HIS NAME CAME FROM THE BLACK WATER

(c) 1995-2003 William James Chance

On the banks of a river, with its waters so very dark, came an Indian name, Osceola, the leader of the Creeks and the Seminoles. His name came from the black waters of the Chattahoochee. His father was a white man and his mother, Polly, was an, Indian chief's daughter, Osceola's little brown mother. At fourteen years old, he led a fierce attack upon the white people, whom he hated. No Indian chief ever hated the white man more than this young warrior did. Perhaps his father was responsible for the way Osceola felt towards all white people, for his father was a white man by the name of Powell. His father beat Osceola's mother. Because of Powell's treatment of her, she took her young son and went back to her own people. She hated white people and she taught Osceola to hate them too.

Although Osceola was fierce and cruel, he always told his warriors to treat women and children kindly.

The Indians fled before the white army, which the government sent to conquer the red man, Osceola led his warriors into the everglades of Florida, where they joined the Seminoles. Osceola was not very tall and not very straight but he was brave and had an undying hatred for the whites. His wife was taken away from him and made a black slave in the plantations of Florida. His purpose to fight them made him a strong man.

Imagine a medium sized man, dressed in a buckskin shirt that reached to his knees, a turban of grey, silver coin earrings, leggings and moccasins that were fringed and beaded and you will have a mind picture of the young chieftain.

Osceola was very skillful with the bow and arrow although he did like the white mans gun better and he handled a gun perfectly. In one battle he killed forty men by himself.

He became the leader of the Creeks and the Seminoles with two chiefs, Jumper and Alligator. Under him they were as brave as Osceola himself. The Seminoles was not their original name, they got their name from the Spanish. The Seminoles real name was, Lower Creek Indians.

For fifteen years this leader of the Seminoles went from one chief to another, preaching death to the whites and begging the chiefs to hold the lands of mother earth, which their forefathers owned. It was on Osceola's account that the United States government spent ten million dollars and lost two thousand men in an effort to conquer the Seminoles and move them to the lands in the west. Osceola said, "I will not sign the treaty to give away Indian lands and I will kill any chief who does sign it".

When the government agent was trying to get the Indians to leave Florida, the treaty of Payne's Landing, was signed by the Indian chief and they said goodbye to their old hunting grounds.

It was impossible for the white soldiers to capture the cunning chief, for he knew the everglades and they did not. At last he was persuaded to go to Saint Augustine to talk the matter over. While there, he was put in prison. He died in at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina. All Indians, good or bad, believe that When Oseola's spirit passed away, it joined those of other brave Indians whom had gone before to the happy hunting grounds.

Osceola was one of the great chiefs of the Creek and Seminole Indians. He was born in Macon County, Alabama and leader of the Creek and Seminole of Alabama and Florida.

He died in chains in South Carolina.

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