Jim Jumper

Jim Jumper was a biracial Seminole, born to an enslaved African woman named Nagey Nancy, who had been one of the last three African slaves among the remnant Seminole population in Florida following the Third Seminole War. Seminole society followed matrilineal inheritance, meaning that children belonged to their mother’s clan. Since Nagey Nancy had been purchased by the Snake Clan and later adopted into the tribal system, her children — Jim Jumper and his sister Nancy — were designated as members of the Little Black Snake Clan.

Jumper grew up within Seminole traditions, despite being racially marginalized. By the 1880s, the Snake Clan had been displaced from Fisheating Creek, west of Lake Okeechobee, due to land sales and pressure from white cattlemen. They resettled in an area northeast of the lake that later became known as Bluefields.

The mass killing took place at the Seminole Snake Clan camp near Bluefields, northeast of Lake Okeechobee, Florida, on either February 14 or 15, 1889 — sources vary on the exact date. Reports of the incident came from several contemporaries and descendants, including Mary Tiger, Billy Bowlegs III (Jumper’s nephew), and white settler Will Addison. An article was also filed in The New York Times on March 2, 1889.

Some reports estimate 8 to 12 fatalities, including women and children. A young boy who escaped the camp ran to alert a Seminole man named Billy Martin, who was working in a nearby cane field. Martin retrieved a rifle, returned to the scene, and shot Jim Jumper dead, ending the massacre.

Due to ritual and spiritual beliefs, the Seminoles refused to touch Jumper’s body, which they considered polluted. Instead, they borrowed a wagon from white settler John Addison, dragged the body to a nearby cypress pond, and left it to be consumed by alligators. The Snake Clan then abandoned the site, burying their dead nearby and calling in a medicine man to ritually cleanse the area before relocating permanently.