Moments in the Life of Chief Micanopa
This document from Alachua County’s Ancient Records Deed Book B, dated May 6, 1834, records a transaction in which Micanopy, Chief of the Seminole tribe, conveyed a young enslaved girl named Catherine to John and Susan Paine. Catherine, identified as the daughter of the Paines and born in March 1829, was to remain under their guardianship until she reached the age of twenty-one, at which point she was to be granted her freedom. The deed, witnessed at Fort King and recorded by local officials, raises questions about the personal, legal, and cultural complexities surrounding slavery, guardianship, and Native leadership in territorial Florida.