Осеола: Семинол халқының басшысы

Seminole leader

Osceola (1804 – January 30, 1838, Asi yahola in Creek), named Billy Powell at birth in Alabama, became an influential leader of the Seminole people in Florida. His mother was Muscogee, and his great grandfather was a Scotsman, James McQueen. He was reared by his mother in the Creek (Muscogee) tradition. When he was a child, they migrated to Florida with other Red Stick refugees, led by a relative, Peter McQueen, after their group's defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars. There they became part of what was known as the Seminole people. In 1836, Osceola led a small group of warriors in the Seminole resistance during the Second Seminole War, when the United States tried to remove the tribe from their lands in Florida to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. He became an adviser to Micanopy, the principal chief of the Seminole from 1825 to 1849. Osceola led the Seminole resistance to removal until he was captured on October 21, 1837, by deception, under a flag of truce, when he went to a site near Fort Peyton for peace talks. The United States first imprisoned him at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, then transported him to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina. He died there a few months later of causes reported as an internal infection or malaria. Because of his renown, Osceola attracted visitors in prison, including renowned artist George Catlin, who painted perhaps the most well known portrait of the Seminole leader. His mother was Polly Coppinger, a mixed race Creek woman, and his father was most likely William Powell, a Scottish trader. Polly was also of Muscogee and European ancestry, as the daughter of Ann McQueen and Jose Coppinger. Because the Muscogee had a matrilineal kinship system, Polly and Ann's children were all born into their mother's clan. They were reared by their mothers and their maternal male relatives following Muscogee cultural practices, and they gained their social status from their mother's people. Ann McQueen was also mixed race Muscogee Creek; her father, James McQueen, was Scottish. Ann was probably the sister or aunt of Peter McQueen, a prominent Muscogee leader and warrior. Like his mother, Billy Powell was raised in the Muscogee Creek confederacy. Billy Powell's maternal grandfather, James McQueen, was a ship jumping Scottish sailor who in 1716 became the first recorded white person to trade with the Muscogee Creek Confederacy in Alabama. He stayed in the area as a fur trader and married into a Muscogee family, becoming closely involved with these people. He was buried in 1811 at the Indian cemetery in Franklin, Alabama, near a Methodist missionary church for the Muscogee. In adulthood, as part of the Seminole, Powell was given his name Osceola (,/ɒ//s//iː/'/oʊ//l//ə/ or ,/oʊ//s//eɪ/'/oʊ//l//ə/). This is an anglicized form of the Creek Asi yahola (pronounced ); the combination of asi, the ceremonial black drink made from the yaupon holly, and yahola, meaning "shout" or "shouter". In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain, and more European American settlers started moving in, encroaching on the Seminoles' territory. After early military skirmishes and the signing of the 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek, by which the US seized the northern Seminole lands, Osceola and his family moved with the Seminole deeper into the unpopulated wilds of central and southern Florida. Lt. John T. Sprague mentions in his 1848 history The Florida War that Osceola had a wife named "Che cho ter" (Morning Dew), who bore him four children. Five of the most important Seminole chiefs, including Micanopy of the Alachua Seminole, did not agree to removal. In retaliation, the US Indian agent, Wiley Thompson, declared that those chiefs were deposed from their positions. As US relations with the Seminole deteriorated, Thompson forbade the sale of guns and ammunition to them. Osceola, a young warrior rising to prominence, resented this ban. He felt it equated the Seminole with slaves, who were forbidden by law to carry arms. Despite running low on food, the U. S. garrison had enough gunpowder and ammunition to keep the Seminoles from taking the fort before reinforcements arrived.

On October 21, 1837, Osceola and 81 of his followers were captured by General Joseph Hernández on the orders of General Thomas Jesup, under a white flag of truce, when they went for peace talks to Fort Peyton near St. Augustine. He was initially imprisoned at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, before being transferred to Fort Moultrie on Sullivans Island, outside Charleston, South Carolina. Osceola's capture by deceit caused a national uproar. General Jesup's treacherous act and the administration were condemned by many congressional leaders and vilified by international press. Jesup suffered a loss of reputation that lasted for the rest of his life; his betrayal of the truce flag has been described as "one of the most disgraceful acts in American military history." He died of quinsy Rather than honoring his last wish, Weedon cut off Osceola's head, and buried his decapitated body, displaying his head in his drug store. During the time Weedon had the head in his possession, he would often place it in the bedroom of his three sons as punishment for misbehavior. Weedon would later give the head to his son in law, Dr. Daniel Whitehurst, who gifted the head to Valentine Mott in 1843. Mott placed it in his Surgical and Pathological Museum, where it was presumed destroyed in a fire in 1866.

Chairman Joe Dan Osceola (1936–2019), ambassador of the Seminole Tribe, was Osceola's great great great grandson.

According to the oral tradition of his descendants, Dr. Frederick Weedon was alone with the body and cut off Osceola's head, placing it in the coffin with the scarf that Osceola had customarily worn being wrapped around the neck, and immediately before the funeral ceremony removed the head and shut the coffin's lid. In 1966, Miami businessman Otis W. Shriver claimed he had dug up Osceola's grave and put his bones into a bank vault to rebury them at a tourist site at the Rainbow Springs in Marion County. Shriver traveled around the state in 1967 to gather support for his project. Archaeologists later proved that Shriver had dug up animal remains; Osceola's body was still in its coffin. In 1979 the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma bought Osceola's bandolier and other personal items from a Sotheby's auction. Because of the chief's significance, over time some people have created forgeries of Osceola's belongings. Rumors persist that his embalmed head has been found in various locations.

In the mid 1930s Nathanael West wrote a 17 page film treatment entitled Osceola but failed to sell it to a studio. Seminole (1953), highly fictionalized American western film directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Anthony Quinn as Osceola. Naked in the Sun (1957), the life of Osceola and the Second Seminole War, starring James Craig as Osceola. Osceola – Die rechte Hand der Vergeltung (1971) by Konrad Petzold, an East German western with Gojko Mitić as the Native American leader.

The Sedgeford Hall Portrait (c. 1830), once thought to be of Pocahontas and her mixed race son, Thomas Rolfe, is now believed to be of Pe o ka (a wife of Osceola) and their son. 1957 Jim Bowie TV series episode "Osceola." When the army attempts to remove the Seminole Indians from their own lands to a less desirable tract, Bowie steps in on their behalf. The song "Seminole Wind", the title track of the album by the same name by John Anderson, refers to hearing the ghost of Osceola. The song has been covered by James Taylor and Gravemist. Osceola and Renegade are mascots of the Florida State Seminoles football team. The use of Osceola and Renegade as a symbol was approved by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.