The Diaspora Scavenger - In Black Seminoles Territory with New Info
Amadu Massally
Hello friends,
I am honored to be part of Seminole Days 2025 in Brackettville, Texas (Sept 19–21), an annual gathering hosted by the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association.
On Saturday, September 20 at 7:00 PM, I will join the lecture series to present a talk on The Florida Braid—focusing on the often-overlooked purple line: direct arrivals from Sierra Leone to Florida.
Florida is usually remembered as a place of escape into Maroon freedom. That is true, but incomplete. My talk will highlight how Florida was also a place of landing, braided with:
Red line — Seminole/Maroon escapes into Spanish Florida
Green line — Black Loyalists across Charleston, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone
Orange loop — Caribbean corridors of trade and resistance
Purple line — direct Sierra Leone → Florida arrivals that seeded resistance traditions from the start
I’ve written more about this in a new essay, with maps and framing here:
🔗 The Florida Braid: Uncovering the Purple Line in Diaspora Memory
Please find the official Seminole Days flyer attached with the full schedule of events.
I look forward to seeing some of you there, and to sharing this story that binds Sierra Leone, Florida, Mexico, and Brackettville in one unbroken braid of memory.
Pour. Remember. Rise.
— Amadu
📚 For those interested, copies of my trilogy, The Gullah Geechee Saga: Through African Eyes, will also be available at Seminole Days — an opportunity to explore the wider story of roots, rupture, and reassembly.
Here's the first one with remarkable short stories by a griot who speaks with his eyes closed because he knows too much:https://www.amazon.com/Gambozos-Storytelling-Through-Diaspora-Scavengers/dp/B0FP357D39
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