Osceola

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Osceola bigraphy, stories - Seminole chief

Osceola : biography

1804 – January 30, 1838

Osceola, also known as Billy Powell (1804 – January 30, 1838), became an influential leader and war chief of the Seminole in Florida. Of mixed parentage: Creek, Scots-Irish, and English, he was raised by his mixed-race mother in the Creek tribe. They migrated to Florida when he was a child, with other Red Stick refugees after their defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars.

As a man in the 1830s, Osceola led a small band of warriors in the Seminole resistance during the Second Seminole War, when the United States tried to remove the Seminoles from their lands. He became an adviser to Micanopy, the principal chief of the Seminole from 1825-1849., accessed January 11, 2007

Legacy and honors

  • Numerous landmarks, including Osceola counties in Florida, Iowa, and Michigan, were named after him.
  • Florida’s Osceola National Forest was named for him.

Resistance and war leader

treaty with his dagger.]] The American settlers kept up pressure on the government to remove the Seminole to make way for their agricultural development. In 1832, a few Seminole chiefs signed the Treaty of Payne’s Landing, by which they agreed to give up their Florida lands in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi River in Indian Territory. According to legend, Osceola stabbed the treaty with his knife, although there is no contemporary reports of this.

Five of the most important of the Seminole chiefs, including Micanopy of the Alachua Seminole, did not agree to the move. In retaliation, the US Indian agent, Wiley Thompson, declared that those chiefs were removed from their positions. As relations with the Seminoles deteriorated, Thompson forbade the sale of guns and ammunition to them. Osceola, a young warrior beginning to rise to prominence, was particularly upset by the ban, as he felt it equated Seminoles with slaves, who were forbidden to carry arms.

Like some other leaders, Osceola had two wives. He had a total of at least five children. One of his wives was a black woman, and he fiercely opposed the enslavement of free peoples. (Katz 1986) Thompson considered Osceola to be a friend, and gave him a rifle. Later, though, when Osceola quarrelled with Thompson, Thompson had him locked up at Fort King for a night. The next day, to get released, Osceola agreed to abide by the Treaty of Payne’s Landing and to bring his followers in.

On December 28, 1835 Osceola and his followers ambushed and killed Wiley Thompson and six others outside Fort King, while another group of Seminole ambushed and killed a column of US Army troops marching from Fort Brooke to Fort King, in what Americans called the Dade Massacre. These near-simultaneous attacks began the Second Seminole War.Mishall, John and Mary Lou Mishall. 2004. The Seminole Wars: America’s Longest Indian Conflict, University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2715-2. Pp. 90–91, 95–97.

In music

  • The song "Seminole Wind", the title track of the album by John Anderson, refers to hearing the ghost of Osceola. The song has been covered by James Taylor and Gravemist.
  • The song, "Osceola’s Crying," claims the ghost of Osceola cries over the Gulf oil spill.

Capture

On September 21, 1838, on the orders of U.S. General Thomas Sidney Jesup, Osceola was captured when he went for peace talks at Fort Moultrie. He was imprisoned at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida. Osceola’s capture by deceit caused a national uproar. General Jesup and the administration were condemned by many congressional leaders. That December, Osceola and other Seminole prisoners were moved to Fort Moultrie, Charleston, South Carolina. They were visited by townspeople.

George Catlin and other prominent painters met the war chief and persuaded him to pose. Robert J. Curtis painted an oil portrait of Osceola as well. These pictures inspired a number of other prints, engravings, and cigar store figures.

Osceola died of quinsy (though one source gives the cause of death as "malaria" without further elaboration) on January 30, 1838, less than three months after his capture. He was buried with military honours at Fort Moultrie.