Great Warrior: Black Drink Singer

Names:          Osceola, Billy Powell
Title:              Tallassee Tustenuggee (Warrior of Tallassee); Tustenuggee Thlocko (Great Warrior);
Nation:           Creek (Red Stick); Muscogee; Seminole
Dates:             1804-1/30/1838
Born:              Tallassee, Alabama, in present day Elmore County.
Died:              Fort Moultrie, South Carolina
Burial:            Fort Moultrie, South Carolina
Family:           2 wives (Morning Dew, Unknown), 4/5 children, 1 sister.

Born to a mixed-race Creek and Scottish mother, scholars have debated his father's identity.  Osceola himself claimed to painter George Catlin that he was "full-blood Muscogee."  Either his mother had a relationship with an unknown Creek man, making her son of mostly Creek heritage with some Scottish ancestry through his maternal grandfather.  Or if her husband, Scottish/English trader William Powell was his father, Osceola was of mostly European ancestry and claiming Creek status by virtue of matrilineal ties to the tribe.  William Powell left the family when Billy was young.  In 1814, after the defeat of the Red Stick Creek faction, led in part by Billy's maternal uncle Peter MacQueen, the family fled to Florida and took refuge with the Seminoles. 

Billy excelled at sports such as foot racing and stick ball.  At age 18, he participated in his first Green Corn Ceremony, marking his entrance to adulthood.  As part of the ceremony, participants drank a bitter potion made of the Yaupon Holly, called Asi, and accompanied the drinking with a ritual shout or Yahola.  Billy received his adult name, which is anglicized as Osceola, at this time, though he may have continued to use Powell in dealing with whites.  He eventually married two wives, either or both said to be black or part black.  There is no proof either way.  He excelled as a warrior, earning the rank of Tustenuggee, and later Thlocko Tustenuggee (Great Warrior or First Warrior).  In 1832, he became angry at hearing that certain chiefs were willing to cede Seminole land to the United States.  Legend holds, though scholars debate, that Osceola declared war by stabbing the treaty document with his knife, saying, "this is the only way I will sign!" 

His work as Tustenuggee also made him, in effect, chief of police for his tribe.  He would intercede for tribal members facing jail, lashing or other punishments for offenses, usually stealing food from neighboring plantations or trespassing on land whites considered theirs.  This work brought him into open conflict with the Indian Agent, Wiley Thompson.  After a particularly tense confrontation, Thompson had Osceola chained and thrown into the guardhouse at Fort King.  Furious, Osceola later retaliated by killing and scalping Thompson in December, 1835.  By this time, the Seminoles were in open conflict with the United States authorities, who wanted them to cede their land and prepare for removal to Oklahoma.  Osceola led daring guerilla raids that confused and embarrassed several future generals, including Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor.  His strongest performance came at the Battle of Withlacoochee, where he told General Duncan Clinch through an emissary, "you have guns and so do we.  You have powder and lead and so do we.  Your men will fight and so will ours until the last drop of Seminole blood moistens the dust of this hunting ground!" Soon after, though, Osceola was wounded in the hand in another skirmish and came down with a chronic illness, probably malaria.

A new commanding general, Thomas Jessup, despaired of Osceola ever agreeing to removal from Florida of his own accord.  However, Osceola, through an emissary, agreed to meet with Jessup's representative to discuss the possibility of retaining land in Florida.  When he arrived at the meeting in October, 1837, bearing white crane plumes as a sign of truce, Osceola was arrested and placed in Fort Marion in St. Augustine.  In December, 1837, he was transferred to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina and learned that he had become something of a celebrity as a resistance fighter.  Several artists came to paint his portrait, which he allowed and encouraged.  He formed a friendship with George Catlin, who painted two portraits of him.  Catlin left Fort Moultrie on January 26, 1838, and asked the post doctor Frederick Weedon, to inform him of how Osceola died.

Weedon was the brother-in-law of Wiley Thompson and scholars debate over the quality of care he gave Osceola, who had developed a tonsillar abscess known as quinsy.  Osceola was aware that he was dying, had himself dressed in his finest regalia, bid goodbye to his family, several Seminole leaders and the officers of the Fort.  He asked Weedon to make certain that he was buried in Florida.  After Osceola's death, the commander of Fort Moultrie ordered the body stripped of its adornments.  He and Weedon kept most of the regalia, not returning any of it to the family.  Further, Weedon decapitated the corpse, took a death mask, and preserved the head in embalming fluid.  Osceola was buried, naked and unadorned, at the gates of Fort Moultrie.  A local admirer donated a simple white slab with Osceola's name and dates, and the words, "warrior and patriot."  There he rests today.

Catlin paid one last tribute to his friend.  He took the two portraits to his gallery in New York and made prints of them, which he sold.  He also gave interviews of his experience with Osceola to several newspapers and toured Europe, telling the warrior's story.  Catlin's efforts in part prompted a national inquiry into Jessup's conduct in capturing a Native leader under a flag of truce.  Jessup was whitewashed by a Congressional committee, but his reputation suffered as a result of his conduct.  Osceola's possessions passed into the hands of private collectors
, though some have made their way to the Smithsonian, and to a museum run by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.  The head was given to a Philadelphia surgeon for his specimen collection, and the building where it was housed burned down in the 1890's.  Several places in the United States, including a county in Florida, were named for Osceola, and it became a popular first name for girls and boys in the South.

One thing that Osceola cleared up with Catlin during their time together was that he was not a chief.  Although many people refer to him as 'Chief Osceola' and confuse him with the FSU tribute rider, he was a war leader, not a chief.  That raises the question, who was a chief and who was not.  We'll deal with that topic next.