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The origin of the Brighton starter cattle herd
The cattle that restarted Seminole ranching at the Brighton Reservation in Glades County[nrhp-red-barn] arrived in the mid-1930s under a federal relief program. Published accounts agree that the cattle were federal drought-relief purchases moved to Florida from the West, but they give three different herd sizes and name two different states of origin.
What the sources say
A 1985 article in Rangelands by two federal soil and range conservationists and a University of Florida range scientist puts it directly: “Seminole ranching enterprises began rebuilding in 1936 when the United States Government shipped 500 head of drought relief Hereford cattle from Arizona to the Seminole Indian Agency.”[sievers-1985-seminole-ranching] Some died on the rail journey, more on the overland drive to Brighton, and local stockmen doubted that a temperate-climate breed would last in south Florida at all.[sievers-1985-seminole-ranching] By 1940 the operation bought an additional group of two-year-old heifers from the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona.[sievers-1985-seminole-ranching]
The Tribe’s own historic preservation office gives a different count and description, and dates the purchase to 1935: 547 head, bought by the federal government “from ranches that had been devastated by the Dust Bowl,” shipped east by rail to the newly formed Brighton Reservation.[thpo-cowkeepers-legacy] Roughly 200 survived the first year, between the transport, the unfamiliar climate and poor grazing on native range.[thpo-cowkeepers-legacy] By 1939 the herd had passed a thousand head.[thpo-cowkeepers-legacy]
The National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Red Barn at Brighton, prepared by the Tribe’s historic preservation office in 2008, gives a third version: “the United States government shipped 700 head of Hereford cattle to the Brighton Reservation from the Apache Reservation in Oklahoma… only 200 out of 700 head survived.”[nrhp-red-barn]
Oral traditions and later recollections carry similar variations. A 2015 Seminole Tribune account by Richard Bowers recalls the government taking “dying cattle from the dust bowl” and shipping them by rail.[smp-2023-red-barn] Seminole cattleman Alex Johns, in a 2016 NPR interview, stated that the government brought in drought-stricken cattle from the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico.[npr-2016-seminole-cowboys]
These accounts leave the exact number and place of origin unresolved. Whether 500 head came from Arizona, 547 from Dust Bowl ranches, 700 from an Apache reservation in Oklahoma, or an unspecified number from New Mexico is not settled by the published literature. Federal agency purchase records at the National Archives are what would settle the number and the place.
The Highlands County connection
The federal agricultural agent who worked with the five Seminole cattlemen — Frank Shore, Charlie Micco, Naha Tiger, Willie Gopher and Willie Tiger — was Fred Montsdeoca, a Florida Agricultural Extension agent in Glades and Okeechobee counties from 1930 to 1971.[thpo-cowkeepers-legacy][fahof-montsdeoca] His son, Fred Y. Montsdeoca, was born in Avon Park on 25 April 1928 and was later inducted into the Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame; he kept up his father’s working relationship with the Tribe, supplying lime and fertilizer for the reservation’s pastures.[fahof-montsdeoca]
The elder Montsdeoca’s work at Brighton is the closest documented tie between Highlands County agriculture and the rebuilding of the Seminole cattle industry.
References
- sievers-1985-seminole-ranching — Sievers, Ed; Tepper, Craig; Tanner, George W. Seminole Indian Ranching in Florida. 1 October 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/638608
- thpo-cowkeepers-legacy — Seminole Tribe of Florida, Tribal Historic Preservation Office. Cowkeeper’s Legacy - A Seminole Story. 1 December 2023. https://stofthpo.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Cowkeepers_Legacy_Web01223.pdf
- nrhp-red-barn — Purkerson, Carrie; Seminole Tribe of Florida Tribal Historic Preservation Office. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Red Barn. 2008. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/798b8268-fb3b-4364-8af7-c89b5bffbaf2
- fahof-montsdeoca — Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame. Fred Y. Montsdeoca, 2004 Inductee. 1 October 2004. https://floridaaghalloffame.org/2004/10/fred-y-montsdeoca/
- npr-2016-seminole-cowboys — NPR; Lyden, Jacki. South Florida’s Seminole Cowboys: Cattle Is ‘In Our DNA’. 21 August 2016. https://www.ijpr.org/2016-08-22/south-floridas-seminole-cowboys-cattle-is-in-our-dna
- smp-2023-red-barn — Seminole Media Productions; Butler, Deanna. The Legacy of Red Barn and Seminole Cattle. 4 August 2023. https://seminolemediaproductions.com/red-barn-and-seminole-cattle/
Related
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- contested — Sources disagree. Both accounts are given.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- Sievers, Ed; Tepper, Craig; Tanner, George W., Seminole Indian Ranching in Florida (1985) · secondary
- Seminole Tribe of Florida, Tribal Historic Preservation Office, Cowkeeper's Legacy - A Seminole Story (2023) · official
- Purkerson, Carrie; Seminole Tribe of Florida Tribal Historic Preservation Office, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Red Barn (2008) · official
- Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame, Fred Y. Montsdeoca, 2004 Inductee (2004) · official
- NPR; Lyden, Jacki, South Florida's Seminole Cowboys: Cattle Is 'In Our DNA' (2016) · secondary
- Seminole Media Productions; Butler, Deanna, The Legacy of Red Barn and Seminole Cattle (2023) · secondary
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