Osceola

War Chief

• Born: c. 1804
• Birthplace: Tallassee on the Tallapoosa River near present-day Tuskegee, Alabama
• Died: January 30, 1838
• Place of death: Fort Moultrie, Charleston, South Carolina

Native American leader

Allegedly a participant in the First Seminole War, Osceola became a leader of the Seminoles who refused to be moved west of the Mississippi; he initiated the Second Seminole War.

Area of achievement Warfare and conquest

Early Life

Osceola later insisted, and some historians maintain, that both his father (whose name is now longer known) and mother (Polly Copinger) were Creeks and that his mother later married an Englishman, William Powell. However, a study by Patricia R. Wickman provides impressive evidence that Powell was indeed Osceola’s father, that Copinger’s grandfather (James McQueen) and father were white, and that the boy also had black ancestors, as did many children who were born in the Upper Creek town of Tallassee. Nevertheless, Osceola was considered to be an Upper Creek, like his mother.

Osceola’s mother’s uncle, Peter McQueen, was chief of the village where Osceola was born and became a leader of the Red Sticks during the Creek War of 1813-1814. As that conflict escalated, many Creeks fled from Alabama into Florida. Among the refugees were Osceola and his mother, who followed McQueen and became separated from Powell during the migration. The young Osceola was captured by Andrew Jackson’s troops during his 1818 campaign in Florida, but he was released because of his age. Allegedly he fought against Jackson in the First Seminole War.

Life’s Work

Osceola settled in central Florida after Jackson’s campaign and, like many dislocated Creeks, became known as a Seminole. He was never a hereditary chief, nor was he apparently ever elected to such a post; however, in the controversy surrounding the signing of the treaties of Payne’s Landing in 1832 and of Fort Gibson in 1833, both of which provided for the relocation of the Seminoles to the West, he emerged as a leader of those who opposed removal.

A heated clash with Wiley Thompson, the federal Indian agent for central Florida, made Osceola an outlaw. Abolitionists later wrote that Thompson aided two slave catchers to capture one of Osceola’s wives, who was a mulatto, but there is no evidence for this tale. Instead, the conflict apparently originated when Thompson called a council at Fort King to confirm the earlier treaties. Most of the Seminoles who were present silently refused to sign the documents placed before them, but Osceola allegedly plunged a knife through the agreement. Again, no contemporary account supports this story.

Other confrontations in the summer of 1835 led Thompson to have Osceola imprisoned in shackles, but Osceola was released when he agreed to support removal. Rather than abide by his agreement with Thompson, Osceola organized Seminole resistance and killed Charley Emathla, a chief who had supported emigration. Osceola and his followers then attacked a baggage train during December, 1835. Later that same month, he killed Thompson, while allies ambushed a force of more than one hundred regulars and killed all but three of them. On New Year’s Eve, 1835, a large party led by Osceola attacked another detachment of regulars and punished them severely in the First Battle of the Withlacoochee, where Osceola was wounded slightly in the hand or arm but escaped capture.

This began the Second Seminole War, which would last until 1842. Until his capture in 1837, Osceola was the primary target of army operations because the U.S. military recognized his importance as a leader in the resistance. Participants in the campaigns against him noted that many of his followers were black. They would have supported him instead of the hereditary chiefs, and his desire to protect them may have been part of his motivation for continuing to fight long after his health began to fail. His evasion of army columns and bold attacks made him something of a folk hero in the United States, but it also earned him the hatred of military leaders, especially after he liberated more than seven hundred Indians held in a detention camp in June, 1837.

In October, 1837, General Thomas S. Jesup, frustrated by Osceola, treacherously accepted his request for a parley under a flag of truce. The Seminole leader, who was then suffering from malaria, and more than eighty of his followers were captured at their camp near Fort Peyton in a flagrant violation of the truce. Despite the public outcry, he was taken to Fort Mellon at St. Augustine, where two of his wives and two children, as well as his half sister and others, joined him. These two wives may have been the two sisters he had married in accordance with Creek custom, though there appear to have been others.

After several other Seminoles escaped, Osceola and his group were transferred on New Year’s Eve, 1837, to Fort Moultrie at Charleston, South Carolina. There his health declined rapidly, and he died on January 30, 1838. Allegations vary as to the cause of his death, but most agree that his depression contributed to his rapid demise. Wickman says that quinsy, or tonsillitis complicated by an abscess, was the immediate cause of Osceola’s death, and both malaria and recurring fevers were contributing factors in his declining health.

Significance

Osceola was buried outside Fort Moultrie on Sullivan Island with military honors, but before interment his head was removed by Frederick Weedon, the physician who had attended him during his fatal illness. It was displayed in a medical museum maintained by Valentine Mott of the Medical College of New York until the building was allegedly destroyed by fire in 1866.

The betrayal of Osceola destroyed any realistic hope of unity among the Seminoles. The war continued sporadically until 1842, when most of the surviving Seminoles moved West, as his family had after his death. Only a few remained in the swamps. The circumstances of Osceola’s fight, capture, and death, which were often misrepresented, made him a folk hero to many. No fewer than twenty towns in the United States now bear his name, as do three counties, two townships, one borough, two lakes, two mountains, a state park, and a national forest.

Bibliography

Boyd, Mark F. “Asi-Yaholo, or Osceola.” Florida Historical Quarterly 23 (January-April, 1955): 249-305. This is an overview of Osceola and the events of his life.

Covington, James W. The Seminoles of Florida. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1993. Covington covers the history of the Seminole Indians, their relations with the U.S. government, and the social conditions under which they lived during various periods.

Hartley, William, and Ellen Hartley. Osceola: The Unconquered Indian. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973. This illustrated biography of Osceola includes bibliographic references.

Mahon, John K. History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1967. Mahon’s detailed study of the Second Seminole War includes illustrations, maps, and a bibliography.

Missall, John, and Mary Lou Missall. The Seminole Wars: America’s Longest Indian Conflict. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. A history of the three Seminole wars, examining their causes and significance in American history.

Wickman, Patricia R. Osceola’s Legacy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991. Wickman interweaves a biography of Osceola with the history of the Seminoles and considers the implications of the events of his lifetime for later interactions between Native Americans and the U.S. government. The book contains a bibliography and an index.

Related Articles in Great Events from History: The Nineteenth Century

November 21, 1817-March 27, 1858: Seminole Wars; 1830-1842: Trail of Tears.