WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.140 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. It is Monday, 00:00:02.359 --> 00:00:06.040 January 19, 2026. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:08.880 Exactly. And, you know, when you think of this 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:11.679 day, your mind usually goes to a very specific 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:14.839 place. Oh, yeah. Black and white photos. Marches. 00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:18.000 The I have a dream speech, for sure. You hear 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.100 those clips on the news, see a few posts about 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:22.699 civil rights. It's a whole rhythm. A vital rhythm, 00:00:22.780 --> 00:00:25.239 of course. But the source material we're looking 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:29.250 at today, it's asking us to pivot. Yeah. To look 00:00:29.250 --> 00:00:31.230 somewhere else entirely. Yeah, we're literally 00:00:31.230 --> 00:00:33.710 turning the map away from, say, the Lincoln Memorial, 00:00:33.850 --> 00:00:37.130 and we're zooming way in. We're going to a, well, 00:00:37.289 --> 00:00:40.009 a pretty swampy riverbank in Jupiter, Florida. 00:00:40.109 --> 00:00:41.670 Riverbend Park. It's on the Loxahatchee River. 00:00:41.810 --> 00:00:43.509 And I'm looking at the photos here in the file, 00:00:43.590 --> 00:00:45.549 and honestly, if you didn't know the story, it 00:00:45.549 --> 00:00:47.649 just looks like a beautiful Florida park. Totally. 00:00:47.990 --> 00:00:50.990 Cypress trees, Spanish moss, that kind of tea 00:00:50.990 --> 00:00:52.729 -colored water. But the gathering that's happening 00:00:52.729 --> 00:00:54.899 there today is... Well, it's something else. 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:56.880 It really is. It's a commemoration of the Battle 00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.939 of the Loxahatchee. That was January 24, 1838. 00:01:00.420 --> 00:01:04.140 But this is not your typical historical reenactment. 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:07.560 No guys in wool uniforms firing blanks. Not at 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:09.859 all. The guest list for this ceremony is what 00:01:09.859 --> 00:01:12.689 really... what really jumped out at me in the 00:01:12.689 --> 00:01:14.890 research. It's incredible. It reads like a setup 00:01:14.890 --> 00:01:17.670 for a riddle or something. You've got a Powhatan 00:01:17.670 --> 00:01:20.329 elder. A traditional seminal cultural presenter. 00:01:20.609 --> 00:01:23.730 Someone performing a West African libation ceremonial. 00:01:23.769 --> 00:01:27.370 And then, to top it all off, a Muslim prayer 00:01:27.370 --> 00:01:30.129 leader. On the surface, it seems, I don't know. 00:01:30.839 --> 00:01:33.120 disjointed, like they just invited anyone and 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:35.140 everyone. Right. Like an interfaith panel that 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:37.719 got lost. But the sources are so clear on this. 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:41.480 It is not random at all. This exact mix of traditions, 00:01:41.620 --> 00:01:45.140 it's actually a historical reconstruction. They're 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:47.640 recreating a survival strategy from that very 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:50.400 spot almost 200 years ago. And that's our mission 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:52.599 for this deep dive. We're going to unpack how 00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:54.659 these black and indigenous communities in the 00:01:54.659 --> 00:01:57.159 19th century, how they didn't just fight together. 00:01:57.319 --> 00:01:59.579 Which they absolutely did. But how they healed 00:01:59.579 --> 00:02:01.680 together. We're digging into what the researchers 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:04.799 are calling insurgent geographies and the soul 00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:07.400 wound. And the main takeaway here really is that 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:10.159 this alliance wasn't just military. It wasn't 00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:12.860 just, you know, guns and tactics. It was spiritual. 00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:15.979 It was a fusion. They essentially welded these 00:02:15.979 --> 00:02:18.960 different beliefs together into a kind of spiritual 00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:22.180 armor. OK, so let's ground this in the history 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:24.360 first, because I think for a lot of us, there's 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:26.680 this vague idea that, you know, sometimes escaped 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:28.639 enslaved people would run off and join Native 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.500 American tribes. But this paints a picture of 00:02:31.500 --> 00:02:34.060 something much more organized and frankly, a 00:02:34.060 --> 00:02:37.460 lot more. Formidable? Oh, it was a geopolitical 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:39.599 threat. The U .S. government wasn't just annoyed 00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:42.240 by this. They were terrified. And to really get 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:45.280 the Loxahatchee battled in 1838, you have to 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:47.860 rewind. You have to go back to 1816 and look 00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:50.259 at something called Negro Fort. The name itself 00:02:50.259 --> 00:02:52.099 is just so stark. It just leaps off the page. 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:55.879 It was a literal name on military maps. Prospect 00:02:55.879 --> 00:02:58.759 Bluff, Florida. And you have to understand, we're 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:01.000 not talking about a couple of huts in the woods. 00:03:01.139 --> 00:03:03.860 This was a fully militarized fort. The British 00:03:03.860 --> 00:03:05.939 had built it and then left it behind after the 00:03:05.939 --> 00:03:08.939 War of 1812. And the population numbers in the 00:03:08.939 --> 00:03:11.620 sources for that time, they're just staggering. 00:03:12.039 --> 00:03:15.680 Roughly 900 native warriors and 450 armed black 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:17.479 fighters. Wait, hang on. Let's just pause on 00:03:17.479 --> 00:03:20.039 that. That's over a thousand people living free 00:03:20.039 --> 00:03:22.620 outside the U .S. slave system. And armed. Yeah. 00:03:22.699 --> 00:03:25.180 With cannons, with artillery, running their own 00:03:25.180 --> 00:03:27.879 affairs. Wow. It was the single largest community 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:30.990 of free black people in North America. And for 00:03:30.990 --> 00:03:33.610 the plantation owners in Georgia, in the Carolinas, 00:03:33.729 --> 00:03:36.729 this was an existential nightmare. Of course. 00:03:36.770 --> 00:03:39.409 If word gets out that there's a fortress of free 00:03:39.409 --> 00:03:41.889 armed black people just south of the border. 00:03:42.069 --> 00:03:44.750 The whole system is at risk. It's a beacon. And 00:03:44.750 --> 00:03:46.930 it was a beacon that, in their eyes, had to be 00:03:46.930 --> 00:03:50.650 put out. So the U .S. Navy attacks in July 1816. 00:03:50.750 --> 00:03:52.870 And the details, they're just horrific. They 00:03:52.870 --> 00:03:54.849 are. The Navy couldn't really storm the walls, 00:03:54.930 --> 00:03:57.599 so they fired what's called a heated shot. They 00:03:57.599 --> 00:03:59.479 did what? They literally put a cannonball in 00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:01.219 a furnace until it was red hot and then just 00:04:01.219 --> 00:04:04.240 fired it at the fort. Oh, my God. And it hit 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:07.020 the powder magazine. The room with all the gunpowder. 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:11.099 The explosion. It was basically the 19th century 00:04:11.099 --> 00:04:13.960 equivalent of a tactical airstrike. Yeah. The 00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:15.919 sources say nearly 300 people died instantly. 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:18.100 We'll wipe off the map in a second. Men, women, 00:04:18.180 --> 00:04:20.720 children. But here's the pivot. This is the crucial 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:24.740 part of the story. The survivors, they don't 00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:26.879 surrender. They don't go back. They keep going. 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:30.040 They flee south, deeper into Florida. And that's 00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:32.459 where they meet the Seminole people who are also 00:04:32.459 --> 00:04:34.920 being pushed south by colonial expansion. This 00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:37.939 is where that alliance really hardens. Now, the 00:04:37.939 --> 00:04:41.040 text uses this very specific kind of old fashioned 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:44.279 phrase for their relationship. It says vassals 00:04:44.279 --> 00:04:46.680 and allies. I want to unpack that because I think 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:48.779 it could be misinterpreted. Yeah, you could think 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:51.120 it means the Seminoles just own the black refugees 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:54.839 or the other way that it was all one big. perfectly 00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:57.399 integrated family. Right. And it was much more 00:04:57.399 --> 00:04:59.120 nuanced and honestly more interesting. Think 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:01.560 of it like a federation. The Black Seminoles, 00:05:01.740 --> 00:05:03.680 they were often called Maroons, they had their 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:05.939 own separate towns. With their own leaders. Their 00:05:05.939 --> 00:05:09.060 own leaders, their own crops. They were vassals 00:05:09.060 --> 00:05:12.319 in that they paid a tribute, you know, some corn 00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:15.800 or livestock, to the Seminole chiefs for protection. 00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:20.620 But politically, they were autonomous. But militarily, 00:05:20.620 --> 00:05:23.759 they were one unit. Inseparable. We actually 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.339 have letters from U .S. General Jessup, and he's 00:05:26.339 --> 00:05:28.100 basically complaining to Washington about it. 00:05:28.339 --> 00:05:31.339 He writes that this is a Negro war just as much 00:05:31.339 --> 00:05:33.399 as an Indian war. And the army tried to break 00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:36.680 them apart. They tried to weaponize racism. They 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:39.360 offered the Seminoles huge bribes, cash, goods, 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:41.759 land guarantees, if they would just turn over 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:43.339 the black refugees. Which would have been the 00:05:43.339 --> 00:05:45.860 easy out for the Seminoles. Give them up. Save 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:48.480 your own skin. It's the classic prisoner's dilemma. 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:51.100 But they didn't do it. The bond was too strong. 00:05:51.420 --> 00:05:53.660 And the sources suggest the glue holding them 00:05:53.660 --> 00:05:56.339 together wasn't just a common enemy. It was cultural. 00:05:56.680 --> 00:05:59.959 A real exchange. A deep cultural exchange. For 00:05:59.959 --> 00:06:01.720 instance, the Black Seminoles adopted something 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:03.959 called the Black Drink. I saw that. It sounds 00:06:03.959 --> 00:06:06.360 pretty ominous, but it's basically a very strong 00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:09.459 tea. Yeah. A super caffeinated tea. It's made 00:06:09.459 --> 00:06:12.279 from Yepon holly leaves, which is actually the 00:06:12.279 --> 00:06:14.579 only native plant in North America with caffeine. 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:18.000 For the Seminoles, it was a ritual purifier. 00:06:18.139 --> 00:06:20.279 You drink it before a big council meeting or 00:06:20.279 --> 00:06:22.439 a battle. To clear your head. And to purge your 00:06:22.439 --> 00:06:24.420 body. I mean, sometimes it literally makes you 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:26.480 vomit. The idea is to sharpen the mind. So you 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:29.519 have these African descendants. Maybe they're 00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:32.540 holding on to Christian hymns or Islamic traditions 00:06:32.540 --> 00:06:35.379 from back home. But they're using a Native American 00:06:35.379 --> 00:06:38.100 ritual to sanctify their community. Exactly. 00:06:38.120 --> 00:06:40.420 It's a perfect example of what scholars call... 00:06:40.589 --> 00:06:43.610 creolization or fusion they weren't giving up 00:06:43.610 --> 00:06:45.569 who they were they were adding seminal tools 00:06:45.569 --> 00:06:48.009 to their toolkit they were building a culture 00:06:48.009 --> 00:06:50.810 that could survive the swamp which brings us 00:06:50.810 --> 00:06:53.410 to the second big theme here this idea of spiritual 00:06:53.410 --> 00:06:56.370 diversity as an actual survival strategy the 00:06:56.370 --> 00:06:59.230 sources talk about marinage this process of forming 00:06:59.230 --> 00:07:01.689 runaway communities yeah and the argument is 00:07:01.689 --> 00:07:04.509 that these communities were basically like open 00:07:04.509 --> 00:07:07.110 source spiritual workshops That is a great way 00:07:07.110 --> 00:07:09.449 to put it. A spiritual Swiss army knife. Yeah. 00:07:09.569 --> 00:07:11.910 If you're living in a swamp, being hunted by 00:07:11.910 --> 00:07:14.829 the most powerful army around, you don't have 00:07:14.829 --> 00:07:17.129 the luxury of religious purity. You need stuff 00:07:17.129 --> 00:07:19.850 that works. And we see this all over the Americas, 00:07:19.850 --> 00:07:22.829 not just Florida. The file brings up Jamaica, 00:07:23.170 --> 00:07:26.410 the Kung Fu religion. Right. The Jamaican Maroons, 00:07:26.470 --> 00:07:29.189 led by the legendary Queen Nanny. She practiced 00:07:29.189 --> 00:07:31.629 obeah. which is a spiritual system from West 00:07:31.629 --> 00:07:34.350 Africa. But the Kung Fu religion blended that 00:07:34.350 --> 00:07:36.470 with anything else that helped bind the community. 00:07:37.310 --> 00:07:39.649 Nanny wasn't just a general. She was a spiritual 00:07:39.649 --> 00:07:42.970 technician. Using rituals to organize, to build 00:07:42.970 --> 00:07:45.550 courage. To give her fighters the belief that 00:07:45.550 --> 00:07:47.850 they were literally bulletproof. Wait, literally? 00:07:48.410 --> 00:07:51.410 In their minds, yes. And in war, morale is everything. 00:07:51.810 --> 00:07:53.829 If you believe the spirits have shielded you, 00:07:53.870 --> 00:07:55.949 that you can catch bullets in your hands, you 00:07:55.949 --> 00:07:58.329 fight with the kind of ferocity that just terrifies 00:07:58.329 --> 00:08:01.250 a regular soldier. Then there's Palmares in Brazil. 00:08:01.610 --> 00:08:04.029 I was just floored by the scale of this place. 00:08:04.170 --> 00:08:09.110 11 ,000 people. 11 ,000 people. In the 1600s, 00:08:09.110 --> 00:08:11.790 it was basically a black city -state in the Brazilian 00:08:11.790 --> 00:08:14.670 jungle that lasted for almost a century. Because 00:08:14.670 --> 00:08:16.709 a lot of the people there came from Congo or 00:08:16.709 --> 00:08:19.509 Angola. They'd already been exposed to Catholicism. 00:08:19.509 --> 00:08:23.189 So in Palmares, you had churches. You had chapels, 00:08:23.209 --> 00:08:25.949 statues of saints. But those saints were being 00:08:25.949 --> 00:08:29.100 honored right alongside African gods. The historian 00:08:29.100 --> 00:08:31.420 Stuart Schwartz calls it a creative synthesis. 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:33.799 It wasn't confusion. It was deliberate adaptation. 00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:37.559 Exactly. They might pray to St. George, you know, 00:08:37.700 --> 00:08:40.620 the dragon slayer. But in their minds, they're 00:08:40.620 --> 00:08:43.480 associating him with Ogun, the Yorbar god of 00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:46.379 iron and war. They're layering the powers. It's 00:08:46.379 --> 00:08:48.879 a strategy of abundance. If one doesn't work, 00:08:49.019 --> 00:08:51.139 maybe the other will. The sources also talk about 00:08:51.139 --> 00:08:54.320 insurgent geographies in Cuba, the idea of these 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:56.940 secret Sunday markets. Yes, this is so fascinating. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:59.200 People from different plantations who maybe even 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:01.220 spoke different African languages would meet 00:09:01.220 --> 00:09:03.360 in these hidden spots. It wasn't just to trade 00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:05.840 chickens. It was to trade rituals, to dance. 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:08.360 That physical space, that temporary geography 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:10.340 became a place where they could remember who 00:09:10.340 --> 00:09:12.909 they were. And the sources really emphasize that 00:09:12.909 --> 00:09:16.169 we can't forget Islam in this mix, which I feel 00:09:16.169 --> 00:09:17.990 is often erased from the narrative of American 00:09:17.990 --> 00:09:21.149 slavery. Massively erased. A significant percentage 00:09:21.149 --> 00:09:25.470 of enslaved Africans were Muslim. And Islam provided 00:09:25.470 --> 00:09:29.269 this, this rigorous ethical framework. Prayer 00:09:29.269 --> 00:09:32.750 five times a day, cleanliness, no alcohol. In 00:09:32.750 --> 00:09:34.610 the absolute chaos and degradation of slavery, 00:09:34.929 --> 00:09:37.690 that discipline was a form of mental armor. A 00:09:37.690 --> 00:09:39.929 way to hold on to your dignity. Precisely. So 00:09:39.929 --> 00:09:41.649 let's bring it all back to the Loxahatchee River 00:09:41.649 --> 00:09:46.110 today in 2026. This ceremony. It's not just a 00:09:46.110 --> 00:09:49.250 feel -good moment. They are intentionally recreating 00:09:49.250 --> 00:09:51.950 this soup of traditions. Yes. They're trying 00:09:51.950 --> 00:09:54.370 to access the how -to of healing. The organizers 00:09:54.370 --> 00:09:56.590 are arguing that you can't heal a wound this 00:09:56.590 --> 00:09:58.690 deep with just one tradition. You need the whole 00:09:58.690 --> 00:10:01.049 toolkit. So let's walk through the specific rituals 00:10:01.049 --> 00:10:03.289 because the symbolism is so powerful. First, 00:10:03.409 --> 00:10:05.750 the African libation. I've seen this done, pouring 00:10:05.750 --> 00:10:08.409 water or gin on the ground. But what's the actual, 00:10:08.549 --> 00:10:10.470 what's the mechanic? What's it supposed to do? 00:10:10.629 --> 00:10:14.240 In the Yoruba worldview, the goal is tutu. It 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:17.279 means coolness. Coolness. Yeah. Heat is chaos. 00:10:17.980 --> 00:10:21.879 Anger, war. Coolness is harmony, peace. When 00:10:21.879 --> 00:10:24.559 you pour the water, you are literally and spiritually 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:27.700 cooling the earth. You're opening a channel to 00:10:27.700 --> 00:10:30.379 the ancestors saying, we're here. We're calm. 00:10:30.539 --> 00:10:32.519 We're ready to listen. And the text connects 00:10:32.519 --> 00:10:34.740 us to the Port Markers Project, honoring those 00:10:34.740 --> 00:10:36.899 lost in the Middle Passage. Right. I mean, think 00:10:36.899 --> 00:10:39.179 about it. The millions who died at sea, they 00:10:39.179 --> 00:10:41.519 never had a funeral. No rites. They were just 00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:44.730 gone. The libation is a way of retroactively 00:10:44.730 --> 00:10:47.850 saying you are not lost. You are ancestors. It 00:10:47.850 --> 00:10:49.769 brings them back into the community. Okay, then 00:10:49.769 --> 00:10:52.029 the ceremony shifts. It goes to a Native American 00:10:52.029 --> 00:10:55.350 practice, specifically the Haudenosaunee condolence 00:10:55.350 --> 00:10:58.549 ceremony. This one is amazing to me because it's 00:10:58.549 --> 00:11:01.990 so physical. The metaphors are about the body. 00:11:02.149 --> 00:11:03.850 They're incredibly visceral. It comes from the 00:11:03.850 --> 00:11:05.990 story of Anwada, who you might know as Hiawatha, 00:11:06.070 --> 00:11:09.560 and it recognizes that deep grief. physically 00:11:09.560 --> 00:11:11.940 disables you. How so? The ritual involves things 00:11:11.940 --> 00:11:14.220 like wiping the dust of death from the ears so 00:11:14.220 --> 00:11:16.299 you can hear again, clearing the throat so you 00:11:16.299 --> 00:11:18.679 can speak without being choked by grief, clearing 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:20.460 the eyes so you don't see the world through a 00:11:20.460 --> 00:11:22.840 constant blur of tears. I love that. It's so 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:24.700 practical. You can't have a conversation about 00:11:24.700 --> 00:11:26.919 healing if you literally can't speak because 00:11:26.919 --> 00:11:28.840 your throat is closed up. You have to fix the 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:33.139 body first. Exactly. Grief is a physical blockage. 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:35.220 You have to remove it before you can do the work 00:11:35.220 --> 00:11:37.740 of living. And finally, the Islamic prayer, they 00:11:37.740 --> 00:11:39.820 use the Al -Fatiha, which is the opening of the 00:11:39.820 --> 00:11:42.320 Quran, but also a very specific prayer, Salat 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:44.820 al -Ga 'ib. The prayer for the absent. This is 00:11:44.820 --> 00:11:47.379 key. Normally, in Islamic law, the body has to 00:11:47.379 --> 00:11:49.539 be present for the funeral prayer. Right. But 00:11:49.539 --> 00:11:52.220 Salat al -Ga 'ib is the exception. It's for when 00:11:52.220 --> 00:11:56.120 someone dies far away or their body is lost at 00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:59.940 sea in a battle, a disaster. Which is chillingly 00:11:59.940 --> 00:12:02.159 perfect for this context. It's the exact spiritual 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:05.200 tool you would need. You have ancestors who died 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:07.320 in the Florida swamps. Their bodies never recovered. 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:09.679 You have ancestors at the bottom of the Atlantic. 00:12:09.980 --> 00:12:12.299 This prayer lets the community perform that final 00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:15.080 duty to give them that dignity across time and 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:17.340 space. So when you layer all these together, 00:12:17.580 --> 00:12:21.080 the cooling water to calm the earth, the clearing 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:24.019 of the senses of the living confession, the prayer 00:12:24.019 --> 00:12:26.919 for the missing dead, it's like a comprehensive 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:29.340 psychological intervention. And that's where 00:12:29.340 --> 00:12:31.740 the modern psychology comes in. that sources 00:12:31.740 --> 00:12:34.519 talk about the soul wound or historical trauma. 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:37.639 Standard Western therapy is so individual. Right. 00:12:37.799 --> 00:12:40.759 Tell me about your problems. Exactly. But for 00:12:40.759 --> 00:12:43.039 these communities, the trauma is collective. 00:12:43.159 --> 00:12:45.179 It's in the culture. It gets passed down. You 00:12:45.179 --> 00:12:47.299 can't just therapy your way out of the aftermath 00:12:47.299 --> 00:12:49.559 of a genocide by yourself. You need a collective 00:12:49.559 --> 00:12:52.840 ritual for a collective wound. That's it. By 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:55.500 doing these ceremonies together, they validate 00:12:55.500 --> 00:12:58.200 the grief. They turn that memory of violence 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:01.659 into a source of strength, not just... not just 00:13:01.659 --> 00:13:04.340 pain or a desire for revenge. That part about 00:13:04.340 --> 00:13:06.159 vengeance is interesting. The sources mention 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:08.460 reconciliation theology, and they have this warning 00:13:08.460 --> 00:13:11.039 about premature forgiveness. This is such a critical 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:14.919 point, especially on MLK Day. Society wants to 00:13:14.919 --> 00:13:18.019 rush to the I have a dream part, the resolution. 00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:20.539 The happy ending. But this theology says, not 00:13:20.539 --> 00:13:24.019 so fast. You have to witness the wound first. 00:13:24.259 --> 00:13:27.120 You have to acknowledge the horror. If you jump 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:29.360 straight to forgiveness without telling the truth, 00:13:29.580 --> 00:13:32.669 it's hollow. It's a form of gaslighting. The 00:13:32.669 --> 00:13:34.629 Loxahatchee ceremony creates a space where the 00:13:34.629 --> 00:13:37.049 grief can just be before anyone even talks about 00:13:37.049 --> 00:13:39.750 moving on. It makes me think of how MLK himself 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:43.210 is often sanitized. The text quotes his book, 00:13:43.289 --> 00:13:45.490 Why We Can't Wait. He wasn't just talking about 00:13:45.490 --> 00:13:47.590 lunch counters. No, he was looking at the very 00:13:47.590 --> 00:13:50.330 foundation of the country. He wrote explicitly 00:13:50.330 --> 00:13:53.470 that the nation was born in genocide against 00:13:53.470 --> 00:13:56.799 indigenous people. He saw the connection. He 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:58.899 understood that the violence against black bodies 00:13:58.899 --> 00:14:02.039 and the violence against native land, it was 00:14:02.039 --> 00:14:04.259 the same root violence. And we saw that solidarity 00:14:04.259 --> 00:14:07.039 flare up again so powerfully just a few years 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:10.460 ago. Standing Rock, 2016. That was a modern Loxahatchee 00:14:10.460 --> 00:14:12.340 moment, for sure. You had Black Lives Matter 00:14:12.340 --> 00:14:14.360 activists flying to North Dakota to stand with 00:14:14.360 --> 00:14:16.659 the Sioux Water Protectors. Their slogan was, 00:14:16.779 --> 00:14:19.340 there is no black liberation without indigenous 00:14:19.340 --> 00:14:21.779 sovereignty. They saw it was the same fight. 00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:23.940 The spirit of the Black Seminoles right there 00:14:23.940 --> 00:14:26.600 in the 21st century. There's also a, well, a 00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:28.639 more delicious example of this fusion in the 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:32.240 file. The Mascogos. The Mascogos. I love this 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:33.820 part of the story. These are the descendants 00:14:33.820 --> 00:14:36.220 of the Black Seminoles who just kept going. They 00:14:36.220 --> 00:14:38.799 didn't stop in Florida. They crossed the Rio 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:42.059 Grande into Mexico. And there's a community of 00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:44.620 them in Coahuila right now. And their culture 00:14:44.620 --> 00:14:47.120 is like this incredible time capsule. It is. 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:49.379 They celebrate Juneteenth, which is a very African 00:14:49.379 --> 00:14:52.100 -American holiday. But their food, it's this 00:14:52.100 --> 00:14:55.460 amazing fusion of... Soul food, Mexican cuisine, 00:14:55.519 --> 00:14:58.100 and native ingredients. So you have cornbread, 00:14:58.220 --> 00:15:00.659 but it's made with local Mexican techniques. 00:15:00.820 --> 00:15:03.659 It's insurgent geography on a dinner plate. Wow. 00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:05.740 It proves the alliance wasn't just temporary. 00:15:05.860 --> 00:15:08.879 It became a whole new identity. Exactly. So we've 00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:10.919 covered a ton of ground here. A cannon blast 00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:15.259 in 1816 to a prayer circle in 2026. Florida swamps 00:15:15.259 --> 00:15:17.779 to Mexican plateaus. What's the big takeaway? 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:19.639 Why does this matter to someone not at Riverbend 00:15:19.639 --> 00:15:22.889 Park today? I think. I think it really redefines 00:15:22.889 --> 00:15:25.110 what we mean by solidarity. We live in such a 00:15:25.110 --> 00:15:28.269 polarized time. And we're often told that to 00:15:28.269 --> 00:15:31.370 be allies, we have to be the same, agree on everything, 00:15:31.610 --> 00:15:34.210 erase our differences to find common ground. 00:15:34.470 --> 00:15:36.889 But the black Seminoles didn't do that. They 00:15:36.889 --> 00:15:38.950 did the exact opposite. They leaned into their 00:15:38.950 --> 00:15:41.470 differences. The African person practiced obia. 00:15:41.590 --> 00:15:44.350 The Seminole person drank the black drink. They 00:15:44.350 --> 00:15:46.750 didn't try to merge into one big generic thing. 00:15:46.850 --> 00:15:49.870 They stood side by side, fully African and fully 00:15:49.870 --> 00:15:52.580 indigenous. and found strength in that. It's 00:15:52.580 --> 00:15:55.139 that strategy of abundance again. If my prayers 00:15:55.139 --> 00:15:57.340 aren't working today, maybe I can borrow yours. 00:15:57.480 --> 00:15:59.919 Right. And the glue wasn't just politics. It 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:02.360 was shared sorrow. They were willing to mourn 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:04.799 together. And that's a very intimate thing, you 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:06.860 know, to let someone else see your grief and 00:16:06.860 --> 00:16:09.379 to help carry theirs. That builds a bond that's 00:16:09.379 --> 00:16:11.700 stronger than any manifesto. The sources leave 00:16:11.700 --> 00:16:13.600 us with this really haunting image of the rivers, 00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:15.500 that the rivers of this country run red with 00:16:15.500 --> 00:16:18.460 blood, but they also run clear with tears. It's 00:16:18.460 --> 00:16:22.000 a reminder that the land remembers. The Loxahatchee 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.860 River is a witness, and the ceremony today is 00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:26.779 about acknowledging that witness. It's about 00:16:26.779 --> 00:16:29.759 saying, we remember what happened here, and we 00:16:29.759 --> 00:16:32.279 are still standing. So here's the thought to 00:16:32.279 --> 00:16:35.460 take with you from this deep dive. We spend so 00:16:35.460 --> 00:16:37.960 much energy trying to find people who agree with 00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:42.360 us. We curate our bubbles. But maybe, maybe we're 00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:44.399 looking for the wrong thing. The history of the 00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:46.820 Black Seminole suggests that the strongest alliances 00:16:48.009 --> 00:16:50.509 They aren't formed by people who agree on everything. 00:16:50.690 --> 00:16:52.730 They're formed by people who are willing to mourn 00:16:52.730 --> 00:16:55.129 together. Maybe real solidarity is less about 00:16:55.129 --> 00:16:57.529 sharing an opinion and more about sharing a burden. 00:16:58.009 --> 00:17:00.610 Something to think about this MLK Day. And hey, 00:17:00.710 --> 00:17:03.230 before you go, maybe take five minutes. Look 00:17:03.230 --> 00:17:04.730 up the history of the land you're standing on 00:17:04.730 --> 00:17:06.750 right now. You might be surprised who and what 00:17:06.750 --> 00:17:09.369 is buried right under your feet. Thanks for listening 00:17:09.369 --> 00:17:11.329 to The Deep Dive. We'll see you next time.