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James Edward Billie, known as “Chief Jim Billie” (born March 20, 1944) (Seminole) is a politician and Chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, elected by nearly 60 percent of the voters in 2011.〔("Chief Jim Billie" ), ''Sun Sentinel''〕 He was elected to successive terms as Chairman/President of the Seminole Tribe of Florida (1979-2001), serving 22 years in the "longest tenure of any elected leader in the Western Hemisphere, other than Fidel Castro."〔(Peter B. Gallagher, "The Rise and Fall of Chief Jim Billie" ), ''Sarasota Magazine'', June 2005, at Highbeam, accessed 17 April 2013〕 He was impeached in 2001 because of financial issues related to sexual misconduct.〔("Landslide Elects James Billie Tribal Chair of Seminole Tribe" ), ''Native News Network'',〕 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 when it won a United States Supreme Court 1996 decision upholding the sovereign rights of tribes to conduct gaming on their reservations.〔(''Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida'' (1996) ), Law Justia〕 In 1999, a song on his album, ''Alligator Tales,''was nominated for a Grammy award. ==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.〔 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 because he was a half-breed, by leaving him to die in the Everglades; 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.〔(De Groot, "James Billie: Born as outcast, leader still very much a man alone" ), ''Sun Sentinel'', 16 February 1986, accessed 17 April 2013〕 (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.〔''Goliath Business News〕 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.〔(Sierra Adare, "Sounds of the Seminole Nation" ), ''News From Indian Country'', 15 March 2000, accessed 17 April 2013〕 He enlisted at age 19 in the United States Army in 1965. He served in specialized units engaged in commando operations in the Viet Nam War.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jim Billie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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