Speaker 1: You think, doctor Wickman, that you have spent more time
Speaker 1: looking for his head than anyone in history.
Speaker 2: I would be willing to bet you that's the case.
Speaker 1: Oh, you did it like a pro. This is not
Speaker 1: a hobby.
Speaker 2: Oh No.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're talking about the tragic death of
Speaker 1: the Seminole War leader Osceola and the bizarre and gruesome
Speaker 1: treatment of his corpse after his death. Doctor Patricia Wickman
Speaker 1: will masterfully tell the story and the details of her
Speaker 1: personal search for Osiola's head. Our first episode in this
Speaker 1: series was about Osiola's childhood, the second one was about
Speaker 1: his years in the Seminole Wars, and this one is
Speaker 1: about his death, though he still lives vividly in the
Speaker 1: American consciousness, and that's really what I'm interested in, trying
Speaker 1: to under stand. Why why are we still talking about
Speaker 1: this guy? And for the record, I do not take
Speaker 1: lightly talking about a man's death, no matter how long
Speaker 1: ago it was. My intent is not to sensationalize this story,
Speaker 1: but rather just understand it the best I can, and
Speaker 1: to learn about Ostiola and really maybe learn something about ourselves.
Speaker 1: I really doubt that you're going to want to miss
Speaker 1: this one.
Speaker 3: From there, most of the people, and there were two
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty seven Indians who had been gathered at
Speaker 3: Saint Augustine. From there they were to be taken straight
Speaker 3: to Indian Territory in the West. They would be put
Speaker 3: on ships, but Ostiola would never leave Fort Moultrie.
Speaker 1: My name is Klay Nukem and this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place.
Speaker 1: As we explore, The Seminole War roared from eighteen seventeen
Speaker 1: to eighteen fifty eight. That's over forty years. The US
Speaker 1: government was trying to remove all Indians from the newly
Speaker 1: acquired Florida territory. This would be America's most expensive Indian War,
Speaker 1: costing over fifty million dollars, with over two thousand American
Speaker 1: soldiers losing their lives. And remember to start, there were
Speaker 1: only four to five thousand Seminoles in Florida by eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine, more than half of them had been relocated
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma. So at most a couple thousand people staved
Speaker 1: off the US army for almost two decades. That's some
Speaker 1: serious resistance. And to jump into our story about Osceola,
Speaker 1: we will start now in late October eighteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: and Ostiola has been captured dishonorably under a flag of
Speaker 1: truce near Fort Peyton, seven miles south of Saint Augustine, Florida,
Speaker 1: by US military General Thomas Jessop. Who'd pay for the
Speaker 1: mistake of treacherously capturing Ostola the way he did with
Speaker 1: the scrutiny and ire of the American public, who phariseically
Speaker 1: rooted for the Seminole leader in this David versus Goliath
Speaker 1: battle against the United States. Osceola was the face of
Speaker 1: the resistance, a cunning military strategist and assassin known as
Speaker 1: a master of guerrilla warfare in the swamps. To fail
Speaker 1: meant certain death or being exiled to Indian Territory in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: over one thousand miles to the west. The year prior,
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty six, the first Seminoles were forcibly removed
Speaker 1: from Florida to Oklahoma under the legislative power of Andrew
Speaker 1: Jackson's Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty, which erased all
Speaker 1: the previous treaties and erased the reservation that they had
Speaker 1: made for the Seminoles in Florida. The world of all
Speaker 1: the tribes in the East was crumbling. Doctor Patricia Whickman
Speaker 1: of Tallahassee, Florida will now catch us up. Right after
Speaker 1: the capture of Ostiola, you guys remember, but she was
Speaker 1: the state historian of Florida. She lived and worked on
Speaker 1: a Seminole reservation in Florida from many years. Though she
Speaker 1: is not a Seminole, she loves them dearly and is
Speaker 1: an expert on their recorded history. I can't say enough
Speaker 1: about this lady. Here we go.
Speaker 3: We are seven miles south of Saint Augustine at a
Speaker 3: tiny little stockade called Fort Payton, and now they're prisoners.
Speaker 3: The Indians are prisoners, and they're being marched all seven
Speaker 3: miles up to Saint Augustine to be put inside the
Speaker 3: Custigo Fort Marion in Saint Augustine. And while they are there,
Speaker 3: they're going to be held there. This is late, almost
Speaker 3: the end of October. They're going to be held there
Speaker 3: in November and in December, and while they're there, several
Speaker 3: things happen. There is a post surgeon who's attached to
Speaker 3: the army, and he's a local doctor, and his name
Speaker 3: is Frederic Whedon. And Frederick Whedon gets to know Osceola.
Speaker 3: I certainly couldn't say they become friends, but they become friendly,
Speaker 3: all right. And doctor Whedon and his wife, Mary Wheden
Speaker 3: go over to the fort frequently and take gifts of
Speaker 3: food to Assiola.
Speaker 1: Doctor Frederick Wheden is the name that you'll remember, because
Speaker 1: I promise you he's going to be living rent free
Speaker 1: in your head. His father fought in the American Revolution,
Speaker 1: and doctor Whedon himself fought in the War of eighteen twelve.
Speaker 1: He became a contract surgeon for the US military after
Speaker 1: his time as an enlisted man. Later we'll discuss if
Speaker 1: he was a man of science or a villain.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, the Indians are in very sad circumstances.
Speaker 3: There are people from the town who are going in
Speaker 3: to see them. They want to see the Indians. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: they begin to have problems with measles and it kills
Speaker 3: well thirteen fourteen people. Ociola does not get it. He
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be bothered by measles. But I'm going
Speaker 3: to find out later on that he is bothered by
Speaker 3: one other thing, which is a very serious problem, and
Speaker 3: that is lice, all right. And lice, I have learned,
Speaker 3: do not occur if you're living in the open, in
Speaker 3: the wild. They occur when you're in close confined quarters
Speaker 3: with other unsanitary people, in unsanitary concisions as a prisoner
Speaker 3: inside a fort. And so Aciola knows that he's defeated,
Speaker 3: and he does not want to go to the West,
Speaker 3: and he says several times that he knows that that
Speaker 3: Charlie Imotola's people are already out there, they've already been
Speaker 3: sent to the West, and they'll have the right to
Speaker 3: take revenge on him.
Speaker 1: This is the seminole that he killed, Yes, absolutely, for
Speaker 1: wanting to go out there to emigrate, right, And that's
Speaker 1: the trajectory, like when he gets capped. Sure, the trajectory
Speaker 1: is Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Conditions in the Florida prison in eighteen thirty seven were rough.
Speaker 1: Ocola feared the retribution of members of his own tribe.
Speaker 1: He'd killed a seminole leader because that guy had planned
Speaker 1: to go and take some people to Oklahoma. He was
Speaker 1: burning bridges Osiola was he didn't have a backup plan
Speaker 1: and he had no plans to go to Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: So he knows that there are people who are talking
Speaker 3: about escaping, and indeed, while they are there, there is
Speaker 3: an escape. And the soldiers themselves report that people from
Speaker 3: the among the Indians had been allowed to go outside
Speaker 3: the fort for four days in order to gather medicine
Speaker 3: or to gather plants. That they're very specific plants that
Speaker 3: these Indians are going after, and the plants are what
Speaker 3: they needed to make medicine, because there is a story
Speaker 3: that circulated among the Indians that they told that they
Speaker 3: made medicine inside the fort and they watched the ants,
Speaker 3: and the ants were curling in and out through a
Speaker 3: crack in a wall that was thirteen feet thick at
Speaker 3: the base, and they made themselves with this medicine. They
Speaker 3: made themselves small enough to go out through the crack
Speaker 3: in the wall. Another story that they tell is that
Speaker 3: they made medicine to make the water standing in puddles
Speaker 3: in the quadrangle rise up as steam, and it made
Speaker 3: it impossible for the soldiers who were guarding the Sallyport
Speaker 3: to see them, and they just literally marched right by
Speaker 3: them and ride out the Sallyport.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by stories of supernatural activity. I'm not suggesting
Speaker 1: that I believe the Indians shrunk to the size of
Speaker 1: ants and crawled through the crack in the wall, or
Speaker 1: that they had power over the fog, but I can't
Speaker 1: say for sure that they didn't. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: supernatural prison break story in the Bible where an earthquake
Speaker 1: shook loose the doors of the prison where Paul was stayed.
Speaker 1: As I understand it, belief in the supernatural is the
Speaker 1: key to unlocking any potential of its power. Point being
Speaker 1: your bias will be confirmed. If you believe in the supernatural,
Speaker 1: there's a high probability that you'll see it. If you don't,
Speaker 1: there's a high probability that you never will. It's like
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy. Most of humanity that has lived
Speaker 1: on planet Earth has had a more robust interaction with
Speaker 1: the spirit world than today's average American. For me to
Speaker 1: think that I fully understand all the power, structures and
Speaker 1: laws of the universe with my eyes and my rational
Speaker 1: thought is absurd. Science has a lot of great answers.
Speaker 1: I am a man of science, but science does not
Speaker 1: answer all the questions that we have. But sometimes supernatural
Speaker 1: acts play out before us inside the predictable laws of physics.
Speaker 3: Now, my personal feeling, after I've read all of this,
Speaker 3: I read the US Army report. On this military report,
Speaker 3: my feeling is that the soldiers who were on guard
Speaker 3: duty that night, and there really should have been only
Speaker 3: two or three. I believe that those soldiers were either
Speaker 3: drunk or asleep, or they were partisans who felt sorry
Speaker 3: for the Indians, and I think they let them walk out.
Speaker 3: Captain Pittkiren Morrison was in charge of the guard of
Speaker 3: the Indians at the fort, and he made a decision
Speaker 3: that in order to put them in a more healthy place,
Speaker 3: he said, more healthy place, and in order to put
Speaker 3: them someplace where it would be harder for them to escape,
Speaker 3: he determined and got permission to take them from Saint Augustine, Florida,
Speaker 3: to Charleston. And Charleston Harbor has Fort Moultrie sitting out
Speaker 3: in the harbor, and as a consequence, they set out
Speaker 3: on the steamer point set and on January first, eighteen
Speaker 3: thirty eight, they hit land at Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor.
Speaker 3: From there most of the people and there were two
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty seven Indians who had been gathered at
Speaker 3: Saint Augustine. From there they were to be taken straight
Speaker 3: to Indian Territory in the West. They would be put
Speaker 3: on ships, but Osciola would never leave Fort Moultrie.
Speaker 1: And the other two hundred and thirty six seminoles settled
Speaker 1: into prison life in South Carolina while waiting to be
Speaker 1: shipped to Oklahoma. The next story is one of the
Speaker 1: most bizarre things that you'll hear in this series. When
Speaker 1: I read it, I reread it to confirm what I
Speaker 1: thought that understood. It has to do with what the
Speaker 1: generals at Fort Moultrie allowed the prisoners to do while incarcerated.
Speaker 3: There was a play while the Indians were held prisoners
Speaker 3: in Fort Moultrie in eighteen thirty eight. They were taken
Speaker 3: one night to the Dock Street Theater to watch a play.
Speaker 3: And there was a big deal made out of that,
Speaker 3: and the whole town turned out.
Speaker 2: A lot of the town turned out.
Speaker 1: It sounded like normal prison, does it no? Her incarceration,
Speaker 1: Oh no, It took them to a play. That's downtown Charleston.
Speaker 1: That's for Oscola into.
Speaker 2: A play everybody wanted.
Speaker 1: Think it was January sixth I read it just today
Speaker 1: January sixth, eighteen thirty eight.
Speaker 2: Eighteen thirty eight, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Weeks before he died.
Speaker 3: I went to New York to the Theater Arts Archive
Speaker 3: at Lincoln Center in New York and found a copy
Speaker 3: of the play and.
Speaker 2: At any Moon the Honeymoon.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't allow me to copy it, but I sat
Speaker 3: there and copied the whole thing out, the whole play
Speaker 3: out all right. And I found a theater company in
Speaker 3: Charleston that was willing to put on the play, to
Speaker 3: do a reading of it for us, And I took
Speaker 3: the Indians, the Seminoles to the dock Street Theater and
Speaker 3: we had a reading.
Speaker 2: Of the Honeymoon.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I am a.
Speaker 3: Florist there very close to Fort Moultrie sent over buckets
Speaker 3: of white carnations for.
Speaker 2: The Seminoles as a gift to them, which I thought
Speaker 2: was a very sweet thing to do.
Speaker 1: That is hard to understand. It said that the people
Speaker 1: in the audience gave Ostiola a standing ovation when he
Speaker 1: walked into the play. Isn't that wild? And hey, I've
Speaker 1: told you before that doctor Patricia Whitman is next level
Speaker 1: when it comes to her devotion and expertise to her
Speaker 1: area of focus. But I got to say, I have
Speaker 1: never met anyone with any more passion, knowledge and the
Speaker 1: ability to articulate her area of studying more than her.
Speaker 1: Here is another interesting thing that happened while Ostiola was
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 3: He became sicker, and at the same time he was
Speaker 3: besieged by artists who wanted to take his likeness. The
Speaker 3: US government contracted with George Catlan, who was the famous
Speaker 3: Indian painter, very famous, and sent him down to Fort Moultrie.
Speaker 3: And Robert John Curtis, who was a Charleston artist, were
Speaker 3: the two that I'm sure of who were there. And
Speaker 3: they set up in one of the casemates at either
Speaker 3: end of the room, and Osiola was between them, and
Speaker 3: he dressed himself properly. He dressed as a full warrior
Speaker 3: with all his regalia, and he had some effect effectations
Speaker 3: that were different than all the other Indians. For instance,
Speaker 3: the black and white Ostrich plumes that he wore in
Speaker 3: his turban. Everybody else wore one or two on the front.
Speaker 3: He wore four or five on the back. He had
Speaker 3: a silver concho. He had a silver pen. He had
Speaker 3: a silver mirror, a silver looking glass.
Speaker 1: If you remember our series on Daniel un starting at
Speaker 1: episode fourteen, and our episode series on David Crockett starting
Speaker 1: at episode one ten, you'll remember that I'm always intrigued
Speaker 1: by what the portrait painters said about people. Before photography,
Speaker 1: this was the medium of the day that translated the
Speaker 1: character in essence of a human to the world. In
Speaker 1: these portrait sessions, people would sit for hours with these artists.
Speaker 1: Catlin wrote about his time with Osceola, I want to
Speaker 1: read what he said. Commonly called Powell, he is generally
Speaker 1: supposed to be a half breed, the son of a
Speaker 1: white man and a Creek woman. I have painted him
Speaker 1: precisely in the costume in which he stood for his picture,
Speaker 1: even to a string and a trinket. He wore three
Speaker 1: ostrich feathers in his head and a turban made of
Speaker 1: a very colored cotton shawl, and his dress was chiefly
Speaker 1: of calicos, with a handsome beadsat or belt around his
Speaker 1: waist and his rifle in his hand. This young man
Speaker 1: is no doubt an extraordinary character. He has been for
Speaker 1: some years reputed and doubtlessly looked upon by the Seminoles
Speaker 1: as the master's spirit and leader of the tribe. Although
Speaker 1: he is not a chief in stature, he is about
Speaker 1: at mediocrity, with an elastic and graceful movement in his face.
Speaker 1: He is good looking, with rather an effeminate smile, but
Speaker 1: of so peculiar a character that the world may be
Speaker 1: ransacked over without finding another just like it. In his manners,
Speaker 1: and all his movements in company is polite and gentlemanly,
Speaker 1: though all his conversation is entirely in his own tongue,
Speaker 1: and his general appearance and actions those of a full
Speaker 1: blooded wild Indian. End of quote. We haven't mentioned it,
Speaker 1: but Ostiola didn't speak much English. Some say that he
Speaker 1: spoke some, some said that he spoke none, But we
Speaker 1: don't really know. I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 1: these descriptions by these painters always seemed to get to me.
Speaker 1: With Boone and Ostiola. Their portrait painters were some of
Speaker 1: the last ones to see these guys. Boone died in
Speaker 1: obscurity in Zuri, just months after the only portrait of
Speaker 1: him was ever painted. No Catlan was just one of
Speaker 1: many many artists who flocked to Fort Moultrie to paint Ostiola.
Speaker 1: The war leader, would only live three days after this
Speaker 1: painting was complete. To be noted, if someone comes to
Speaker 1: paint your portrait, you better be ready to meet your maker.
Speaker 3: And so he sat there for them in the heat,
Speaker 3: and then walked out into the cold, and then back
Speaker 3: into the heat, and does a consequence, he contracted what
Speaker 3: I think was called quinsy, and today we would call
Speaker 3: it strep throat. And one of the Indians who was
Speaker 3: with them, who was a medicine man, or as the
Speaker 3: whites called him, a prophet, told him that he must
Speaker 3: have nothing to do with white medicine, that they would
Speaker 3: kill him, that this was white man's medicine. And he
Speaker 3: even said at one point Dr Whedon that he would
Speaker 3: have let doctor Whedon attend him because he liked him.
Speaker 3: But he knew that he couldn't afford to get the
Speaker 3: ill will of all the other Indians if they saw
Speaker 3: him letting a white doctor attend to him. And so
Speaker 3: at the end of January eighteen thirty eight, he was
Speaker 3: very very ill. At night the doctor went to see him.
Speaker 1: Doctor brus This is just days after Catlin finished his
Speaker 1: very famous painting, the Bassola. I think Catlin finished on
Speaker 1: like January twenty sixth or twenty seventh.
Speaker 3: It was only four or five days, yes, And Robert
Speaker 3: John Curtis, who's also has a very famous portrait that
Speaker 3: I used on the front of my book, all right.
Speaker 3: And he became much much worse Aciola did. And so
Speaker 3: the doctor went into him at six o'clock in the
Speaker 3: morning and found him almost totally unable to speak. He
Speaker 3: couldn't eat. Both of his wives were there with him,
Speaker 3: one on either side, and one of them had his
Speaker 3: head laying.
Speaker 2: In her lap.
Speaker 3: Slightly after six am, after the second time the doctor
Speaker 3: attended him, Osciola died in Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor.
Speaker 1: At precisely six point twenty on January thirtieth, eighteen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: the Seminole War leader Osceola died. Death is such an interesting,
Speaker 1: sacred and bleak moment in a person's life. Riches nor
Speaker 1: poverty can separate you from its sting. We do not
Speaker 1: know what lies on the other side of death, but
Speaker 1: we know there's something. I know there's something. Archaeological evidence
Speaker 1: of human burial rituals show us that man has always
Speaker 1: struggled with death, and the mysterious exit of the human spirit,
Speaker 1: leaving behind an empty cadaver like a locust shedding its exoskeleton,
Speaker 1: makes it clear that what was there a human is
Speaker 1: no longer there. But in the case of this story,
Speaker 1: Ostiola's death is really just the beginning of the whole news.
Speaker 3: Now it would be almost twelve hours before he would
Speaker 3: be buried, and he is buried at Fort Moultrie. That
Speaker 3: decision was made, but there are several things that had
Speaker 3: to happen during that time. In the first place, there
Speaker 3: was only a very small skeleton staff of soldiers stationed
Speaker 3: at Fort Moultrie at that moment. Then one of them
Speaker 3: had to be sent across the bay to find a
Speaker 3: carpenter in Charleston, so they had to get the coffin
Speaker 3: and take it back. Doctor Wheden also put out a
Speaker 3: call for doctor Staro, who was a teacher of anatomy
Speaker 3: in Charleston, and between them they were able to take
Speaker 3: a plaster cast of Osceola's face and torso. In order
Speaker 3: to do that, they had to remove his clothes and
Speaker 3: rigor was still setting was setting.
Speaker 1: In called the death mask.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to.
Speaker 3: Show you his death mask in a minute, because I
Speaker 3: have it. I have one, I'll show you.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute. You have a replica of the death
Speaker 1: mask of Osceola in your office? Yes, she does, Doctor
Speaker 1: Wickman would later take me there to see it. It's
Speaker 1: a white plaster cast of the chest, shoulders and face
Speaker 1: of the Seminole War leader. The features look strikingly similar
Speaker 1: to Catlan's painting, with cheekbones, smooth and almost feminine. I
Speaker 1: chose not to record any audio of our conversation while
Speaker 1: looking at it, or taking any photos. As fascinating as
Speaker 1: this is, it just didn't feel right to record it,
Speaker 1: so I didn't. But I'll never forget it. The original
Speaker 1: death masks is now at the Smithsonian. We're leading up
Speaker 1: to the hours before his burial at Fort Moultrie.
Speaker 3: And then at the last second, or very nearly the
Speaker 3: last second, Captain Morrison sent to them and said that
Speaker 3: he wanted all of Osiola's possessions to be taken from
Speaker 3: him and delivered to Captain Morrison. And this is the
Speaker 3: moment at which doctor Whedon decided to take the most
Speaker 3: important specimen that he could possibly take from this famous
Speaker 3: or notorious Indian, depending on what your point of view
Speaker 3: about him was he decided to take his head.
Speaker 1: Remember when I told you doctor Whedon's name would be
Speaker 1: living in your head rent free for a while. This
Speaker 1: is why, without permission, hastily done in secret, before they
Speaker 1: nailed the lid on the pine coffin, doctor Whedon amputated
Speaker 1: Ostiola's head. And we're still trying to understand why.
Speaker 3: This was not a new idea. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: there was a pseudo science that was prevalent in the
Speaker 3: late eighteenth century and the mid nineteenth century called phrenology,
Speaker 3: and it was a pseudo science that believed that by
Speaker 3: studying the bumps on a person's head, you could tell
Speaker 3: what their propensities were. You could tell if they were
Speaker 3: criminals or violent, or romantic, or anything else about them.
Speaker 3: And there were books written about this, showing you how
Speaker 3: to look at ahead, all right, And we know that
Speaker 3: in at least one and possibly two other instances in
Speaker 3: Florida there were officers who had taken heads. So this
Speaker 3: was not new, and there were a lot of people
Speaker 3: who when word finally got out, and it took a
Speaker 3: while to get out on the United States, when they
Speaker 3: found out that doctor Whedon had taken his head. They
Speaker 3: were very unhappy about it. They thought that it was
Speaker 3: a desecration. The Indians had to be kept out and
Speaker 3: kept away from the whole entire thing, because they never
Speaker 3: never would have allowed that. Never, they wouldn't even have
Speaker 3: allowed his clothing to be taken off, because it was
Speaker 3: important in their tradition that a warrior should be buried
Speaker 3: with all of his accouterments, everything that was his should
Speaker 3: go with him.
Speaker 1: Doctor Whedon would take his head, and he and General
Speaker 1: Morrison would split up the material things that Osciola had
Speaker 1: when he died. Remember he was a prisoner, so his
Speaker 1: wives wouldn't have had any say over how things went down.
Speaker 1: Doctor Whedon took Osceola's car being, his powder horn, a
Speaker 1: lock of his hair, a sketch that he had, a
Speaker 1: brass pipe, silver concho, earrings, a garter, and a knife.
Speaker 1: These things would be passed down in Weedon's family for
Speaker 1: many many years. General Morrison took the three ostrich plumes,
Speaker 1: a turban, a silk shawl, two belts, a garter, three
Speaker 1: silver gorgets, and a mirrored hairbrush. Most of these things
Speaker 1: have disappeared, a few are still in existence, including a
Speaker 1: braid or a lock of Osiola's hair that's still in existence.
Speaker 1: And you may remember doctor Wickman talking about lice in
Speaker 1: that Florida prison. Will modern analysis on that lock of
Speaker 1: hair revealed evidence of the larval casings of lice on
Speaker 1: it pretty wild. Now we've got to have some discussion
Speaker 1: about doctor Whedon whereas actions nefarious, which it kind of
Speaker 1: seems like they were, or is there somehow an odd
Speaker 1: loophole in Weeden's notes He wrote that Ostiola before he died,
Speaker 1: said that he wanted his bones to go back to Florida.
Speaker 2: Yes he did, Yes he did.
Speaker 1: And it's an interesting scenario because Weeden this guy that
Speaker 1: would end up decapitating him, taking all his stuff, Ostiola's
Speaker 1: personal belongings, and would you know, be this like dishonest
Speaker 1: guy would be the one that would would be writing
Speaker 1: basically Ostiola's last will and testament.
Speaker 3: See and I find it absolutely fascinating that we can
Speaker 3: see both of these sides of the mind of a
Speaker 3: nineteenth century person. And on the one hand, we've got
Speaker 3: all of Ostiola's fame, we've got all of his notoriety,
Speaker 3: We've got thousands of people across the United States who
Speaker 3: were sure that this noble Savage had been carried to
Speaker 3: the grave headless when they found out because of an
Speaker 3: act of treachery, because Jessup had taken him under a
Speaker 3: white flag of truce. And at the same time, we've
Speaker 3: got doctor Frederick Whedon, a man of science and a
Speaker 3: man who was friendly friendly with Osceola, and he does
Speaker 3: something that most of these people who are honoring Ostiola
Speaker 3: think is a total desecration. Doctor Wheden wrote he wrote
Speaker 3: a defense of this a few years later, about five
Speaker 3: years later, when the head was transferred out of his keeping,
Speaker 3: and he said that a man of science could do
Speaker 3: these things, that there was no desecration here, that he
Speaker 3: was doing this for science.
Speaker 1: You don't think he had I mean, because it's really
Speaker 1: easy to be like, well, here's a bad guy. He No,
Speaker 1: he did this thing. You don't think he thought this
Speaker 1: was bad? No, So you don't think Wheden was a
Speaker 1: bad guy. No. Didn't he lie about it? Though?
Speaker 3: Well it's hard to tell, and I've tried to track
Speaker 3: down a story on this and get something straight. There
Speaker 3: is a possibility that instead of coming home with that head,
Speaker 3: and we don't know how he preserved it. And this
Speaker 3: is why when I go to New York. I go
Speaker 3: to the McAllister School of Funeral Services and Embalming. Everybody
Speaker 3: else gets to go to plays.
Speaker 2: This is why.
Speaker 1: That's why you're on the Barkers podcast.
Speaker 3: All right, this is it's a possibility that when he left,
Speaker 3: when Weeden left Fort Moultrie, that he went straight to
Speaker 3: New York and exhibited the head at New York and like,
Speaker 3: this was just this is science, this is science.
Speaker 1: This is a great Native American leader. America is enamored
Speaker 1: with Native leaders.
Speaker 3: But he found out that not everybody agreed with that
Speaker 3: idea of science as the motivating factor, because there was
Speaker 3: big pushback. And he came back to Saint Augustine. He
Speaker 3: owned a house on a street that is now called
Speaker 3: Weedon Street in Saint Augustine, not far from the house
Speaker 3: I grew up in, and he had an apothecary shop downstairs,
Speaker 3: or what was being called a drug store now then,
Speaker 3: and he put the head on display in the front
Speaker 3: window of his drug store.
Speaker 1: That's well documented. Yeah, Now would there not have been
Speaker 1: a question of ownership? I mean that's that's where you know, like.
Speaker 3: You just sat with me all the way through this war,
Speaker 3: and you actually think that the Indians get a say
Speaker 3: in this.
Speaker 1: Come on now, yeah, no, I see your point. Okay,
Speaker 1: what about even amongst the US people? I mean, why
Speaker 1: would this guy, Like if the whole world is enamored
Speaker 1: with this guy, I get like, why would Weeden get
Speaker 1: to keep it?
Speaker 3: Well, Wheden was the one who took it, and I
Speaker 3: think that Whedon took it very secretly.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that make it nefarious? Though?
Speaker 3: Of course the action, the act of taking it and
Speaker 3: hiding it wasn't nefarious, all right, But he gated that
Speaker 3: by saying that it was an act of science. And
Speaker 3: you know, they are an awful lot of scientists to
Speaker 3: do an awful lot of things that the rest of
Speaker 3: us don't like.
Speaker 1: This one twisted my mind into a pretzel trying to
Speaker 1: defend the god that secretly cut off the head of Osceola.
Speaker 1: But I would learn that wouldn't be the only head
Speaker 1: that he cut off. He also preserved the skull of
Speaker 1: the Seminole Uci Billy, who also fought in the Seminole Wars.
Speaker 1: I'd like to read a section of an essay for you,
Speaker 1: though written by Theta Purdue, published in the Florida Historic
Speaker 1: Quarterly in nineteen ninety one. What she said really gives
Speaker 1: some interesting context to this kind of bizarre activity. She writes,
Speaker 1: The conviction that a native way of life could not
Speaker 1: survive in North America may help explain why Weeden and
Speaker 1: Morrison removed Ostiola's personal effects. These momentoes of savagery had
Speaker 1: an antiquarian value because most people presumed that Native Americans
Speaker 1: were about to vanish completely off the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: Indians represented the past and a society that was beginning
Speaker 1: to pay particular attention to the material cultures of ancient peoples.
Speaker 1: Napoleon's armies had discovered countless treasure troves in Egypt, and
Speaker 1: by the eighteen twenties, Jean Francois Champollion had deciphered the
Speaker 1: Rosetta Stone, which unlocked the secrets of hieroglyphics. These events
Speaker 1: almost certainly did not motivate Weeden and Morrison, but they
Speaker 1: did contribute to the intellectual maliu that formed and shaped
Speaker 1: scientific investigation and collection development. Weeden and Morrison may be
Speaker 1: seen as representative of the same kind of interest in
Speaker 1: material culture that led, in the eighteen forties to the
Speaker 1: founding of the Smithsonian Institution. Where Osceola's death mask now rests.
Speaker 1: Cosiola's possessions like those are the Pleistocene. The Egyptians and
Speaker 1: the Trojans belonged to history because savagery was passing from
Speaker 1: the scene. End of quote. Now that's pretty bear greasy.
Speaker 1: By that, I mean interesting. You have to wash your
Speaker 1: hands with some bear grease lye soap to get that off.
Speaker 1: But it's still hard to stomach what Whedon did, but
Speaker 1: it does put it into context. However, I have a question,
Speaker 1: is this kind of gruesome stuff still going on today?
Speaker 1: You know, that's a weird question. So cutting a dead
Speaker 1: man's head off, Yes, in eighteen thirty eight and putting
Speaker 1: in a glass jar was not what that would be today.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't as big a deal. It was more common.
Speaker 3: Well, do you know, I've been to Walter Reed, I've
Speaker 3: been to see their pathological collections, and I know that
Speaker 3: they're old. They're not to my not, they're not still
Speaker 3: doing this because you can take photographs today, you know,
Speaker 3: and you can do drawings today, or you can preserve
Speaker 3: specimens today. There are wet and dry methods for preserving specimens.
Speaker 1: So they're still doing this today. So that's what you're.
Speaker 3: Saying, I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure, but
Speaker 3: I know that up into the twentieth century, particularly in
Speaker 3: times of war, doctors have the opportunity to deal with
Speaker 3: things that they never get to deal with in times
Speaker 3: of peace. And as a teaching collection, it's important. What
Speaker 3: are you going to show people? How are you going
Speaker 3: to teach doctors? If they don't have something they can
Speaker 3: look at, something that's.
Speaker 1: Amazing, maybe it's still happening, maybe more today than even then.
Speaker 1: I mean, because they're working on cadavers all the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean people that are donating their bodies to sciences.
Speaker 1: And once there's consent, like once there's consent from a person,
Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want with my body. After
Speaker 1: I'm dead, then it's like everything's okay.
Speaker 3: Yes, then you can take it. And I as I said,
Speaker 3: I've been in the collections at Walter Reed and there
Speaker 3: are things in jars that I would not like to
Speaker 3: have to deal with every day. But if you're going
Speaker 3: to be a surgeon or even a doctor, any medical doctor,
Speaker 3: you've got to deal with these things their reality, and
Speaker 3: this is how you learn. You know, there's a famous
Speaker 3: pair of men in England. I think they were called
Speaker 3: Burke and Hare, if I remember correctly, who were finally
Speaker 3: caught in the early eighteen hundreds because they were digging
Speaker 3: up cadavers to supply the medical schools. They were going around,
Speaker 3: they were going to hangings, you know, and catching bodies
Speaker 3: because they were supplying medical schools, and they got paid,
Speaker 3: they were earning their living this way.
Speaker 1: That's all pretty wild and not a justification, but it
Speaker 1: does put the time into context, and if we're being honest,
Speaker 1: revolutions in medicine and understanding of the human body that
Speaker 1: we all benefit from today came from this era of
Speaker 1: curiosity and learning, as macabre as it is. We'll now
Speaker 1: move through a timeline of what we know about Osiola's head.
Speaker 3: Osiola's head stade remained in the possession of doctor Whedon
Speaker 3: in Saint Augustine for about five years.
Speaker 1: Doctor Wheden would end up being the mayor of Saint
Speaker 1: Augustine and after having the head on display for five years,
Speaker 1: Weeden's son in law, doctor Daniel Whitehurst, would write a
Speaker 1: letter to a very prominent figure in the scientific community.
Speaker 1: Here's who the letter was written.
Speaker 3: To, and the man's name was doctor Valentine Mott. Mott
Speaker 3: a very famous name. There is still today a Mott
Speaker 3: metal in science that's given out every year. There's Lucretia Mott,
Speaker 3: who was one of the great suffragettes in American history.
Speaker 3: There's Mott apple juice. And doctor Mott had two teaching collections.
Speaker 3: He had a collection that he kept of specimens that
Speaker 3: he kept in Manhattan, and he had specimens that he
Speaker 3: kept specifically at his home. And he said quite clearly
Speaker 3: that when doctor Whitehurst wrote to him and said that
Speaker 3: he wanted to offer him Osciola's head, doctor Mott said
Speaker 3: that it was too important and too well known, too
Speaker 3: highly visible in society for him to place it in
Speaker 3: any public spot, and he would keep it in his home,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: And so he did.
Speaker 1: And this is documented in a letter as we have today, Yes,
Speaker 1: that Whitehurst, Weeden's son in law writes a letter to
Speaker 1: this famous doctor Mott, doctor Mott up in New York
Speaker 1: and says and offers him and like straight up says,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give a deliver to you basically Ossiole's head,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 3: As a sign of my esteem for everything you've taught me.
Speaker 1: And you're somebody that'll take care of this, and you
Speaker 1: should be the one that has this. Yep, this is
Speaker 1: in the early eighteen forties or so.
Speaker 3: It's about eighteen forty two, maybe between five.
Speaker 1: Four or five years after Oscio's Yes, yes, what happens after.
Speaker 3: That, Well, the head is transported and it goes to him,
Speaker 3: and it goes to doctor Valentine Mott. And years later,
Speaker 3: several years later, several things happened all at once. There
Speaker 3: was a fire in the fourteenth Street Medical College. Doctor
Speaker 3: Mott's wife passed away, and doctor Mott created for himself
Speaker 3: a catalog of his entire collection, the collection that was
Speaker 3: in his home. The fire destroyed a good deal of
Speaker 3: what was held in the Medical College in New York.
Speaker 3: So it's a very good thing that the head was
Speaker 3: not there, because I've seen a copy of the catalog
Speaker 3: that he created and had printed of all the specimens
Speaker 3: that were in his home, and the head of asceola undoubted,
Speaker 3: it says in parentheses, undoubted is there After I found
Speaker 3: that the next thing I went looking for was doctor
Speaker 3: Ballentine Mott's will, and I found out that not only
Speaker 3: was there a will, but as of course there should be,
Speaker 3: there was an inventory that was taken of all his
Speaker 3: possessions at the time of his death. I got a
Speaker 3: copy of the will. I read the copy. He made
Speaker 3: his son, Alexander Brown Mott his executor. But the inventory
Speaker 3: was either misfiled or has disappeared. And as a consequence,
Speaker 3: I can't find what you might call the smoking gun.
Speaker 3: I can't find the piece of paper that would tell
Speaker 3: me for a fact that that head at the time
Speaker 3: of Valentine Mott's death was still in his home. I
Speaker 3: have visited the New York Historical Society. I've visited the
Speaker 3: New York Medical Society. They have a cast of doctor
Speaker 3: Valentine Mott's hand because he was such a famous surgeon.
Speaker 3: They have some of his instruments, they have other documents,
Speaker 3: but they do not have Osciola's head.
Speaker 1: So that's where the trail goes cold. That is where
Speaker 1: the trail, that's where the buck stops. Yes, But then
Speaker 1: that's where a wholenother big can of worms opens up.
Speaker 3: Because because there are too many possibilities, you know, I've
Speaker 3: contacted Philadelphia. I sent out letters to about one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty museums across the United States. Anything that had anything.
Speaker 1: What kind of letter do you write, you say, hey, perchance,
Speaker 1: do you have the head of Osceola? And have not
Speaker 1: told anybody.
Speaker 3: What The first thing I said was, I'm the senior
Speaker 3: historian for the state of Florida. And when you start
Speaker 3: with that, they answer you okay, And I said, I'm
Speaker 3: working on Ostiola. Is the story of Astola, and as
Speaker 3: you may well know, his head has never been located.
Speaker 3: And I am interested to know whether you have or
Speaker 3: ever have had anything relating to Ostiola in your collections,
Speaker 3: whether you have ever heard any stories relating to him
Speaker 3: or his head.
Speaker 1: Just doing the widest net possible anybody. I could ask
Speaker 1: you think, doctor Wickman, that you have spent more time
Speaker 1: looking for his head than anyone in history.
Speaker 2: I would be willing to bet you that's the case.
Speaker 1: Oh you did it like a pro. This is not
Speaker 1: a hobby. Oh no, this was your job.
Speaker 2: This was your But it's what the Seminoles want too.
Speaker 1: Really, they sent you on task to do that.
Speaker 3: Well, they allowed me to put the money in my
Speaker 3: budget to go to New York, to go to Chicago.
Speaker 3: I've been to the Brooklyn Museum because Henry Abbot had
Speaker 3: an Egyptiana collection, and I thought, well, it's possible. Henry
Speaker 3: Abbott was a doctor who knew Valentine Mott. Let's go
Speaker 3: find out if it could be.
Speaker 1: There, how would you have Would it have just been
Speaker 1: like somebody saying, you know what, well, there's this one
Speaker 1: specimen over here, we don't really know what to do
Speaker 1: with it, and somehow you would look at it and
Speaker 1: be like, that's it. I mean, like, what did you
Speaker 1: expect to find.
Speaker 3: There are two big possibilities, three big possibilities. One is
Speaker 3: that somebody has it, but they don't want the world
Speaker 3: to know it because of the attitude about Indians today.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't want the Indian tribe to be insulted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be pretty and they wanted material to be
Speaker 1: haven't in your hands today.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to fall into disrepute as an institution.
Speaker 3: And the other possibility is that they might have known
Speaker 3: that they had it and destroyed it or inadvertently destroyed
Speaker 3: it because they said, you know, this system, this series
Speaker 3: of specimens is not actually within the mission of our museum,
Speaker 3: and I don't know anybody else who wants it.
Speaker 2: Let's just throw it on the pipe.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't fess up to that today.
Speaker 3: Well, they might not even know that it'd been among
Speaker 3: those things because they might not have the accession records.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. So there's actually when you really know
Speaker 1: the systems, you understand the way that things could actually happen,
Speaker 1: because I mean, in my mind it's like, well, how
Speaker 1: could you lose somebody's head that's in the jar? But
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of ways to lose.
Speaker 2: The whole job of ways to lose it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, do you do you think, after all your research,
Speaker 1: do you think it's still in existence?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 3: Because I can't find any reason not to believe it,
Speaker 3: Because I can't find anything that's even vaguely close to
Speaker 3: it that would lead me to believe that it could
Speaker 3: truly be gone.
Speaker 1: I am grinting ear to ear as we're having this conversation.
Speaker 1: Mystery remains, and that's some serious gangster detective stuff, but
Speaker 1: also some very serious stuff searching for Osiola's head. I
Speaker 1: told you guys that doctor Whitman was legit. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you believe me, and she truly believes that
Speaker 1: the head is still in existence.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that I did in that
Speaker 3: process of searching through other museums was look closely for specimens,
Speaker 3: wet specimens.
Speaker 2: Because that's what it would be.
Speaker 3: It would be preserved in alcohol, probably wet specimens that
Speaker 3: are older than Osiola's hit. Because I thought to myself,
Speaker 3: is it possible that it might have simply deteriorated over
Speaker 3: the years and that there's nothing left? Or if I
Speaker 3: found it, I couldn't possibly recognize it, And so I
Speaker 3: went looking for other collections.
Speaker 2: And there are.
Speaker 3: Collections in Europe, and the Hunterian Museum, and for which
Speaker 3: there is now a Hunterian in London, all right, have
Speaker 3: specimens that are far older than ossi Olda's head, that
Speaker 3: are still perfectly fine, that are well preserved. So could
Speaker 3: it be extant?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Is it extant? I can't find any reason to believe
Speaker 3: that it's not. And I'm thinking of Harvard's collections. I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of Philadelphia. There are a couple of museums there
Speaker 3: that have had anatomical collections. The idea of anatomical specimen
Speaker 3: collections as a very big idea really only began to
Speaker 3: pick up speed during the American Civil War, and you can.
Speaker 1: Imagine that years before that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they weren't large collections. They were usually like
Speaker 3: doctor Mott's. They were in the possession either of a
Speaker 3: medical college where a man a certain person taught, or
Speaker 3: they were his own private teaching collection.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: But once we got the American Civil War and so
Speaker 3: many people were dying, and there were so many bullet
Speaker 3: wounds and so many you know, legs and amputated and
Speaker 3: all these other things, then then collecting really got underway,
Speaker 3: and then the pathological collections at Walter Reed were begun.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So there are pathological collections that still exist in various places,
Speaker 3: and I haven't begun to cover all of them.
Speaker 1: Wow, when you're in the deep dark corners of the Internet,
Speaker 1: you'll find a lot of wild ideas of where Ostiola's
Speaker 1: head is today. So what are the wild theories? Because
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of unfound the wild theories
Speaker 1: of where Osiolas is.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you too, in particular that I have
Speaker 3: never forgotten. One of them was a woman in Texas
Speaker 3: who called me, and I no longer remember her name, mercifully,
Speaker 3: and she called me this is while.
Speaker 2: I was still with the tribe.
Speaker 3: She was absolutely sure she lived near a river in Texas,
Speaker 3: and she was convinced very strongly convinced that Osceola had
Speaker 3: lived in a house on that river bank and the
Speaker 3: house had collapsed on him and fallen into the river.
Speaker 3: And if I would send a dive team over to
Speaker 3: where she was, they could go into that river, and
Speaker 3: she was quite sure that we would find him.
Speaker 2: We would find his skeletal.
Speaker 1: Remains pretty off the wall. That was a good one,
Speaker 1: you guys may remember Semonole Creek. Jake Tiger from Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: I asked him if he'd heard any loud stories of
Speaker 1: where Osciola's head is.
Speaker 4: I believe it's still out there. I mean, this is
Speaker 4: where I'll probably end up selling like a conspiracy theorist
Speaker 4: about Yeah, but I mean you'll hear his head is
Speaker 4: over in Redwoods in California, along with Sitting Bull and
Speaker 4: Geronimo as well at Bohemian Grove. If y'all ever heard
Speaker 4: about the Secret Society's that's over in California, you know
Speaker 4: where you know George Bush and Bill Clinton are part of.
Speaker 4: It's a really strange thing if you read about those guys.
Speaker 4: But to me, like I said, it sounds like a
Speaker 4: conspiracy theorist. But I've talked to different people in the
Speaker 4: community and they said, Yeah, there's his head's over in
Speaker 4: California right now.
Speaker 1: The Bohemian Grove is a twenty seven hundred acre private
Speaker 1: club in Monte Rio, California, founded in eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: In every variety of wild conspiracies construed by man can
Speaker 1: be found about this place. Here's doctor Wickman with one
Speaker 1: more little story.
Speaker 3: The other was that I got a call from a
Speaker 3: woman up in Jacksonville. She was on the city council,
Speaker 3: I think, and she had a contact on one of
Speaker 3: those shows on television. It might have been America's Most
Speaker 3: Pointed or something like that, and she wanted to get
Speaker 3: the question of finding Osciola's head on that program. And
Speaker 3: the lady up in Jacksonville was really quite aggressive, and
Speaker 3: I tried really hard to explain to her that if
Speaker 3: that head were found, that there is no question nowadays
Speaker 3: that it would be only only within the purview of
Speaker 3: the Seminole tribe of Florida to decide what would happen
Speaker 3: to that head. And I know what would happen. I
Speaker 3: know what they would do, all right, And it's the
Speaker 3: what they want to do. It's why they let me
Speaker 3: hunt for it so that they could put him back together,
Speaker 3: and he could sleep in peace.
Speaker 1: I've learned a lot in this search for Osiola's legacy,
Speaker 1: having heard his name in John Anderson's hit song Simon Oldwind,
Speaker 1: and realizing that I didn't know much about him. It's
Speaker 1: been a fascinating story about this man, but also America.
Speaker 1: I want to conclude with an editorial in an American
Speaker 1: newspaper published just days after Ostiola's death on January thirtieth,
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty eight. It reads, we have heard within a
Speaker 1: day or two very bitter things said about Ostiola by
Speaker 1: a few persons. In our humble opinion, he has been
Speaker 1: to the full as much sinned against as sinning treacherous
Speaker 1: he may have been, but we cannot forget that he
Speaker 1: was provoked by treachery and captured by treachery. We are
Speaker 1: fairly even with them. We now owe him the respects
Speaker 1: which the brave ever feel toward the brave, which the
Speaker 1: victorious cannot violate without brutality, towards the vanquished, which the
Speaker 1: commonest laws of humanity and civilization enforced towards prisoners of war.
Speaker 1: We sincerely trust that no citizen of Charleston will so
Speaker 1: far forget the character of a Carolinian as to offer
Speaker 1: indignity to a fallen man, a tear of forgiveness and
Speaker 1: generous sympathy is much better due to the once terrible,
Speaker 1: now stricken warrior of the Seminoles. Here's doctor Wickman with
Speaker 1: one final thought.
Speaker 3: Here's your bottom line. Here's your absolute bottom line. The
Speaker 3: entire might of this nation was thrown against these people,
Speaker 3: the entire might of the United States military well soon
Speaker 3: against these people. And here we are two hundred years
Speaker 3: down the road and they are still here.
Speaker 2: And that is nothing short of a miracle.
Speaker 3: I think that the least that we know them is
Speaker 3: to know their story and to tell it straight.
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying the story, and I can't thank you
Speaker 1: enough for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country
Speaker 1: Life podcast. On the next episode, we're carrying on with
Speaker 1: this story. We're going to talk about the bizarre circumstances
Speaker 1: around the nineteen sixty seven zooming of Osiola's grave. No,
Speaker 1: this story is not over. Please leave us a review
Speaker 1: on iTunes and share our podcast with a buddy this week.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and keep the w wild places wild because
Speaker 1: that's where the bears live.
Speaker 3: M