The Cows Come Home to Immokalee 

The cows have been coming home to Immokalee - a place that means “your home” in the local indigenous language - for a very long time. 

The Immokalee Cattle Drive and Jamboree brought generations of Florida families together on Saturday with dozens of cows moving in a herd along Main Street steered by dogs and cattlemen on horseback to Roberts Ranch. There, gator wrestling, blacksmithing, storytelling, dancing, live music, a petting zoo, and other festivities kept thousands of visitors entertained throughout the day. 

Featured cattle families included the Jumpers, with at least five generations of cattle keepers. 

“We’ve been in the business a long time,” said Moses Jumper, a Seminole tribal member who lives in Big Cypress.

“My grandmother Ada Tiger brought cattle into town with two dogs she worked. She was one of the first cattle women,” said Jumper.

Jacoba Deleone said she lived in Immokalee all her life, yet Saturday was her first time attending the Cattle Drive and Jamboree. 

“I’ve never seen that many cows together,” said Deleone. “It makes our town still feel small. It’s homie,” she said.

Tribal members would sometimes be gone for months helping ranchers gather cattle, recalled Josh Jumper, Moses’ son. 

The ranchers were dubbed crackers for cracking the whip, he said. 

Seminole tribal members were among the pioneers of Immokalee, including the Roberts family, who were also prominent at the event as the namesakes of the Immokalee Pioneer Museum at the Roberts Ranch. Many generations of Roberts were at the event, from longtime ranchers to among the youngest, Faith Sherrod, who was gathering a sequel to the family’s historic published cookbook.

“We want it to be even more connected with the history, with each recipe having more stories behind them,” said Sherrod. 

The expanded, modernized cookbook of the 2001 print edition, of which she invited community members to contribute recipes, will include QR codes to social media and videos, she said. The recipes remain relatively simple, like the foods of the garden in her family's heritage, said Sherrod.

“It’s the kind of food that makes you feel comfortable and warm after a long, hard day of work, especially for the cowboys,” she said. 

One example will be a modernized version of how to prepare swamp cabbage - from how to harvest it from the tree to how to eat it, said Sherrod.

One of her fondest memories of her great-grandmother was of her driving around in a Jeep, following the cattle and cowboys. In addition to housework, she ran the books, said Sherrod, who is among the fifth generation of the Roberts family, of which there are now eight generations from Immokalee.

The original Roberts couple of Immokalee, Sarah and Robert, had seven children who have now made way to a huge family, some of whom still have cattle as well. 

The Jumper family still keeps 100 cattle on several hundred acres of land and hopes to continue for many generations to come as well, said Moses Jumper. 

Alongside ranching, tourism remained an integral part of the culture, making way for alligator wrestling demonstrations of which the Jumper family joined the Walker family for demonstrations on Saturday — also involving multiple generations into the work. 

Many of the visitors enjoyed an opportunity to learn local history and Florida culture, including that Florida now tops Texas in cattle ranching, among other facts and wise tales.