people can shape shift and fly. You can tell when somebody shit their pants. I mean, I have one or two other talents like that. Also, I can tell. when people pee themselves, but that's much easier.

That's a lot easier. Folks, it's your support that makes the show possible. Don't you? If you want to more of this great content, join the Majority Report.com. It's your donations that help the show survive and thrive. And if you listen to the show a couple of times a week or you watch the show a couple of times a week, become a member. You not only get the free show free of commercials,

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Legalist morality. Just coffee. Dot co-op. Patrick Coffee. hot chocolate I don't want to get banned use a coupon code majority to get 10% off

just coffee. Matt, what's Matt Lechian Leskech Yeah, you put the German on it Left Reckin is coming up right after Majority Report today we have Ben Fogg

and Paul Prescott on talking about a new book of speeches from Bired Rustin that includes commentary on speeches. A really great book, Bard Rustin, a very interesting thinker. And also, Texas politics giveth and taketh away. We talk about Taylor Remitt's success. David has an inside view of that. And also, Colin Allreds, frankly embarrassing, a little foray into being offended that apparently has entire Senate primary up in a tizzy down in Texas. Another embarrassing chapter in Democratic Party in poll politics, in my opinion. pathologies on display over there. So check that out

right after the show today. I think we're probably going to be talking about that video he cut too. Impressive stuff. Steam coming off of his head and I'm pretty steamed too. If you're going to come for me, you better come from me. Oh yeah. It was that energy.

But it's actually somehow worse. It was worse because it was so like just manufactured. It was so exhausting. It's like right before he hit record He was like, what am I supposed to be mad about? Yeah, exactly. 100%.

Corporations ate my baby on the IM says Sam P. Derr. So there you go. Folks, see you in the fun half. You are in for it. All right, folks, 646, 257, 39, 20. See you in the fun. Now.

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