Friday Reprise: Wild Cat of the Seminole

Coacoochee (c 1807-1857) was born somewhere in Florida.  Several sites are named as a potential birthplace, with none being able to prove the claim.  His heritage, though, was certain.  His father, called King Philip by their White opponents, was a chief, married to the sister of Micanopy, another chief.  Thus, unlike his colleague Osceola, Coacochee had chiefs on both sides of his family and could hope to succeed his father or uncle some day.  In another lucky sign, he was born a twin, though the other child died at birth.  As the surviving twin, he would have been considered by the Seminoles to have been born under auspicious signs.  While young, he quickly emerged as a capable warrior, leading bands of Seminoles fending off White encroachment into their territory. 

When the Second Seminole War broke out in 1835, Coacochee was eclipsed by Osceola, who was older and a more established war leader.  Whether this led to strained relations between them, no one knows.  In October, 1837, after his father was captured in another raid and imprisoned at Fort Marion (Castillo de San Marco), St. Augustine, Coacoochee contacted Col. Thomas S. Jessup, the latest commander in Florida, and claimed to be an emissary of Osceola.  He requested peace talks.  Whether this was done with Osceola's say-so, no one knows for sure.  However, at that time, Osceola, ailing and realizing that his people could not hold out much longer, may have been exploring some kind of resolution.  Neither he nor Coacochee got that chance.  Jessup captured both of them under a flag of truce and clapped them into Fort Marion. 

While there, Coacochee, John Horse and some other leading warriors concocted an escape plan.  Coacochee later said that they starved themselves for several days while prying one of the bars loose with a file and other tools smuggled in to them before wriggling through the window of their cell, dropping several feet to the ground and disappearing into the night.  While Osceola was left to his eventual fate, Wild Cat gathered another band of warriors and carried on the fight.  He faced Col. Zachary Taylor in the indecisive Battle of Lake Okeechobee on December 27, 1837, and retreated into the Everglades.  King Philip, meanwhile, died on the journey to Oklahoma, something which deeply distressed Coacoochee.  Finally, in 1841, Coacoochee agreed to meet with Lt. William T. Sherman (yes, that Sherman) to arrange transport to Oklahoma.  He told Sherman, "I was in hopes I would be killed in battle but a bullet never reached me."

Once in Oklahoma, the conditions Seminole leaders had feared all along for their people became reality.  Rations were scarce.  Coacochee accompanied Alligator (another relative) and other leaders in a delegation to Washington to remedy the situation, but to no avail.  Meantime, Creek raiders began capturing Black Seminoles and mixed-race Natives to sell to Southern slave catchers who prowled Indian Territory, looking for escapees.  In 1849, Wild Cat left Oklahoma with a band of 100 followers, bound for Texas and then Mexico, where they settled with the displaced Kickapoo.  He offered his services to the Mexican government in battling Comanche and Apache raiders and received a Colonel's rank in the Mexican Army.  He died in Alto, Mexico and his son, Chiquito Gato (Young Wild Cat), took his place as leader of the band.

In 2012, the US Bureau of Geographic Names received an application to name an unoccupied barrier island chain off the Florida coast after Coacoochee.  The request has not been acted upon. 

(This post first appeared in June, 2016).