The First Seminole War
Several significant events occurred in Osceola’s life during his teens. Peter McQueen, the most important member of his clan—an extended family defined by the matriarchal structure of Creek society—died in 1818 or 1819. An ardent defender of Creek life and opponent of the United States, McQueen had an enormous influence on young Billy Powell, who grew up to firmly embrace his mother’s culture rather than his father’s. This was a choice entirely consistent with Creek culture: In this culture, a man married into his wife’s clan but did not become a member of that clan, resulting in children adopting the primacy of the mother’s relatives.
Then came the First Seminole War and the reappearance of Andrew Jackson as a disruptive and dangerous force in Osceola’s life. The Creeks (or Maskcikis)
Were related culturally, linguistically, and often by blood to the Seminoles of Florida, but the latter were a distinct group by the eighteenth century, albeit one that continued to absorb Creeks from farther north. The Seminoles, in fact, readily welcomed the migrating Creeks as well as runaway African slaves. Much writing about the war has drawn no distinction between Creek (or Maskciki) and Seminole, placing both groups under the Seminole name.
Florida itself was widely seen by its northern American neighbor as at least a nuisance, and at worst a serious threat to the safety and economy of the United States. Jackson embodied these various grievances against Florida, deploring the support that it offered as a refuge to Indian and slave alike. At the time, the U. S. government was engaging in negotiations to acquire the Spanish possession, but the process was proceeding much more slowly than Jackson wished.
Jackson saw an opportunity to achieve several goals at once with a forceful military excursion into Florida. He could not only put an end to problems with Indians in the region and remove a haven for runaway slaves, but also sidestep the prolonged negotiations by simply taking Florida by force. Jackson implored President James Monroe to let him seize Florida. In return, he received an ambiguously worded directive seeming to give him that authority without actually stating it in explicit language. In other words, Monroe was covering himself with plausible deniability should Jackson’s military foray backfire.
Jackson invaded Florida in March 1818. At the time, Peter McQueen was still alive and considered one of the leading Creek refugee leaders. Florida Indians wisely did their best to avoid Jackson’s army, but Jackson did capture Pensacola and appoint one of his officers as governor of West Florida. Jackson then returned to the United States at the end of May—and his invasion blew up on the diplomatic front. President Monroe and his Cabinet considered abandoning their support of Jackson to mollify Spanish anger, but at the urging of former President John Quincy Adams decided not to discipline him. The decision not to scapegoat Jackson saved his career, securing a future that would see him become President of the United States. In that role, he would continue contributing to the destruction of Osceola’s people and their way of life.
Green Corn Ceremony
Shortly after Jackson’s invasion of Florida, Osceola moved with his mother and other relatives farther south into central Florida. At some point during these years, possibly when he was 18, during 1822, Billy Powell became Osceola. He received his new name during the annual Green Corn Ceremony, which included four days of fasting by young men, usually in their teen years, as they received a ceremonial name and entered into adulthood.
This important communal ceremony included dancing and feasting, all within a serious ritualistic framework that occurred in the summer, approximately late June to early July, during the corn-growing season. Already identified as a future leader, in no small part because of the prominence of Peter McQueen and other male figures in his mother’s clan, Osceola was chosen to
Assist at the Green Corn Ceremony. His duties included locating the herbs, such as button snakeroot, for the ceremonial black drinks that served as emetics to further the participants’ purification, and sweeping the dance circle prior to the night’s dance. The new name that Billy Powell received refers both to the sacred black drink and to the singing that accompanied the drink. The sacred event, which lasted five days, also included ball games, which Osceola was not permitted to participate in until after his renaming, and court sessions at which crimes were identified and adjudicated.
The Green Corn Dance began at midnight just as the fifth day of the ceremony was starting. Dawn brought with it the ritual scratching on the bodies of the participants to purify their blood. During the final evening, the medicine bundle was examined to see if any additional objects had been inserted into it to enhance its protective properties.
At the conclusion of the Green Corn Ceremony that included Billy Powell’s renaming, the young warrior was ready to embark upon a career that would enshrine the name “Osceola” permanently in American history. However, his contemporary Euro-Americans continued to refer to him regularly as Billy Powell. Even as Osceola, he still had much to prove to his own Creeks. Osceola never became a chief. Instead, his ability to lead men into battle depended on his courage, his skill as a warrior, and his capacity for instilling confidence in other warriors.
Apprenticeship to Abieiki'
An important part of Osceola’s education occurred through his apprenticeship to Abiiiki (Abeca), a prominent medicine man committed to resisting Euro-Americans and revered for his medicines believed to protect men in battle. Abiiiki imparted his knowledge of the supposed protective powers of plants and chants to Osceola, probably beginning when his student was still Billy Powell.
As U. S. efforts to remove the Creeks and Seminoles from the Southeast and transport them beyond the Mississippi to what would become Oklahoma intensified, mentor and student would become firm allies. Osceola learned to employ a variety of strategies to resist the U. S. government, drawing in part on Abiaki’s wisdom.
OSCEOLA'S PUBLIC LIFE Jackson Becomes President
Life for Osceola, given his background, education, and leadership qualities, could have been productive and peaceful, possibly in Florida or, more likely, farther north. (Florida had been a possession of the United States since 1821, although it would not earn statehood until 1845.) Multicultural, in appearance as much Euro-American as Indian, and speaking English (and possibly Spanish) as well as his native Creek language, Osceola could look back on a
Long string of European ancestors. He clearly saw himself as Creek but seemed to move easily between the two worlds. He might have found his way farther north to live and work within the United States or have even gone to Europe to fashion an entirely new existence for himself. But he did not make those choices: Instead, he stayed to fight and die for the people who gave him one-eighth of his genetic makeup but also the traditions and history that he accepted as his own.
Andrew Jackson, who was firmly rooted in only one world, became President of the United States in 1829 and held that office until 1837. In those years, he did all he could—and with considerable success—to eliminate the last vestiges of Indian power not just in the Southeast, but everywhere east of the Mississippi River.
Early in his first term as president, Jackson happily signed into law the Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830. This federal legislation legalized what had been Jackson’s personal policy choice—the removal of all Indians in the Southeast to Indian Territory beyond the Mississippi. Many congressmen in the North opposed the legislation because it would increase the white population in the slave-holding South. The law also called for the removal from the Seminoles and Creeks all slaves (and many former slaves living with the Indians), an issue that had contributed to U. S. justification of the First Seminole War.
Treaty of Payne's Landing
The Indians of the Southeast still had to agree or be forced to accept their removal, of course. The U. S. government recognized that the former option was far less costly in terms of both money and the lives of soldiers as well as other Euro-Americans who might be caught in another war. To pursue this approach, James Gadsden, a personal friend of President Jackson, was named as a special agent to negotiate with the Indians.
Gadsden selected Payne’s Landing on Oklawaha River near present-day Eureka, Florida, as the site for a meeting that convened in early May 1832. The treaty was signed on May 9, but no written record of the discussions was retained. Fifteen Indian signatures appear on the document, but they do not include the signature of Osceola. Osceola, who was neither a chief nor a supporter of the treaty, was present at the meeting as a tustenuggee—that is, a sort of policeman designated to keep order. The treaty included the signing mark of Micanopy, a prominent hereditary leader who favored emigration, although he later claimed that his mark had been forged. In fact, rumors circulated that many—even all—of the marks were either forged or coerced. Given the absence of any minutes of the proceedings, it is impossible to tell whether the signings were genuine and the subsequent disclaimers simply represented efforts to back away from an unpopular agreement.
And unpopular the treaty was—with Osceola and many other Creek and Seminole residents of Florida. Under the provisions of the treaty, the Indians were to give up their land, move to their assigned home beyond the
Mississippi, and become part of one Creek nation that would include those Creeks whom Osceola’s people had fought in the Creek War. In return, they would be paid $15,400 after their arrival in their new home and receive an annual annuity of $3,000 for 15 years, a sum to be divided among those who had earlier acquiesced to their removal as well as the present inhabitants of Florida. Each person, upon arriving in the Indian Territory, also would receive a blanket and frock, and the U. S. government would write off claims of up to $7,000 for slaves and other stolen property. Finally, the articles stipulated that the exodus from Florida must be completed within three years.3
The Treaty of Payne’s Landing also included an ambiguous provision early in its Preamble. Seven chiefs were to travel to the western lands to inspect their new home. Then, “should they be satisfied with the character of that country, and of the favorable disposition of the Creeks to reunite with the Seminoles as one people,” the agreement would be considered binding.4 The pronoun “they” appears remarkably unclear in its reference, alternately referring to the seven chiefs or to the entire Seminole nation (the latter interpretation was certainly inaccurate, as U. S. officials made no apparent distinction between the Florida Seminoles and Creeks who had migrated to Florida). In fact, the seven chiefs, under their own legislative traditions, would not have been authorized to speak for everyone but would instead have been required to return and let their people collectively decide whether to move.
John Sprague, a U. S. army officer, asserts in his book The Origin, Progress, and Conclusion of the Florida War, published in 1848, that a seven-person delegation, accompanied by Indian Agent John Phagan, made the journey in the fall of 1832 to inspect the assigned land. Strangely, Abiiiki, whom Sprague refers to as Sam Jones, was to be among the seven chiefs and also is listed as one of the signers of the treaty; his inclusion lends credence to accusations that the signing marks were fraudulent, given his well-known opposition to removal. The revered medicine man, however, did not make the trip, being replaced by John Hicks. Nor did he sign the supplemental Additional Treaty of March 28, 1833, although the document includes the mark for John Hicks (Euchee Billy) and the notation “representing Sam Jones.”5 Uncertainty in determining who did and did not support the Treaty of Payne’s Landing and its follow-up can also be explained (as with many other treaties forced upon Indians by the U. S. government) by the Indians’ inability to read English, making them dependent on U. S. government officials’ explanations of what the wording meant.
Apart from the ambiguous wording of the treaty, it contained enough that was clearly stated to arouse the opposition of Osceola. Over the following two years, Osceola became widely known to Euro-Americans as he visited military compounds and may have worked as a guide. At the same time, he continued to rise in stature among his own people as an opponent of removal.
Osceola was indeed impressive. Highly intelligent, articulate, and passionate, he combined political insights with his training in medicine. He was somewhat tall for the times, standing approximately 5 feet 10 inches with fine, handsome features and a penchant for dressing well. He surely made a striking
Impression on non-Indians in his intricately designed knee-length dress-frock topped off with a turban sporting large plumes.
Osceola often appeared at Fort King near the present site of Ocala in central Florida. Likewise, his mentor, Abiiiki, visited the fort to sell fish, earning him the nickname “Sam Jones” after a character in a popular poem, “Sam Jones the Fisherman of Sandy Hook.” Both Osceola and the older man were well aware that they were visiting people with whom they might soon be at war and recognized that they should learn as much as possible about them and their habits.
Friendship with John Graham
Osceola’s interactions with soldiers cannot be accurately explained solely as a clever ploy to reconnoiter the enemy in preparation for a conflict that Osceola knew was likely to come. Starting with his English father, he had known Euro-Americans all of his life and was able to judge them as individuals, even counting some as his friends.
A compelling example was a graduate of West Point named John Graham, who was approximately 10 years younger than Osceola. The two met at Fort King. By 1835, they had become, in the words of a first-hand observer, John Bemrose (an unusually observant and literate enlisted man), “inseparable.” According to Bemrose, who wrote his reminiscences about 30 years after his experiences in the Second Seminole War, the two men “were seen daily together.”6
The friendship between Osceola and Lieutenant Graham developed out of the officer’s kindness toward a daughter or niece of Osceola’s and included the giving of various gifts. One such gift was a frock, which Graham hiked three miles to Osceola’s village to present to the girl. The two men visited for several hours that day. At some point during the conversation, Osceola offered to teach Graham a bit of his own language, while Graham agreed in turn to help Osceola improve his English. The visit was the first of many by Graham. Osceola also gave Lieutenant Graham a number of presents, including a plume of white crane feathers.
When war broke out, Osceola cautioned his warriors during the First Battle of the Withlacoochee not to fire on Graham. Those orders may have saved the young officer’s life, but he would survive his friend by only three and one-half years, succumbing to yellow fever on July 30, 1841. He left behind his widow, the daughter of Florida’s governor, Robert Raymond Reid.
WILEY THOMPSON The Fort King Council
Wiley Thompson was appointed as the Indian agent at Fort King in late 1833. He had fought with Andrew Jackson during the Creek War and owed his title of general to his having been a major general of the Georgia militia. His overarching responsibility was to persuade the remaining Creeks and Seminoles in Florida to agree to move west. This task ran up against the firm wall of Indian
Resistance and led Thompson into a protracted relationship with Osceola, which would ultimately lead to the agent’s death.
Thompson convened a gathering of Indian leaders at Fort King on October 21, 1834, with the hope that he could persuade them to leave Florida. At this meeting, Thompson distributed what was supposed to be the final annuity paid to the Indians before their departure. The meeting resumed two days later, with Thompson assuring those present that the Creeks who had previously moved were anxiously looking forward to the Seminoles from Florida joining them, where together they could form a great nation.
That evening, the leaders met apart from Thompson, although he had informers present to keep him abreast of what was discussed. Osceola sat near Micanopy, who was prone to changing his mind and waffling on the matter of emigrating. Osceola adamantly objected to moving, and, expressing his position with great eloquence and power, helped to convince most of those present to remain in Florida. He also urged that those who supported migrating be considered enemies. When the group of leaders met with Thompson to convey their decision, Osceola gave a powerful speech denouncing Thompson’s plan. There was no longer any question in Thompson’s mind about Osceola’s status as a leader.
Osceola's Arrest
Thompson was not about to give up his effort to persuade the Creeks and Seminoles still in Florida to leave. Recognizing Osceola’s influence, Thompson lavished attention and gifts upon him, including a silver-mounted flintlock rifle. Upon failing to achieve acquiescence from Osceola, and after having an angry confrontation with him in June 1835, Thompson decided to have his perceived nemesis arrested.
Putting the young Creek leader in irons and jailing him, Thompson hoped, might bring him around to accepting migration. The actual result was the personal shaming of Osceola and his decision to be more strategically clever in his opposition. Consequently, Osceola sent word to Thompson on the day after his arrest that he was ready to sign the Payne’s Landing Treaty. He also promised, as a condition of his release, that he would return in five days with others who also would sign the treaty. In fact, Osceola did return, bringing a contingent of about 80 of his people. Along with Osceola, they agreed to the treaty provisions. The agreement deceived Thompson, who concluded that his arrest had achieved its intended end. Thompson would later pay for the arrest and his misjudgment of Osceola’s intentions with his life.
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR Killing of Charley Emathla
Osceola wasted no time preparing for the war that he now concluded could not be avoided. He arranged a traditional ball game at Fort King, an event that
Was both a sport and a cultural tradition that, through competition, reminded the participants of their common background. Along with reaffirming cultural identity, the contest gave Osceola a cover for acquiring additional ammunition, which the U. S. military provided as prizes.
The Indian war council sought to build unity by declaring that any Indians who agreed to follow the Payne’s Treaty plan and began to make arrangements to leave Florida would be put to death. Among those preparing for departure was Charley Emathla, who had been among the group visiting Indian Territory in 1832. Emathla had started selling his livestock, a precondition stated in Article V of the Treaty of Payne’s Landing. That decision and preliminary action brought Emathla into conflict with the warning from the council of chiefs.
Needing a leader that people would follow to carry out its prescribed punishment, the council chose Osceola to administer its judgment. On November 26, 1835, Osceola and a small group of followers attacked Emathla as he was returning home with his two daughters. The girls were unharmed, but Emathla died from multiple gunshot wounds. He was carrying gold and silver coins from the sale of his livestock. Osceola denounced the coins as having been earned with Indian blood and threw the money away.
Battle of Black Point
Approximately three weeks later, on December 18, Osceola engaged in his first battle with U. S. troops in what came to be known as the Battle of Black Point. Osceola and approximately 80 warriors ambushed a military baggage train that was on its way to Alabama. As Osceola was securing the baggage train, a militia force of about 30 under the command of Captain John McLemore (later a major) arrived but quickly retreated when most of the men refused to attack the Indians. A relatively minor incident in itself, the engagement was the first battle of the Second Seminole War.
Thompson's Death
Next up was General Wiley Thompson, who had jailed Osceola the previous year and who was the primary local figure involved in trying to force the Florida Indians to move to Indian Territory. Although Osceola certainly had no love for Thompson, his killing of Thompson was not an act of personal revenge but rather the fulfillment of another council dictate.
Thompson dined with Lieutenant Constantine Smith and Captain Thomas Lendrum on December 28, 1835. After the meal, late in the afternoon, Thompson and Smith left Fort King for what they thought would be a pleasant stroll to the store run by the sutler Erastus Rogers.
Suddenly, a group of Indians led by Osceola appeared, easily killing Thompson and Smith. As the primary object of the attack, Thompson was shot several times and scalped. At the same time, another group attacked Rogers’ store,
Killing him and his two clerks as they ate their supper. Rogers, who was apparently much disliked by his Indian customers, was shot 17 times.
Dade's Column
On the same day, shortly after dawn, yet another group under Micanopy and the creek war leaders Jumper and Alligator was preparing to attack a military column led by Major Francis Dade that was moving toward Fort King. Micanopy had wanted to wait until Osceola arrived, but Jumper argued successfully for moving ahead with the attack.
Early in the morning, Dade’s column entered the trap prepared for them. The first shot struck Dade. Within seconds, half of Dade’s men were dead; others were wounded. Captain George Washington Gardiner rallied his men and got them to take cover. Gardiner ordered the quick construction of a triangular barricade made from trees that his soldiers hurriedly cut down. While still on his feet and trying to save his men, Gardiner was shot and killed. The survivors took refuge within the barricade, which was only two feet high.
Before long, only three men remained alive within the small enclosure, with three wounded men outside it. Ultimately, three soldiers and an interpreter survived the battle. The U. S. dead numbered 107, with the attacking force suffering just three fatalities.7 On orders from Osceola, the Indians did not mutilate the bodies, although some members of a group of former slaves allied to the Seminoles exacted revenge for their previous enslavement on some of the bodies.
World History
