Florida's Seminole Indians are known for their fierce resistance to 19th century attempts to remove them from their lands, and for their distinctive clothing. The famous Seminole patchwork has an interesting historical development and is a lot more complicated than many people might realize.

An interesting website, NativeTech: Native American Technology and Art, provides a detailed look at virtually all aspects of Seminole clothing:

Seminole clothing exists in an odd historical "pocket." It arises out of general Southeastern traditions, but continued to exist (and evolve) long after the rest of that Southeastern Indian culture had been shut down either by extinction, by relocation to Oklahoma, or- just by being overwhelmed by white dominance. Seminole clothing styles were already well defined by the 1820's, a time when the Plains Indian cultural patterns that so many hobbyists admire and copy were only just beginning to fully develop. Southeastern cultural styles had climaxed and terminated before Plains styles matured as we know them. The Creeks were gone, the Cherokees overrun. After the 1830's, only the Seminoles kept going as a distinct culture' surviving even the traumas of the Second and Third Seminole Wars. The Seminoles' strong avoidance of any but the most necessary contact with whites, their voluntary isolation, kept their branch of Southeastern culture unique and distinct long after the rest was gone.

The website is written primarily for historical reenactors, but provides fascinating information on everything from Seminole longshirts to face painting.