Osceola

(click to enlarge)
Osceola, detail of a lithograph by George Catlin, 1838 (credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born c. 1804, Georgia, U.S. — died Jan. 30, 1838, Charleston, S.C.) Seminole Indian leader during the Second Seminole War. The war began in 1835 when the U.S. government attempted to force the Seminole off their traditional lands in Florida and into the Indian territory west of the Mississippi River. Osceola and his followers employed guerrilla tactics and forced a truce. During negotiations he was arrested and removed to a military fort at Charleston, S.C., where he died.

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Osceola was born into the Tallassee tribe of Maskókî speakers (called Creeks by the British), whose village was near present‐day Tuskegee, Alabama. He was never a chief.

Dispossessed by Andrew Jackson's settlement of the Creek War of 1813–14, he and part of his family migrated southward into the Spanish Floridas. His plight and passion captured the imagination of the U.S. press, which romanticized Osceola as a symbol of Indian resistance to forced removal. Acquisition of the territory by the United States in 1821 increased tensions, and the young warrior spoke vehemently against the treaties by which the United States sought to confine Florida Indians to peninsular reservations. Imprisoned for several days by U.S. Indian agent Wiley Thompson in 1835, Osceola determined to fight removal. Along with tribal leaders, he planned the opening gambits of the Second Seminole War.

On 28 December 1835, Osceola murdered Agent Thompson at Fort King (Ocala) as his compatriots were attacking a U.S. Army column under Maj. Francis Dade en route there. Two days later, he was one of the leaders of the Battle of the Withlacoochee, in which U.S. regulars and volunteers were routed by the numerically inferior Indian forces. He led warriors throughout 1836–37 although his health declined.

On 21 October 1837, Osceola was captured by U.S. troops, while under a white flag of truce, near St. Augustine, East Florida. He was transferred from Fort Marion (St. Augustine) to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, where he died a prisoner on 30 January 1838.

[See also Native Americans, U.S. Military Relations with; Native American Wars: Wars Between Native Americans and Europeans and Euro‐Americans; Seminole Wars.]

Bibliography

• John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1967; reprint 1991.
• Patricia R. Wickman, Osceola's Legacy, 1991

(c. 1804-38) Native American war leader, born in Alabama. Osceola became a symbol of Indian resistance to forced removal. A member of a Tallassee tribe, he was outspoken in his denouncement of the treaties by which the United States sought to remove Florida Indians from their lands and confine them to reservations. Along with tribal leaders, he planned the opening gambits of the Second Seminole War (1835-42) and led warriors in its first major engagements (1836-37). Captured while under a white flag of truce (1837), Osceola was imprisoned in South Carolina, where he died a few months later.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The Seminole Indian war chief Osceola (ca. 1800-1838) led his tribe's fight against being removed from their lands in Florida.

Born about 1800 on the Tallapoosa River in the present state of Georgia, Osceola was a member of the Creek nation. His mother's second husband was William Powell, a Scottish trader, but Osceola, sometimes called Powell, was a full-blooded Creek.

In 1808 Osceola and his mother moved to Florida. They were associated with the Seminoles, and with them Osceola fought in the War of 1812 and in 1818 against American troops under Andrew Jackson. By 1832 Osceola was living near Ft. King in Florida. Apparently he was not hostile, for he was employed occasionally by the Indian agent to pacify restless tribesmen. Such activities gradually brought him to prominence among the Seminoles.

In 1832, however, the United States government was under pressure to move the Seminoles west of the Mississippi River. Some Seminole chiefs were persuaded to sign a treaty of removal. Osceola opposed this, as he did a similar agreement made in 1835. Most Seminole chiefs signified their disagreement by refusing to touch the pen; Osceola did so by plunging his knife into the paper. He was arrested for this defiance. To secure his release, he pretended that he would work for approval for the treaty. By now a Seminole war chief, once freed, he began gathering warriors for battle.

On Dec. 28, 1835, Osceola and his warriors brutally murdered the agent Wiley Thompson and Chief Charley Emathla, thereby precipitating the Second Seminole War. With Indian followers and fugitive slaves, Osceola overcame many enemies during the next 2 years.

The first of his major battles occurred when Osceola killed Maj. Francis L. Dade and 110 soldiers. Days later, with 200 followers, he fought against Gen. Duncan L. Clinch and 600 soldiers. Wounded, he was forced to retreat. On June 8, 1836, he was repelled at a fortified post, but on August 16 he almost overwhelmed Ft. Drane. Osceola's fight was so successful that it led to widespread public criticism of the U.S. Army, especially of Gen. Thomas S. Jesup, who ordered Osceola's arrest while under a flag of truce on Oct. 21, 1837.

The captured Seminole chief was imprisoned at Ft. Marion, Fla., then removed to Ft. Moultrie, S.C. He died there on Jan. 30, 1838, of unknown causes.

Further Reading

A full-length biography of Osceola is James B. Ransom, Osceola (1838). Information on him is in Theodore Pratt, Seminole: A Drama of the Florida Indian (1953), and Alvin Josephy, Jr., The Patriot Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian Leadership (1961). A good general study of the Seminole problem is Edwin C. McReynolds, The Seminoles (1957). For an overview of the war which Osceola commanded see John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War (1967).