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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., June 24, 1884. 
Sir: During the winter of 1880—S1 TI visited Florida, commissioned by 
you to inquire into the condition and to ascertain the number of the In- 
dians commonly known as the Seminole then in that State. I spent 
part of the months of January, February, and March in an endeavor to 
accomplish this purpose. I have the honor to embody the result of my 
work in the following report. 
On account of causes beyond my control the paper does not treat of 
these Indians as fully as I bad intended it should. Owing to-the igno- 
rance prevailing even in Florida of the locations of the homes of the Sem- 
inole and also to the absence of routes of travel in Southern Florida, 
much of my time at first was consumed in reaching the Indian country. 
On arriving there, I found myself obliged to go among the Indians 
ignorant of their language and without an interpreter able to secure 
me intelligible interviews with them except in respect to the commonest 
things. I was compelled, therefore, to rely upon observation and upon 
very simple, perhaps sometimes misunderstood, speech for what I have 
here placed on record. But while the report is only a sketch of a sub- 
ject that would well reward thorough study, it may be found to possess 
value as a record of facts concerning this little-known remnant of a once 
powerful people. 
I have secured, I think, a correct census of the Florida Seminole 
by name, sex, age, gens, and place of living. I have endeavored to 
present a faithful portraiture of their appearance and personal charac- 
teristics, and have enlarged upon their manners avd customs, as indi- 
viduals and as a society, as much as the material at my command will 
allow; but under the disadvantageous circumstances to which allusion 
has already been made, I have been able to gain little more than a 
superficial and partial knowledge of their social organization, of the 
elaboration among them of the system of gentes, of their forms and 
methods of government, of their tribal traditions and modes of think- 
ing, of their religious beliefs and practices, and of many other things 
manifesting what is distinctive in the life of a people. Tor these reasons 
I submit this report more as a guide for future investigation than as a 
completed result. 
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