Amazon.com description: Product Description: When Europeans arrived in North America, new diseases and wars led to the deaths of many Native Americans. One group escaped to the swamplands of Florida. Spanish colonists called them cimarrones, which means runaway. These Native Americans adopted the Spanish word into their language as siminoli. To them, it meant free people. This independent spirit helped the Seminoles survive wars with white settlers, life in the Everglades, the forced march to Oklahoma, and the preservation of their traditions.