Osceola

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Osceola (1804 – January 20, 1838) was a war chief of the Seminole Indians in Florida. Osceola led a small band of warriors (never more than 100) in the Seminole resistance during the Second Seminole War when the United States tried to remove the Seminoles from their lands. He exercised a great deal of influence on Micanopy, the highest ranking chief of the Seminoles.^[1]

Contents 1 Birth and early life 2 Resistance and war leader 3 Captured by deceit 4 Relics of Osceola 5 In literature 6 References

[edit] Birth and early life

Osceola was born in 1804 in the village of Tallassee, Alabama around current Macon County. His mother Polly Coppinger was daughter of Ann McQueen who was part Muscokgee Indian. Many sources state that Osceola's father was an English trader, William Powell, but others claim that Osceola's father was a Creek Indian who died soon after Osceola's birth, and that William Powell married Osceola's mother afterwards. As a result of the association with William Powell, some contemporary whites persisted in calling the young man Billy Powell. Osceola claimed to be a full-blood Muscogee. Genealogical testing of what is believed to be Osceola's hair suggests he was of mixed ancestry.^[1]

Osceola's great grandfather James mother was the earliest white man to trade with the Creek Indian's in Alabama in 1714 and remained there as trader and Indian leader the next 80+ years. James McQueen's daughter Ann married Jose Coppinger and their daughter Polly was the mother of Osceola.

In 1814 Osceola and his mother moved to Florida alongside other Creek Indians. In adulthood he received his name; Osceola is an anglicised form of the Creek Vsse Yvholv (IPA /asːi jahoːla/); the combination of vsse, the ceremonial black drink made from the yaupon holly, and yvholv, meaning cry or cryer.^[2][3]

[edit] Resistance and war leader

In 1832, a few Seminole chiefs signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing, where they agreed to give up their Florida lands in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi River. Osceola and many other Seminole were outraged by this treaty; Osceola reportedly stabbed the treaty with a dagger and said, "This is the only treaty I will make with the white man!"^{[citation needed]} A statue commemorating this event is erected at Silver Springs, Florida.

In 1835 general and Indian agent Wiley Thompson humiliated Osceola by placing him in chains when he objected to the seizure of his wife, a former slave who had been reclaimed by her mother's former owner.[1] Osceola was released when he pretended to submit. On December 28, 1835 Osceola and fifty of his men ambushed Thompson outside Fort King and shot and scalped him and four other whites.^{[citation needed]} The Second Seminole War erupted soon after.

[edit] Captured by deceit

On October 21, 1837, on the orders of U.S. General Thomas Sidney Jesup, Osceola was captured when he arrived for supposed truce negotiations in Fort Payton. He was imprisoned at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida. Osceola's capture by deceit caused uproar even among the white population and General Jesup was publicly condemned.^{[citation needed]} Opponents of the contemporary administration cited it as a black mark against the government.^{[citation needed]} The next December, Osceola and other Seminole prisoners were moved to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. There painter George Catlin met him and persuaded him to pose for him for two paintings. Robert J. Curtis painted an oil portrait of him. These pictures inspired a number of other prints, engravings, and even cigar store figures. Afterwards numerous landmarks, including Osceola Counties in Florida, Iowa, and Michigan, have been named after him, along with Florida's Osceola National Forest. Osceola died of malaria on January 20, 1838, less than three months after his capture, and was buried with military honors.

[edit] Relics of Osceola

After his death, army doctor Frederick Weedon removed Osceola's head and embalmed it. He also persuaded other Seminoles to allow him to make a death mask and kept a number of objects Osceola had given him. Captain Pitcairn Morrison took the mask alongside other objects that had belonged to Osceola and sent it to an army officer in Washington. By 1885, it ended up in the anthropology collection of the Smithsonian Institution, where it currently remains. Later, Weedon gave the head to his son-in-law Daniel Whitehurst who, in 1843, sent it to Valentine Mott, a New York physician. Mott placed it in his Surgical and Pathological Museum. It was presumably lost when a fire destroyed the museum in 1866.

In 1966, Miami businessman Otis W. Shriver claimed he had dug up Osceola's grave and put his bones in a bank vault in order to rebury them at a tourist trap in the Rainbow Springs. Shriver traveled around the state in 1967 to gather support for his project. Archaeologists later proved that Shriver had dug up animal remains - Osceola's body was still in its coffin. Some of Osceola's belongings still remain in the possession of the Weedon family, while others have disappeared. The Seminole Nation bought Osceola's bandolier and other personal items from a Sotheby's auction in 1979. There are also forged items and claims of an intact head.

[edit] In literature

Osceola's story is told in a number of literary works:

• Freedom Land: A Novel by Martin L. Marcus. In Marcus's story, Osceola is born Billy Powell, the son of a respected British officer and his Creek Indian consort. Accused of a murder he did not commit, he flees south into Seminole Indian territory, where he joins a village of escaped slaves and Native Americans whose lives are threatened when American soldiers attempt to capture the escaped slaves and return them to their former owners. Driven by his love for the beautiful "Morning Dew", a black slave, Osceola takes up the cause of defending his new home and is catapulted into history.
• Oceola (1859) by Thomas Mayne Reid.
• Osceola - Die rechte Hand der Vergeltung by Konrad Petzold, an East German western with Gojko Mitić as the usual Native American hero(1971).
• Nature Girl, by novelist Carl Hiaasen gives an abbreviated history of Osceola's capture and imprisonment. The references included provide a main character, who is a Native American, with a proud history.

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Osceola, the Man and the Myths - URL retrieved January 11, 2007
2. ^ Bright, William. American Indian Place Names in the United States (DOC). Retrieved on March 23, 2007.
3. ^ The Florida Memory Project - Osceola - URL retrieved January 27, 2007

• Marcus, Martin L. Freedom Land. Fiction, Forge Books (Tom Doherty Associates), 2003.
• Milanich, Jerald T. Osceola's Head (Archaeology magazine January/February 2004).
• Wickman, Patricia R. Osceola's Legacy. University of Alabama Press, 1991.