As U.S. troops rounded up the last remaining Seminoles for forced removal, one woman’s daring escape would alter the fate of her people forever.
Polly Parker, known in her native language as Emateloye, was a young Seminole woman captured during the Third Seminole War. Alongside 163 others (including famed leader Billy Bowlegs) she was sent to Egmont Key, an island prison off the coast of Tampa. For the Seminoles, Egmont was known as The Dark Place—a holding site before permanent exile to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma.
On May 4th, 1858, she and 162 others were loaded onto the steamship Grey Cloud, bound for a life they did not choose. But when the ship paused to refuel at St. Marks, near Tallahassee, Polly asked permission to go ashore to collect medicinal herbs.
Then, she vanished.
With only the clothes on her back, Polly slipped into the Florida wilderness. Bloodhounds and soldiers scoured the swamps, but she outran them all. Over the following weeks, Polly walked hundreds of miles through forests, wetlands, and panther country until she returned to her people near Lake Okeechobee.
Her journey, which covered more than 300 miles, is the only known escape from the Seminoles’ forced removal. Without her return, many believe the Seminole community in Florida might have been erased entirely. Matriarch of the Unconquered, Polly lived to be over 100 years old. Her descendants became Tribal leaders, including Howard Tommie and Richard Bowers.
In 2013, the Seminole Tribe retraced her path by boat, traveling from Egmont Key to St. Marks in honor of her bravery. Today, her name graces educational exhibits, oral histories, and museum walls. And yet, outside Seminole and Miccosukee circles, she remains little known.
But make no mistake… Polly Parker IS real Florida History!
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