“Water Is Our Relative”: Betty Osceola and the Sacred Fight for the Swamp

Before it was a detention site.

Before it was dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Before Florida sent in bulldozers, barbed wire, and the National Guard — this land was already home.

And for Betty Osceola, it still is.

A member of the Miccosukee Tribe, Osceola is more than just an activist. She is a keeper of memory, a protector of place, and a fierce defender of a living ecosystem that has sheltered her people for generations. While the state calls this stretch of Big Cypress a desolate swamp, she calls it family. She walks the land not as a visitor, but as a descendant. As a survivor. As a witness.

“Water is our relative,” she told CBS Miami. “Sometimes we have to connect with that water and connect with that environment. And the only way to do that is actually go in.”

That’s not metaphor. That’s Indigenous reality. Water isn’t a resource to Betty Osceola. It’s kin. The Everglades isn’t scenery. It’s sacred. To step into these waters is to enter into relationship — a covenant passed down through bloodlines, stories, and resistance.

But now that covenant is under siege. And the people waging that siege aren’t just building fences — they’re building lies.

Florida officials, under the direction of Governor Ron DeSantis and with the silent complicity of the federal government, have fast-tracked the construction of a sprawling detention facility at an isolated Everglades airfield. The site has been branded by the state as “Alligator Alcatraz,” as if turning a sacred ecosystem into a punchline somehow softens the blow. They claim there’s “nothing there” but mosquitoes, snakes, and open land. But Betty Osceola sees what they refuse to see — and what they may never understand.

“Here we are surviving and thriving out here,” she said. “And here they are again trying to describe this as a wasteland, that nobody could survive out here. But we’re still out here trying to defend this area.”

Osceola lives and works just a mile south of the facility. She leads walking tours and airboat rides to teach people how alive the Everglades really is. And when she speaks about “defending” the swamp, she isn’t using the language of environmentalism — she’s speaking from within a lineage of Indigenous resistance that predates the state of Florida itself.

Her words cut through the noise with a calm but defiant precision: “To save the Everglades… is to save ourselves.”

That’s not a slogan. That’s a survival plan. Because for the Miccosukee people, the Everglades has never been an optional backdrop. It has been their refuge in times of war, a shield against genocide, and a vessel for their culture, language, and ceremonies. To desecrate it now — with floodlights, diesel fumes, barbed wire, and mass incarceration — is to desecrate everything that has kept her people alive.

And what’s perhaps most horrifying to Osceola is that this isn’t being treated as a tragedy. It’s being treated as a development opportunity.

“What was once described as temporary now looks permanent,” she warned. “Someone may have an idea to put something else here. Transform it into something else. So the door to development has been opened.”

That door, once opened, is hard to shut. And the damage being done in this moment won’t end with the removal of a fence or the dismantling of a tent city. The scars — ecological, spiritual, psychological — will outlive all of us if we don’t act.

For Osceola, this is no longer just about her people. This is about all of us. What happens in the swamp won’t stay in the swamp. The war on the sacred has consequences far beyond the Everglades. And the only way we can begin to understand those consequences is to listen — truly listen — to the people who have been sounding the alarm since before most of us were born.

“This place belongs to the world,” she said. “Everyone has the right to come here. Everyone has the right to express concerns about what’s happening here.”

So let’s be clear: this is not a “debate.” This is not just another partisan flashpoint in an endless news cycle. This is a desecration in real time. A state-run assault on sacred land, defended by fossil fuel allies and padded by silence.

And yet still — through all of it — Betty Osceola stands in the water. Calm. Composed. Furious. Unshakable.

She doesn’t need us to speak for her. She just needs us to stop speaking over her.

Let her words guide you. Let her grief sink in. Let her warning ring out.

Water is our relative. The swamp is our mirror. And if we let this stand — we’re the ones who are lost.

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Closer to the Edge stands with Betty Osceola, the Miccosukee Tribe, and all who fight for the sacred. Subscribe to support our full coverage of Alligator Alcatraz — and help us amplify the voices that Florida is trying to drown.