Native American tribes in Florida have accused a development company of freezing them out of a discussion on the future of a trove of historical artefacts from a downtown Miami construction site, and hawking them around the US without their consent or knowledge.
Representatives of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the American Indian Movement of Florida told the Guardian that they were angered by the Related Group’s approach to a number of out-of-state universities to see if they were interested in curating and housing the relics believed to be from an ancient Tequesta Indian village.
More than a million mostly fragmentary items that experts say date anywhere from 2,000 to 7,000 years ago are currently stored at Related’s office in the Brickell neighborhood where the company is building two residential tower blocks, and where they were uncovered in archaeological digs since 2021.
The site is a stone’s throw from the Miami Circle national historic landmark, known as the city’s Stonehenge, which was discovered in 1998 along with similarly aged artefacts including pieces of pottery, tools, and animal bones and teeth.
Some scattered human ancestral remains were recovered where Related was clearing land, and reburied off-site in consultation with local tribal leaders, but otherwise, the representatives say, they have not been listened to.
The tribes say Related has broken an agreement made with the city of Miami in 2023 to present an action plan to preserve, catalog and display significant parts of the collection locally in exchange for being allowed to press ahead with the development.
They also feel betrayed by the company’s exploration of a possible new home for the artefacts by offering them to educational institutions far from their origin, including the University of California, Berkeley. That occurred, the tribes say, at the same time Related broke two deadlines to present a plan to deliver on a promise made to the city by the company’s founder, Jorge Pérez, two years ago of “doing the right thing for this community”.
“They won’t listen to the tribes, to the descendants of the ancestors, that we don’t want the artefacts displayed or shopped around to universities, but put back into the ground,” said Betty Osceola, an environmental activist and Miccosukee tribe member.
“They haven’t had any meaningful discussion with the tribe. They’re looking more at it from an archeological standpoint, and not from the tribes’, or as an Indigenous person. In their mindset it’s OK to put these items on display, in our viewpoint we want them reburied somewhere, and there hasn’t been any type of discussion as to where that location would be.”
Osceola said another disappointment was how Related had “downplayed” the discoveries, at least until the 2023 agreement.
“From the beginning we understood the importance of that area and how it’s connected to Miami Circle, which is protected, that it’s all interconnected with the sites on the north side of the Miami River as well. But there was some downplay of the significance, [they said] no, it wasn’t connected,” she said.
“Now they realize the connection, they’re acknowledging the significance, but it’s frustrating they didn’t listen to us, not taking credence in what we had to say.”
Robert Rosa, chair of the American Indian Movement of Florida, said the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes were still waiting to see a promised full inventory of items in Related’s possession.
“They said both tribes would be able to go through every artefact so they can determine what is a a patrimonial item and a burial item, but that hasn’t happened,” he said.
“They’re trying to be sly about it and send it away for ‘research’. Well, the tribes don’t want research. They want everything reinterred. You have all these archeologists here, all they want to do is dig and make a name for themselves and preach and tell the Native story without being Native.”
Related did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. At a meeting of the city of Miami’s historic and environmental preservation board earlier this month, the company’s land-use lawyer, Iris Escarrá, said the approach to external institutions was exploratory and preliminary.
“We were just asking for proposals to see what opportunities are available. This is nothing more than that,” she told members, according to the Miami Herald.
Related, the newspaper said, promised to deliver a detailed plan, including proposals for exhibition spaces along Brickell’s waterfront, at the next board meeting on 4 March. The company said it planned to link its site with the Miami Circle landmark via an educational pathway it intends to call the Tequesta Trail.
Meanwhile, the University of Miami (UM) and Florida International University say they are still waiting for a response to their joint proposal for a conservation and research center in the city.
“The action plan is the guarantee the public has of access to some of the information from the capital of the Tequesta, the largest Indigenous pre-contact settlement in south Florida,” said Traci Ardren, professor of anthropology at UM.
“What they showed at this last meeting was very disorganized. They’re not speaking with museum curators, they’re not speaking with scholars, they’re not speaking with the archeological community, and most importantly they’re not speaking with the local Indigenous population.
“It’s extremely disappointing they would consider farming out the curation of the artefacts to an institution outside of south Florida. Reaching out to other universities and institutions is inappropriate for lots of reasons, but fundamentally it’s about their unwillingness to fund this educational component. It costs money to do this work.”
