James E. Billie was born at a chimpanzee farm on the Dania Beach Cutoff Canal in 1943 and lived in several Seminole camps after the death of his mother, when he was nine years old. He never knew his father. After attending Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas, Billie served in the Army in Vietnam. He returned to Florida and began work for the Seminole Tribe of Florida in its