SW044 Living Historian Louie Bear's Heart Demonstrates Seminole Cultural Practices to Teach and Educate on Traditional Ways of Life

For many warrior re-enactors of the Seminole Wars, the smell of gunpowder from a mock battle is sweeter than the aroma of a roasting pig from camp fire barbecue. Smoking gunpowder represents action…and engagement. It represents an adrenalin rush from fighting for your side while hundreds of onlookers watch nearby. And it represents a means to show what is usually only described through the written word in a history book. THIS, they are saying, is how it went down.

Smoking gunpower then is indeed sweeter…for some. But not for Louie Bear’s Heart. He prefers the slow-burn of smoking meats in a Seminole hunting camp; where he can live in tune with the old ways of self-reliance far removed from the conveniences of modern American life; where he can trap and then carefully butcher a racoon, sear it on a spit, and then provide it for his family’s dinner plates. After all, you just can’t find tender enough racoon filets at your local supermarket these days. It is where he can quietly engage with the public about Seminole life OUTSIDE of the famous battles they fought to resist Army removal to Oklahoma. And, it is where he can personally demonstrate and educate through his appearance, his words, and his activities what the Seminole customs were that sustained a people often on the run throughout Florida. 

Louie (Ferris) Bear’s Heart joins us to discuss all this: Why he believes authenticity is the key to all he does and represents; how he earned his noble Seminole name; and how his living history interpretation is a family affair. 

Reenacting Seminole ways is a famly affair. Louie is here with his wife Pam (and young son Christian) and
(back row) daughter Justine and son Taj.  At historical events, they don period attire to portray traditional Seminole life. 

Louie with wife Pam (left).

Louie (right) and son Taj (center) portray Seminole at living history events. 

Louie's son, Taj.

Louie's daughter, Justine. 

In his day job, Louie Ferris (second from right) is a Hillsborough County (State) Park Ranger. 

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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