Forget fearless. This Indian tribe never signed the US peace treaty, and is now going rock n’ roll.

Meet the Seminole Indians of Florida. Newest owners of Hard Rock. Earliest ancestors of Native American Indian casino gambling. And as the so-named Unconquered People, the only Native American Indian tribe to never actually sign a formal peace treaty with the United States. Maybe it’s something about feeling invincible when in a ‘sunny state‘ but these folks are the baddest overachieving mofos of all.

Seminole Indian Casinos of Florida

The Seminole Indians are originally from Florida, where some 300 of them stayed to fight colonizers and have grown into a population of 3,100. Another 3,000 driven west of the Mississippi River set up a second home in Oklahoma, where there are now 6,000 of them. The tribe is so rooted in Florida that Florida State University sports teams are christened ‘Seminoles‘, plus a city and a county are named after them, and another county is named for tribe leader Osceola.

Peace treaty refusal is one in several historical what’s-what attributed to the Seminoles. Another is that they started Native American Indian casino gaming by opening the first ever Indian casino in the US in 1979, just a little after they also created an economy based on tax-free tobacco and tourism. They still thrive on all three economies, with casino gambling now accounting for 90% of the tribe revenue.

Indian casino gambling has become an industry worth $22 billion yearly since that first Seminole Indian casino of 1979, and today surpasses combined revenues of US gambling meccas Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Most recently, the Seminoles once again broke new ground expanding Indian casinos nationally.

The Seminole tribe owns and operates the vast majority of Indian casinos in Florida: Seminole Coconut Creek Casino; Seminole Casino in Hollywood; Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Hollywood; Seminole Casino Immokalee; Seminole Casino - Brighton in Okeechobee; and Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Tampa. (Not to be mistaken with Hollywood in California, the state with the fastest-growing sector of Indian casinos in the US.)

The Hard Rock casinos in Hollywood and Tampa made way to a bigger partnership and another noted move for the Seminoles. They are buying almost the entire Hard Rock business in what is believed to be the most expensive and biggest-size purchase of a known brand by any Native American Indian tribe.

It is a record $965 million deal with the London-based Rank Group PLC, a purchase that includes 124 Hard Rock Cafes, four Hard Rock Hotels, two Hard Rock Casino Hotels, two Hard Rock Live! concert venues, stakes in the Hard Rock business’ three unbranded hotels, and the world’s largest collection of rock n’ roll memorabilia — including guitars owned by Jimi Hendrix (the Flying V), Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Chuck Berry, and costumes owned by Elton John and Madonna.

Prior to the Hard Rock acquisition by the Seminoles, the world’s two largest casinos have made similar moves in the name of expanding Indian casino gambling. Foxwoods Resort Casino has partnered with MGM Grand, the second biggest US casino gambling operator (next to Harrah’s), while Mohegan Sun Resort and Casino tapped North American horse racing’s Pocono Downs to newly open the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, a racino and also the very first Pennsylvania casino.

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