LIVING HISTORY
Buster Tommie, top, standing, was the last holdout at the Midway Road
Camp in Fort Pierce, shown in this photo, before it was bulldozed to make
way for development in the early 1980s. Above is a drawing by Shamy
Tommie recalling the chickees his various aunts and uncles had at the
Midway Road camp. His grandmother’s chickee is to the right of the kitchen.
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woods better than the soldier horses. They could hide and
escape them better.”
Shamy vividly recalls — and cherishes — life at the
Midway Road Camp, which was the homeplace of his grandmother,
Sallie Chupco Tommie, and grandfather, Jack
Tommie. Sallie Chupco Tommie was a member of the Bird
Clan, and today the bird is featured on signs at the reservation.
Jack Tommie was from the Panther Clan. Together, they
had 13 children, with 11 growing to adulthood. The boys
were Cleve, George, Buck, Fred, Walter and Buster. The girls
were Rosilee, Minnie, Hope, Bessie, and Marie.
As a child, Shamy said many of his aunts and uncles lived
at the camp, which was arranged around the importance of
Sallie Tommie as the matrilineal head of the clan. Sallie’s
chickee was centrally located in the camp, making her sentinel
of all family activity.
Sallie Tommie was a descendant of Seminole royalty.
According to her granddaughter, Sallie Tommie, Fort Pierce
liaison to the Seminole Tribal Council and the titular head of
the Fort Pierce Reservation, the elder Sallie Tommie was the
daughter of chief Tallahassee and Old Polly Parker.
Tallahassee had succeeded his uncle Chupco as leader of a
small band of Seminoles who escaped capture from the U.S.
Army, according to author James Covington in the book
“The Seminoles of Florida.’’
ALABAMA ROOTS
Willard Steele, historic preservation officer for the
Seminole Tribe, said Chupco and Tallahassee were part of a
band that originated in Tallassee, a Creek town with its own
square in south central Alabama.
During the Creek war in 1813 in which Indians were driven
out of Alabama and Georgia, the town of Tallassee was
headed by a Creek named Peter McQueen. McQueen and the
town sought refuge in Spanish Florida, settling on the Oscilla
Chief Tallahassee is identified with a man
known as J.L. Wilson at a camp in this
undated photo from the 19th century,
below.
FLORIDA STATE ARCHIVES