James E. Billie

James Edward Billie (born March 20, 1944), known as Chief Jim Billie, is a politician who chaired the Seminole Tribe of Florida from 1979 to 2001, and again from 2011 to 2016.

Billie's first tenure was the longest "of any elected leader in the Western Hemisphere, other than Fidel Castro," at 22 years. In 2001, he was impeached due to allegations of sexual misconduct. The source of the allegations later recanted and Billie won $600,000 in a lawsuit for wrongful impeachment. In 2011, he was re-elected to his former office, earning nearly 60% of the vote.

In 2005 Sarasota Magazine called Chief Billie “the most powerful American Indian leader of the past century.”

Early life and education Jim Billie was born in poverty at a camp in Dania, Florida near the Tamiami Trail. His mother Agnes Billie was Seminole of the Bird clan; his father was J.W. Barnett, a white sailor who went to Europe during World War II, never knowing that Agnes was pregnant. (Tiger and her brother's lives had been threatened in the late 1920s when they were young, as their father was white.

Despite being a "half-breed", under the Seminole matrilineal system, Billie belonged to his mother's Bird clan; he grew up learning the Seminole ways. He was orphaned at the age of nine when his mother died, but the boy was cared for by several families of the Bird clan, with whom he remains very close. By the age of fourteen, he learned to catch and wrestle alligators in tourist shows to earn money for his family. He was interested in music as a young boy, and later combined many of the sounds he heard in his own melodies and lyrics.

He enlisted at age 19 in the United States Army in 1965. He served in specialized units engaged in commando operations in the Vietnam War.

During Florida’s “cocaine cowboy” days, Billie used his military training to organize a Seminole self-defense force to patrol the Florida Everglades. They hunted down cocaine pilots who used isolated roads in the Seminole Tribe lands as improvised airstrips. That force became the basis for the Seminole Tribe’s police force, which Billie founded.

In 2011, Billie defeated Mitchell Cypress, the previous two-term chairman, by winning 58.4 percent of the votes for the Chair of the Seminole Tribe. He was ousted as chairman by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in September 2016.

Marriage and family Billie with his family in 1985Billie has eight children. The first three were from a marriage with Bobbie, a Panther clan member. The next three from his second spouse, to whom he is estranged. That same year, Billie helped the Vermont jam band Phish arrange their two-day New Year's Eve festival at the Big Cypress reservation, which brought 80,000 of the group's fans to a pasture on Seminole land. Billie performed two of his songs with the group during their Dec 30 performance.

In February 2012, Billie suffered a stroke, causing him to temporarily vacate his office.

Awards 1999: Nominated for a Grammy for his song “Big Alligator.” 1999: Outstanding Music Achievement award. First American in Arts Council 1999: Living Legend by the Native American Music Awards