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.” He is best known for leading the tribe's success in the landmark Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida decision in 1996, upholding state and tribal sovereignty. In 2019 he was honored as a Florida Folk Heritage Award recipient.

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. She named the boy Whookipee, meaning "He who has been taken away". Shortly after Billie's birth, Seminole medicine men intended to kill the infant by leaving him to die in the Everglades; they intended to do so because he was a "half-breed" and they strongly discouraged intermarriage with whites. His mother Agnes and Betty Mae Tiger, a young Snake clan woman, intervened and saved his life by threatening to report them to the reservation superintendent. (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.

After his return to Florida, Billie worked in different jobs on the reservation. He was worried about the young people who seemed so discouraged, and started studying more about his heritage, and speaking about the Seminole ways. He built a highly successful business building chickees, mostly for whites who wanted an authentic Seminole tradition. He also became manager of the Seminole Indian Village on the Hollywood reservation.

He became involved in tribal politics. He first was elected to the General Council.