Speaker 1: The word seminole comes from cimarron, which is runaway in Spanish,
Speaker 1: and so Cimarron became semihlo, and then that became seminole,
Speaker 1: and so we were the wild ones, you know, like
Speaker 1: we broke off and went down to Florida to fight
Speaker 1: and to get away.
Speaker 2: In this episode, we're going into the deep water, paddling
Speaker 2: through some hard hitting history, rife with controversy injustice, highlighting
Speaker 2: the spirit of resistance and the ferociousness of a man
Speaker 2: when it comes to family and land. We're trying to
Speaker 2: understand and celebrate the life of a Seminole Indian War
Speaker 2: leader Osceola born in present day Alabama, he fled under
Speaker 2: duress to spend most of his life in Florida and
Speaker 2: died in a prison in South Carolina at the age
Speaker 2: of thirty four. He received a global fame in his lifetime,
Speaker 2: and the people of America toasted celebratory drinks to the
Speaker 2: long life of Osceola. But why this vibrant relegade leader
Speaker 2: fought against the United States and the only war on
Speaker 2: American soil that it didn't win. The bigger story, the
Speaker 2: one behind the man, is the unconquered tribe of the seminoles.
Speaker 2: I really doubt that you're going to want to miss
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 3: I'm intrigued by your choice of the word controversy, because
Speaker 3: there certainly exists controversies concerning Ossiola to this day, which
Speaker 3: is part and parcel of the fact that he's still
Speaker 3: in the national consciousness and the international consciousness. Do you
Speaker 3: see that little figurine sitting right over there. That's a
Speaker 3: statue of Assiola. And about ten years ago a friend
Speaker 3: of mine in South Florida was in Belgium and she
Speaker 3: found that statuette really Belgium, in Belgium, and it was
Speaker 3: made in Italy, so he was famous all over the world.
Speaker 2: My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear
Speaker 2: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 2: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.
Speaker 2: Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 2: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 2: place as we explore.
Speaker 3: Please use that glass ashtray as a coaster. There you
Speaker 3: go for you, Drake, Yeah, that's okay. I have been
Speaker 3: known to leave a ring or on my furniture, and
Speaker 3: I'd much rather blame me than you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll do the same thing
Speaker 2: when people come over like he's the coaster. I'm in
Speaker 2: the home of historian and author doctor Patricia Wickman in Tallahassee, Florida.
Speaker 2: She's a generous and kind woman, but you better be
Speaker 2: on your a game. Of all the people I've interviewed,
Speaker 2: from hillbilly's to PhD tote and academics, I've never interviewed
Speaker 2: anyone with more detailed knowledge, passion, and ability to communicate
Speaker 2: about their expertise more than doctor Wickman, and her passion
Speaker 2: is the Seminole Ostiola. As a matter of fact, she
Speaker 2: was the senior historian for the State of Florida and
Speaker 2: the former director of the Department of Anthropology and Genealogy
Speaker 2: for the Seminole tribe of Florida. She's actually a Spanish
Speaker 2: Floridian whose family has been here since the seventeen fifties,
Speaker 2: but she lived with the Florida Seminoles for over a decade.
Speaker 2: She is going to help us immensely in this story.
Speaker 3: I was up in Iowa one time some years ago,
Speaker 3: where they had a statue of a totem pole, a
Speaker 3: pseudo totem pole that had been carved for them by
Speaker 3: a man in Branson, Missouri, and it was supposed to
Speaker 3: be in honor of Osceola. And I found that absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 3: So I'm never surprised to hear anything about him. I'm
Speaker 3: never surprised that he exists in the national consciousness. Even
Speaker 3: to this day. There are over twenty counties, cities. There's
Speaker 3: even a bridge and a mountain in the United States
Speaker 3: named after Ostiola.
Speaker 2: Osceola's legacy, lasting into modern times almost two hundred years
Speaker 2: after his death, shows the impact of his life. But
Speaker 2: here is a mainstream American pseudo totem to, the Seminole Leader,
Speaker 2: and I bet you're gonna recognize him. John Anderson's song
Speaker 2: Seminole Wind was a straight up country hit was nominated
Speaker 2: for the nineteen ninety three CMA Song of the Year.
Speaker 2: And if you don't like this song, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what to say, but it really hits its stride near
Speaker 2: the end. Listen who gets a call out by name?
Speaker 1: And the last time I walked in the swamp, I
Speaker 1: sat up on a cypres tum.
Speaker 4: I listened pul saying I heard the dose of Seo.
Speaker 2: So he heard the ghost of Ossiola crying. That's powerful imagery.
Speaker 2: And there ain't a person who ever heard that song
Speaker 2: that didn't like that part. But do you even know
Speaker 2: who Osciola is what he did up until recently, I'd
Speaker 2: have to answer no, not really. But this brings up
Speaker 2: too interesting and old points that we've got to address
Speaker 2: at the top. Number one, Americans have always been enamored
Speaker 2: with Native American leaders, treating them almost like comic book
Speaker 2: characters or mythical creatures. In the eighteen hundreds, even while
Speaker 2: our government was at war width and systematically moving them
Speaker 2: to Oklahoma, America couldn't read enough and see enough about Indians.
Speaker 2: This trend rolled into the twentieth century. It's an odd
Speaker 2: philosophical position, idolizing people you were displacing and trying to kill.
Speaker 2: If you remember to Kumsa, the Shawnee had national fame
Speaker 2: in his life and was viewed as a noble foe
Speaker 2: of America. At the end of his life, when he
Speaker 2: was in prison, the nation's most famous painters were lined
Speaker 2: up at the door ten deep to paint his portrait,
Speaker 2: and when he died, his possessions, and even parts of
Speaker 2: his body were stolen, sold and touted his showpieces, including
Speaker 2: his head, which is still missing. It seems like America
Speaker 2: liked the golden egg but didn't want the goose. The
Speaker 2: romantic idea of a free people unaffected by modernity, living
Speaker 2: independently and harmoniously off the land was appealing. We actually
Speaker 2: grafted some of that into American identity, which differentiated us
Speaker 2: from the stuffy aristocracy of Europe from which we'd come.
Speaker 2: But we couldn't have unassimilated people who didn't want to
Speaker 2: be part of America living here. We'd rather just have
Speaker 2: stories about how they used to live here, and we
Speaker 2: couldn't have him living here, especially if they owned land.
Speaker 2: And did the Native Americans ever own some prime real estate.
Speaker 2: The second consideration I said there were two, is how
Speaker 2: Americans were constantly in search of individualistic heroes that validated
Speaker 2: our national value system. We are so enamored with individualism
Speaker 2: that we don't know that there is even another way
Speaker 2: to view the world. But the Native people didn't have
Speaker 2: this individualistic view. I was helped to see this by
Speaker 2: Shawnee Chief Ben Barnes a couple of years ago when
Speaker 2: we did that to comes the series. He basically said,
Speaker 2: you people are always trying to sensationalize individuals, but we
Speaker 2: see them as a product of their community, standing on
Speaker 2: the shoulders of others that they can't be separated from.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the grammatical structure of the Shawnee language,
Speaker 2: giving precedents to verbs rather than nouns, like actions rather
Speaker 2: than people, meaning They're most interested in what God done,
Speaker 2: not who did it. In English, you would say Susie
Speaker 2: made the soup, with an emphasis on who did it.
Speaker 2: Susie did it. They might say the soup was made,
Speaker 2: and who made it? Really wasn't that important. I'm attempting
Speaker 2: to not tell Osceola's story through these historic tropes, but
Speaker 2: it's almost impossible not to. I just want to learn
Speaker 2: who this guy was and why people today are still
Speaker 2: so interested in him. I do know one thing, and
Speaker 2: that's that I've found some great people to help tell
Speaker 2: this story. One of them is my friend from Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: Muskogee Creek and Seminole Sterling Harjoe. I asked him when
Speaker 2: he first would have known about Ostiola.
Speaker 1: I don't remember when I first heard about him. It's
Speaker 1: early enough that I don't remember I just knew that
Speaker 1: he was our leader. He's our number one leader that
Speaker 1: we think of. Even though there were a lot of
Speaker 1: other leaders, he was the one that was very popular.
Speaker 1: Ewoch Kelly Haynes's a painter. He painted the painting who
Speaker 1: was also a former chief. He painted the painting of
Speaker 1: Oceola stabbing the treaty and I remember that being a
Speaker 1: very striking painting that I always remembered growing up. But
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of this ultimate just some I
Speaker 1: mean like he died under like a banner of you know,
Speaker 1: flag of truce, you know, which supposedly outraged people that
Speaker 1: he was tricked. He's the ultimate sort of he. I mean,
Speaker 1: he died for me to be alive. I think that
Speaker 1: that's a part of the fabric of whether that was
Speaker 1: ever said to me or not. I felt that.
Speaker 2: There's a famous moment in Osceola's life when he went
Speaker 2: to sign Paynes Treaty with the United States government in
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty two, but rather than signing it, he stabbed
Speaker 2: a knife into the paper contract. It's interesting because many
Speaker 2: historians say that this actually didn't happen, but the Seminoles
Speaker 2: say that it did. And you're in lies the trouble
Speaker 2: with history. But Sterlin did answer my question. This leader's
Speaker 2: legacy was built into the everyday lives of the Seminoles.
Speaker 2: And I'd like to introduce you to Jake Tiger, a
Speaker 2: twenty six year old Creek Seminole living in Oklahoma. He's
Speaker 2: got something to say about history.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of a lot of Anglo history is
Speaker 4: kind of mostly written documentations, and with American Indians ours
Speaker 4: is just oral traditions. So that's why there's always a
Speaker 4: big discussion of yeah, authenticity, what's what's reputable and then
Speaker 4: what's you know, what's a legit source and so, and
Speaker 4: some people are actually coming around to that, you know,
Speaker 4: they're they're starting to understand that these you know, PhD
Speaker 4: you know, ethnologists, anthropologists there, their stories don't line up
Speaker 4: with the tribal communities actually have to say stuff that
Speaker 4: actually happened. Because we have to remember also at the
Speaker 4: same time, when whenever these different anthropolgy and different Indian
Speaker 4: agents of the time, they didn't understand the culture. They're
Speaker 4: just writing down what they're seeing, and so that's most
Speaker 4: of its kind of speculation too. So even though as
Speaker 4: historians we do like to refer back to first hand documentation,
Speaker 4: and we always kind of take with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2: There are many problems when comparing oral history to written documentation,
Speaker 2: but I think we have to acknowledge that it's a
Speaker 2: real thing. Let's do it hypothetical. Imagine someone from a
Speaker 2: far away country, let's just say it's in Asia, who
Speaker 2: did not speak English, came to your house, went to
Speaker 2: church with you, watched you eat, marry, discipline your children,
Speaker 2: and observed your politics, and then they got to be
Speaker 2: the ultimate authority on your culture and history. How accurate
Speaker 2: could that even be? And what if they actively wanted
Speaker 2: your land and had the power to take it. Could
Speaker 2: a narrative be crafted that was advantageous to their goals?
Speaker 2: But at the same time, many observations don't need cultural interpretation.
Speaker 2: They simply happened or they didn't. And we all know
Speaker 2: that oral stories have a tendency to change over time,
Speaker 2: get exaggerated, and can also be crafted into complementary narratives.
Speaker 2: Most non Indian historians believe Osceola actually didn't stab the
Speaker 2: treaty paper, but Sterling saw the painting. Whether it happened
Speaker 2: or not, it imprinted him with a cultural doctrine. Doctor
Speaker 2: Wickman has dedicated decades of her career to understanding Ostola.
Speaker 2: She is not a seminole, nor does she speak for them,
Speaker 2: but she's undoubtedly a national authority on the known details
Speaker 2: of his life. She's now going to get as started
Speaker 2: in understanding the historical context. This story starts with the
Speaker 2: Muskogee Creek people in Alabama and a figure familiar to
Speaker 2: bear Grease.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, I think we have to look at
Speaker 3: the collision of the man and the times. I think
Speaker 3: those two elements are exceedingly important. So my elder son
Speaker 3: fusses at me. He said to me one time, how
Speaker 3: come I ask you for the name of that flower
Speaker 3: and you have to begin by giving me the geology
Speaker 3: of the hill.
Speaker 2: That's perfect. We're going to get along gray.
Speaker 3: So that's what I do. But if you understand the setting,
Speaker 3: if you have the matrix, then nothing is going to
Speaker 3: seem irrational to you, and you're going to make better
Speaker 3: sense out of the whole entire story.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: There was the War of eighteen twelve, which touched the southeast.
Speaker 3: There was to Kumsa and his movement to try to
Speaker 3: push white people off the continent, and in eighteen eleven,
Speaker 3: to Kumpsa came down to the Mushkogi or the Mushkogalghi
Speaker 3: people in the southeast in order to bring them the
Speaker 3: word of his brother Tinshguatua. Now the Seminoles say that
Speaker 3: Tenshquatua means the open door. But he came to a
Speaker 3: town called Tugibaji, and it was literally right across a
Speaker 3: creek from the little village of Tarashi, which is the
Speaker 3: village where Aciola was born. What he was preaching was
Speaker 3: that white people had no business here and that they
Speaker 3: were going to destroy the world for the Indians, and
Speaker 3: they wanted He wanted all the Indians to rise up
Speaker 3: against them and push them out. Unfortunately for the Mushkogalghi,
Speaker 3: the Mushkogi people, there was a white government agent in
Speaker 3: the lower portion of what we diday called Georgia and Alabama.
Speaker 3: His name was Benjamin Hawkins, and he was preaching peace.
Speaker 3: He wanted the Indians to stay calm, to build houses,
Speaker 3: to become an agrarian society, to assimilate. Unfortunately for him
Speaker 3: and for the Indians, there was a large number of
Speaker 3: the ancestors of Osceola who took the talk of Tukumsha.
Speaker 2: Talking the talk of Tecumsa meant one thing. War. Tecumsa
Speaker 2: led a nativist revival, traveling like an evangelist from the
Speaker 2: Great Lakes to Alabama, preaching with ground shaking conviction that
Speaker 2: the Indians should not assimilate and should go back to
Speaker 2: their traditional ways. They should quit wearing white man's clothes,
Speaker 2: use bows and arrows for hunting, even start making fire
Speaker 2: in the traditional ways. He garnered a Pan Indian multi
Speaker 2: tribe confederation that was the largest Indian army to ever
Speaker 2: stand against the United States. To this day, he's considered
Speaker 2: one of the greatest orators in American history. Though there
Speaker 2: are no recordings of his voice, there are transcripts of speeches,
Speaker 2: but it was primarily gauged by how he could move
Speaker 2: people to action. I'd like to remind you that to
Speaker 2: Come to was a twenty twenty two inductee into the
Speaker 2: Bear Grease Hall of Fame. It appears Osceola's life was
Speaker 2: influenced by him. Here's more from Jake Tiger.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I've talked to you A couple of people
Speaker 4: here in similar nation. They even talk to my Shawnee friends,
Speaker 4: you know, the importance that to come fifth, his impact
Speaker 4: had on Muskogee Creeks. He played a pretty big role.
Speaker 4: He came to the different towns and it is documented
Speaker 4: and then they're most likely would have been a young
Speaker 4: Osceola kind of sitting out there listening to it to
Speaker 4: come to give kind of delivered his message, and that
Speaker 4: kind of resonated probably with him, and so it's kind
Speaker 4: of cool to think about we see those kind of
Speaker 4: it's kind of like a spiderweb of different stories and
Speaker 4: historical aspects. He would never think about until you kind
Speaker 4: of really fall down a rabbit hole that he might
Speaker 4: have been present when to come to had come to
Speaker 4: that troubled town to give his speech.
Speaker 2: Tecumsa came to the Alabama Creeks in eighteen eleven, two
Speaker 2: years before his death. Osciola was likely born in eighteen
Speaker 2: oh four, so he would have just been a child
Speaker 2: when Takamsa was there, but undoubtedly his family took the
Speaker 2: talk of the Nativist revival at a critical time in
Speaker 2: Osceola's life. Recent human development research has highlighted the years
Speaker 2: of nine to thirteen as critical years for building lifelong identity,
Speaker 2: maybe the most important period of a young person's life.
Speaker 2: This time period for Ostiola would have been the years
Speaker 2: seeing his family implement the talk of Tkumson, and we'll
Speaker 2: see that impact throughout his life. He would rather die
Speaker 2: than assimilate, and he did. Here's something really interesting from
Speaker 2: that you might not have seen coming.
Speaker 4: So I'm related to Usia Hoola through my mother's side
Speaker 4: through her father from our Powell family. Because Oscilla's original name,
Speaker 4: or his English name, I should say, was William Powell.
Speaker 4: So he had a son that came to Indian Territory
Speaker 4: after removal, John Powell, and he had some children, and
Speaker 4: then we all kind of settled in the Holdenville area
Speaker 4: here in Indian Territory and we've been here ever since.
Speaker 4: So we draw that that that direct descendancy from Osceola
Speaker 4: through William Powell and John Powell and people like Susie
Speaker 4: May and Sissy Katcha, people like those. That's how we
Speaker 4: we come from them.
Speaker 2: Jake just dropped two interesting things on us, the first
Speaker 2: being that he's a direct descendant of Ostiola. That is
Speaker 2: very cool. I've also learned that there is controversy around
Speaker 2: who Ossiola's descendants actually are, as is often the case
Speaker 2: and war torn displaced people, record keeping becomes complicated. Some
Speaker 2: claim that Osciola had no direct descendants, others claim to
Speaker 2: be them. Secondly, he told us that Osciola's other name
Speaker 2: was Billy Powell. That is surprising, and we're gonna have
Speaker 2: to come back to that. But I want to get
Speaker 2: back to Jake.
Speaker 4: Some people will say his name is Ossi Yoholo or
Speaker 4: I think that's more of a might be more of
Speaker 4: a make a sicky way to say it, given the
Speaker 4: name he is Muskogean because he came from Alabama, and
Speaker 4: so his true name would be Aussi Yohola, like two words, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: because it's Ossia.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Here, I hear a pause in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's Ussi Yohola.
Speaker 2: And then it was anglicized to.
Speaker 4: Yep. Yeah, so now it's it's more people will call
Speaker 4: it Oceola. But his original name is Ussi Yehola, the
Speaker 4: black drink singer. Yeah, but what with they're referring to
Speaker 4: the black drink And all the Southeastern people have this
Speaker 4: this plant, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, muskoge Creeks, u cheese,
Speaker 4: they all have this plant. But the black drink is
Speaker 4: from the English term yopon holly, but the Miskogean people
Speaker 4: we call it osio bokshi. That that's the only caffeinated
Speaker 4: plant here in North America. That's only found in the
Speaker 4: southeastern part of the United States. Some of you can
Speaker 4: find here in Oklahoma. Indian Territory doesn't grow that well
Speaker 4: because the climate's here a little too hot for it,
Speaker 4: it's a little too dry. But that that plant is
Speaker 4: plays a significant role in our ceremonies.
Speaker 2: Here's doctor Wickman with more detail on his name. In
Speaker 2: this black drink.
Speaker 3: The man who brings this to the medicine man at
Speaker 3: the height of the green corn ceremony has to chant
Speaker 3: the song of the wolf. The wolf is Yaha. So
Speaker 3: his wolf's song is Yahola, and he is called Ashen Yahola.
Speaker 3: And that's why English speakers heard it later on, and
Speaker 3: they were never allowed to know his baby name. They
Speaker 3: knew an English name, Billy Powell. But when you go
Speaker 3: through Gingkorn, you get an honorific title, and that's how
Speaker 3: you're going to be known from then on. So he
Speaker 3: was Ashen Yahola. And when English speakers heard it with
Speaker 3: their standard penchant for rearranging everything, they heard Ashen Yahola
Speaker 3: became Ashola, and then it became Osceola.
Speaker 2: So he was named by his leadership in that ceremony.
Speaker 3: He was named by his position. Don't use the word leadership, Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: He was by carry the drink to the medicine man.
Speaker 2: He was the Yeah.
Speaker 3: Think of an acolyte in a Roman Catholic mass who
Speaker 3: brings up the censor that has the incense in it,
Speaker 3: or he goes to the priest and he takes in
Speaker 3: the patents that are going to be given out as community.
Speaker 2: Would that name have been common in the seminole, So
Speaker 2: it would have been.
Speaker 3: Not common, but there would be a lot of other
Speaker 3: people who had gone through their rites of passage.
Speaker 2: Who have been called the same thing. Yes, a person's
Speaker 2: name is always important, especially with the American Indians. This
Speaker 2: is complicated, but it's now time to understand his genealogy,
Speaker 2: whose parents were, and why his name was originally Billy Powell.
Speaker 3: One of the white men who came among the Indians
Speaker 3: in the Lower Southeast was a man named James McQueen.
Speaker 3: And I've tried very hard to fix on him and
Speaker 3: find out exactly who he is, and I think I know,
Speaker 3: but the fact is that he was probably a sailor
Speaker 3: on a British ship who got into an altercation with
Speaker 3: an officer and struck the officer and realized very quickly
Speaker 3: that the better part of valor was to get out
Speaker 3: of dodge, and he did. But he started moving across
Speaker 3: the southeast, and he, as the phrase was in those days,
Speaker 3: he sat down with an Indian woman, all right, and
Speaker 3: very shortly he became a part of the life of
Speaker 3: a little village called Talassia.
Speaker 2: James McQueen was Osceola slash Billy Pal's great grandfather who
Speaker 2: sat down with an Indian woman around seventeen sixteen. He
Speaker 2: was one of the first European traders to the Creeks.
Speaker 2: These are matriarchal societies, so the children are heavily influenced
Speaker 2: by their mother. James's son, Peter McQueen, Ossiola's grandfather. Half Indian,
Speaker 2: half Scottish, but one hundred percent culturally Indian. Are you
Speaker 2: with me? You awake this? Peter, his grandfather, was one
Speaker 2: of the firebrands, heavily influenced by Tecumsa. He had a
Speaker 2: daughter named Nancy, who had a daughter named Polly, who
Speaker 2: married another Scottish trader dude named William Powell. They were
Speaker 2: the parents of Billy Powell, later named Osceola. And folks,
Speaker 2: this is going to be on a bear grease render
Speaker 2: quiz see, you better remember it. I have some questions
Speaker 2: about this though. It would it have been common for
Speaker 2: a person of European descent to sit with an Indian
Speaker 2: woman and be grafting into the tribe like this.
Speaker 3: Well, it's all situational, because depending on how you march
Speaker 3: into town, you might be dead before you could get out.
Speaker 3: If you came in and required things of them that
Speaker 3: they didn't like, you wouldn't come back. And that's a fact.
Speaker 3: If you came in the right way, if you wanted
Speaker 3: to trade, if you were helpful to them, if it
Speaker 3: looked like you might learn their language and stick around
Speaker 3: for a while, then there it's a good possibility that
Speaker 3: they would be kind to you. Yeah, so yes, that happened.
Speaker 3: Beside which a lot of these were traders and they
Speaker 3: wanted the trade. They became addicted, as you can imagine,
Speaker 3: to iron pots and not having to flake flint arrows
Speaker 3: and having accouterments that they had never had before mirrors.
Speaker 2: So it's tom for some interesting math. So Billy Powell,
Speaker 2: who would become known as Osceola. He was not. He
Speaker 2: was like one eighth Indian. Is that correct.
Speaker 3: It's surprising, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Most historians agree that Osceola was one eighth Muskogee Creek
Speaker 2: and seven eighths European. And from my limited understanding, most
Speaker 2: of the tribes except this, and what we're going to
Speaker 2: learn is that the Muscogee Creeks become the Seminoles. It's
Speaker 2: interesting when you look at the blood quantum requirements of
Speaker 2: the tribes today, which it really isn't entirely fair for
Speaker 2: us to compare today, how they regulate who's in the tribe.
Speaker 2: It's just interesting. So we're going to talk about that.
Speaker 2: But this next section just a little heads up for
Speaker 2: any young ears in the audience. We are going to
Speaker 2: use the term sex a couple of times.
Speaker 3: The minimum for citizenship in the Seminole tribe of Florida
Speaker 3: is one quarter all right, one quarter Q. We refer
Speaker 3: to it quantum blood quantum.
Speaker 2: So I'll steel that wouldn't have qualified.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't have qualified today, No, not entirely, not solely
Speaker 3: on the basis of blood quantum. No, he wouldn't well,
Speaker 3: and yet there was not a person who ever met him,
Speaker 3: who ever knew him, who knew what he was about,
Speaker 3: who had the vaguest idea of what he was doing,
Speaker 3: would have ever called him anything except an Indian. Right,
Speaker 3: And it doesn't matter, because you're focusing on something that
Speaker 3: non Indians focus on. And you have to understand what
Speaker 3: they focus on, because I've seen this before.
Speaker 2: They're more focused on the I mean, culturally, he was
Speaker 2: one hundred percent Indian.
Speaker 3: You got it.
Speaker 2: I'm getting two thumbs up, you got so. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: they were less focused on the natural, the physical, which
Speaker 2: is what our society might.
Speaker 3: Look in the first place. Sex wasn't the serious kind
Speaker 3: of problem for them that it is for white people.
Speaker 3: They're not as prurient in their interests, and as a consequence,
Speaker 3: they have a system for pairing people off and for
Speaker 3: creating husband wife really chips. But the fact of the
Speaker 3: matter is that if a man came in, if the
Speaker 3: Mago allowed him to stay, if for any reason he
Speaker 3: wanted him to stay, he might see to it that
Speaker 3: he had a woman, all right. It might be one
Speaker 3: of the migo's own sisters, or her daughter, or his daughter,
Speaker 3: and it didn't bother them. What mattered was that it
Speaker 3: was an Indian woman, because the child would only have
Speaker 3: a clan if it was his mother, who was an Indian,
Speaker 3: all right, And it mattered that this child stayed with
Speaker 3: the tribe. The child was hers. In the Mushkogi world,
Speaker 3: in the seminole world. If a man and woman separate,
Speaker 3: he has no right to those children. They're not his children,
Speaker 3: they're her children. They stay in her camp with her people.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got a question. I'm just I'm dying to
Speaker 2: ask you. Okay, Daniel Boone, he was adopted into the
Speaker 2: shop Ease and stayed with them for months, and there
Speaker 2: was there's very undocumented lore that he had an Indian
Speaker 2: wife and maybe even Indian children. As I'm hearing your
Speaker 2: story and I kind of discredit that, I'm kind of like, Nah,
Speaker 2: he didn't, Sure he did. Do you know much about Boone?
Speaker 2: Do you think no?
Speaker 3: No, But I don't doubt that for a moment.
Speaker 2: Just knowing what you know about the way that Yeah,
Speaker 2: because all the tribes operated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because sex isn't the big thing among them. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's a natural part of life and that's all there
Speaker 3: is to it. Okay, they had other more pressing concerns,
Speaker 3: and they had mother more important social tradition, social morays
Speaker 3: that required certain things of people, all right, and they
Speaker 3: weren't the same things that occur in the non Indian world.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, that really stresses me out. I cannot hide it.
Speaker 2: A core component of my worldview. And Biblical doctrine places
Speaker 2: a high priority on fidelity to one's wife. And Boone
Speaker 2: met Rebecca at the cherry picking in seventeen fifty three
Speaker 2: and was married to her for fifty six years, and
Speaker 2: they stacked up kids like Cordwood. There is zero documentation
Speaker 2: that Boone took a Shawnee wife. It's just what they say.
Speaker 2: So here we are again with no written documentation. And
Speaker 2: I think it's unfair to assume that Boone would have
Speaker 2: denied his own cultural value system and been unfaithful to Rebecca.
Speaker 2: Boone did read the Bible. We know that because his
Speaker 2: son Nathan Boone wrote about his father's conviction about the Bible.
Speaker 2: You know what I think now, I'm pretty certain that
Speaker 2: Osciola did stab that treaty. I don't care if a
Speaker 2: white dude wrote it down or not. I hope you're
Speaker 2: picking up the sarcasm in that comment where I'm crafting
Speaker 2: the narrative to fit what I want it to be.
Speaker 2: But moving on, I think it's important to understand the
Speaker 2: wider community of oola. Here's doctor Wickman with the etymology
Speaker 2: of the name Muskogee Creek, which is functionally the same tribe,
Speaker 2: which we'll see is important in understanding who the Seminole
Speaker 2: tribe would become. This is a building block for our story.
Speaker 2: And maybe on the quiz.
Speaker 3: Do you understand how the word creek came to be.
Speaker 3: Mushgogie is not a Mushgogi word, And it wasn't the
Speaker 3: Mushgogi people themselves who called themselves Mushkogi. Their enemies just
Speaker 3: up the road for them. And what we call the
Speaker 3: Carolinas were the Chilogate people. And the English didn't say Chilgate,
Speaker 3: they said Cherokee, all right. It was the Cherokee people
Speaker 3: who looked down at their enemies in the lower South
Speaker 3: and called them the Mushkogi or the Mushkogogy. The people
Speaker 3: of the swampy ground, the people who traveled in canoes.
Speaker 3: And if you have as much swamp and as much
Speaker 3: water as we have in the Southeast, then a canoe
Speaker 3: makes much more sense than a horse does.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what about the name creek.
Speaker 3: There were two creeks that came together. One was the
Speaker 3: Ogeeche and the other was ocone Creeks. And so the
Speaker 3: traders would write back to Charleston and they would say,
Speaker 3: we're going out to see the Indians on the Oconee
Speaker 3: and Ogeechee creeks. And then a few years later they'd
Speaker 3: get tired of that, and they'd say we're going out
Speaker 3: to see the Indians on the creeks. And pretty soon
Speaker 3: they just said we're going to the creeks. So the
Speaker 3: word creek was just a shorthand way of talking about
Speaker 3: the Indians who lived in great numbers in this particular area.
Speaker 2: All Right, It's amazing how whittled down and simplified and
Speaker 2: unconnected that a name can become.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and we look at it today, and because you
Speaker 3: don't know what's behind it, you don't know the trajectory
Speaker 3: of that of that term, then it's very very easy
Speaker 3: to ascribe new meanings to it and to change the
Speaker 3: whole entire history just because you don't have the opportunity
Speaker 3: to learn.
Speaker 2: Now, this is a real digression. Is the phrase lord
Speaker 2: willing and the Creeks don't rise. Is that connected to
Speaker 2: the Creek Civil War?
Speaker 3: Not that I know of.
Speaker 2: Okay, I saw that on the internet and my gut
Speaker 2: told me that it wasn't true. But here's what's going
Speaker 2: on with the Muscogee Creeks in Alabama. And remember all
Speaker 2: this is building a foundation for us to understand Osciola's life,
Speaker 2: which could ultimately be summarized by resistance to assimilation and
Speaker 2: fighting for land. And remember Benjamin Hawkins was the Muscogee
Speaker 2: Creeks US Government Indian agent.
Speaker 3: So Benjamin Hawkins was trying to keep the southernmost members
Speaker 3: of these groups peaceful. He was trying to get them
Speaker 3: to build houses, to build log cabins, and to become farmers.
Speaker 3: That did not work out well for most of them.
Speaker 3: The northern contingent wanted to go to war. And what
Speaker 3: happened in the midst of the War of eighteen twelve
Speaker 3: was an Internisne battle that began between there among the
Speaker 3: Creek people, and it's called the Creek War of eighteen
Speaker 3: thirteen fourteen. It didn't help matters that there were among
Speaker 3: the Indians of the southeast many who went and fought
Speaker 3: with Andrew Jackson and those who fought against him with
Speaker 3: the British in the Treaty of Ghent that finally settled
Speaker 3: the War of eighteen twelve. The British required that one
Speaker 3: article of that treaty should require the United States government
Speaker 3: to return all of their lands to the Mushkoge people.
Speaker 3: They were to give them back because they'd been terribly
Speaker 3: dispossessed in the battles and the warfare, and the fires
Speaker 3: and the death that were concerned with the War of
Speaker 3: eighteen twelve and the Creek War of eighteen thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 3: The United States government totally ignored that, totally ignored that,
Speaker 3: and began to hand out land to two white settlers.
Speaker 3: This would not make life simple for Osceola and for
Speaker 3: his people, and as a consequence of that fact, by
Speaker 3: eighteen fourteen, his mother and he and probably at least
Speaker 3: one sister and maybe other sisters, they had already made
Speaker 3: it to Saint Augustine.
Speaker 2: Bear Grease scholars this is critical chronology. Osceola, also known
Speaker 2: as Billy Powell, was born in eighteen oh four, but
Speaker 2: was pushed into Florida out of his native Muscogee Creek
Speaker 2: homeland in Alabama. By Andrew Jackson and the Creek Civil Wars.
Speaker 2: He arrived in Florida in eighteen fourteen, when he was
Speaker 2: about ten years old. Please take a moment, pause your
Speaker 2: listening device and recite those dates. Okay, thanks, welcome back.
Speaker 2: I'd like to weave in another interesting Bear Grease character.
Speaker 2: David Crockett, who, if you remember, fought under Andrew Jackson
Speaker 2: in the Redstick War in Alabama. This is a gruesome
Speaker 2: story Crockett recounted in his autobiography when his regiment wiped
Speaker 2: out the creek village of Toulousahatchie, setting fire to a hut.
Speaker 2: Watching fifty creeks burn alive, he said, an old woman
Speaker 2: used her foot on the handle of a bow to
Speaker 2: shoot one of the Americans. This was the first man
Speaker 2: Crockett ever saw die by an arrow wound. After the
Speaker 2: fire died down, Jackson's starving army ate the potatoes stored
Speaker 2: under the burned house. Crockett said, and I quote the
Speaker 2: oil of the Indians we had burned up on the
Speaker 2: day before had run down on them, and they looked
Speaker 2: like they had been stewed with fat meat. Crockett never
Speaker 2: liked potatoes after that, and he was impacted by the brutality. Later,
Speaker 2: he would stake his political career against Andrew Jackson's Indian
Speaker 2: Removal Act, declaring that his decision would quote not make
Speaker 2: me ashamed at the day of judgment. This, my friends,
Speaker 2: is our conflicted American history. I interpret crockett stance on
Speaker 2: the Indian Removal Act to be a redeeming action in
Speaker 2: his life, showing his regrets from the Red Stick Wars.
Speaker 2: Back to our story. Here is an insightful analogy. An
Speaker 2: interesting side note on Muskogee Creek life.
Speaker 3: I have looked for years for some image that I
Speaker 3: could use to make sense out of this. For people
Speaker 3: who don't look at the details, and who don't need
Speaker 3: to have the details, I'll tell you the only image
Speaker 3: that I've been able to come up with thus far.
Speaker 3: Think of a pool table. Think of the balls when
Speaker 3: they're set up for the break. Think of the minute
Speaker 3: that the que ball hits those balls, and think of
Speaker 3: the way they scatter. Now, think of those tribes all
Speaker 3: over the Southeastern United States, because that's the way they went.
Speaker 3: They did not have, at least as far back as
Speaker 3: we can tell, archaeologically and historically, they did not have
Speaker 3: any fixed villages. They didn't necessarily have to stay in
Speaker 3: one place all their lives. We know, for instance, that
Speaker 3: if lightning struck a ballpole, and the ballgame was very
Speaker 3: very important for spiritual and for warfare, for military reasons,
Speaker 3: if lightning struck a ballpoll, they would pick up, oh,
Speaker 3: probably the major game, and I use that term advanced.
Speaker 2: They had a poll.
Speaker 3: Was it was the game. But ballgames were frequently a
Speaker 3: way of avoiding war, or they were used in place
Speaker 3: of war, because one village would play another village and
Speaker 3: people would die in this game. They settled disputes, had
Speaker 3: they settled disputes, or they claimed territory. And there were
Speaker 3: individuals who became such important ballplayers that they were a
Speaker 3: lot like the people in the limelight today, like our
Speaker 3: sports stars today. They could travel from village to village
Speaker 3: in the province where they belonged, and they could be fed,
Speaker 3: they could be offered a night's lodging, They could be
Speaker 3: taken care of and treated like real heroes to the people.
Speaker 2: Was that unique to the Creeks Muscogee's.
Speaker 3: The ballgame occurs in a number of regions. It occurred
Speaker 3: among the estecs, and death was a part of potential
Speaker 3: death was a part of their game.
Speaker 2: Also. Wow, so it's not I interrupted you that's fascinating,
Speaker 2: But so if lightning struck one of their ballpoles. You
Speaker 2: were talking about how they used the land.
Speaker 3: They'd move, they'd move, they'd leave the village.
Speaker 2: I did not know that they used sports like this,
Speaker 2: having something similar to like professional ball players moving from
Speaker 2: village to village. I now want to hear from Sterling
Speaker 2: Harjoe about his tribe. He's going to tie the Muscogee
Speaker 2: Creek to the Seminole and wrap this all up for
Speaker 2: us in a nice little bundle.
Speaker 1: Growing up, that's all I knew was, you know, we
Speaker 1: were Seminol and Creek. Every a lot of people are
Speaker 1: Seminol and Creek, you know. And I'll interchange creek and Muskoge,
Speaker 1: you know, or say Muskoge Creek, but you know, the
Speaker 1: Muscoge Creek was a It was a confederacy of people
Speaker 1: that had the same spiritual views and customs, and I
Speaker 1: just grew up knowing some of the Seminoles. We basically
Speaker 1: fled assimilation and European contact and was sort of sparked
Speaker 1: out of a rebellion from the Muskogi Creek Nation, and
Speaker 1: then we went down into Florida to sort of get
Speaker 1: further away to come to sort of helped spark that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, his philosophies. And we're skipping ahead a little bit,
Speaker 2: but you kind of have to understand this now to
Speaker 2: piece it all together. But today, as I understand it,
Speaker 2: there are two Seminole nations, one in Florida and one
Speaker 2: in Oklahoma. We'll learn that some Seminoles never left Florida
Speaker 2: while others were forcibly removed to Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Muscoge Creeks were dealing with that, and you had Upper
Speaker 1: Creeks and lower Creeks who are very divided in how
Speaker 1: they upper Creek towns and lower Creek towns who are
Speaker 1: very divided, and what they thought culturally we should do
Speaker 1: with sort of European influence, and you know, the Red
Speaker 1: Sticks formed out of the Upper Creeks, and there was
Speaker 1: a rebellion like let's you know, let's fight this and
Speaker 1: let's not assimilate. Well the Seminoles, which I'm sure people
Speaker 1: have told you this, but Cimarron, I've always been told,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have ours. In our language. They
Speaker 1: sound like lah and so the word Seminole comes from Cimarron,
Speaker 1: which is runaway in Spanish, and so Cimarron became Simichlo,
Speaker 1: and then that became Seminole. And so we were the
Speaker 1: wild ones, you know, like we we broke off and
Speaker 1: went down to Florida to fight and to get away.
Speaker 2: I like that, the wild Ones. Here's Jake Tiger summarizing
Speaker 2: and setting up for us the second part of Osiola's life.
Speaker 4: And when his people, his mother's family had left Alabama
Speaker 4: during the rest of war and had settled into what
Speaker 4: is now in president Day of Florida. That was essentially
Speaker 4: because Florida was at that time a Spanish territory. Wasn't
Speaker 4: you know, the United States territory until eighteen eighteen, And
Speaker 4: so they're leaving what was essentially United States Alabama and
Speaker 4: jumping the border going into the Spanish colonies. Is because
Speaker 4: the lower Creeks had signed these lands away to the
Speaker 4: United States, and so that enraged a lot of the
Speaker 4: traditional Creeks. Yeah, you have a ruthless administrator that's running
Speaker 4: the nation and he's just going on a whole blood campaign.
Speaker 4: He wants the Southeastern and American Indians to be annihilated.
Speaker 4: They want them assimilated, they want to removed, and so
Speaker 4: that was his whole policy. So you have a young,
Speaker 4: young individual, he's a young man now. Elstiola has seen
Speaker 4: what the ties of war have done to his people
Speaker 4: countless time with removal and conflict, and so there's a
Speaker 4: point where he just puts its foot down and takes
Speaker 4: the reins.
Speaker 2: When Ostiola and his family make it to Florida, the
Speaker 2: story really begins to take shape. I don't try to
Speaker 2: understand it, but American Indians highly valued medicine people in
Speaker 2: their culture for many things, including war, and these people
Speaker 2: were believed to have great supernatural power. This next tidbit
Speaker 2: of information will set us up for understanding Ostiola's involvement
Speaker 2: in the Seminole Wars of Florida, which would be a
Speaker 2: thorn in the side of America that was never removed.
Speaker 3: We know that Aziola was studying medicine and he was
Speaker 3: being taught I one of the quite possibly by the
Speaker 3: oldest and most important and most honored medicine and people
Speaker 3: in the entire Southeast. In the sixteenth century, when the
Speaker 3: Spaniards first out here and they began to find out
Speaker 3: across the country and create maps. When the explorers were
Speaker 3: going through. On one of their maps, they fixed a
Speaker 3: town that they called Abeca, but it's a bicca, and
Speaker 3: that word affixed it translated from generation to generation with
Speaker 3: medicine people who were the descendants of that original medicine
Speaker 3: person who was so honored and so powerful that the
Speaker 3: entire village was known by his name. So that when
Speaker 3: we get down to the time of Asciola, we find
Speaker 3: that there is a medicine person named Abaepki, and he
Speaker 3: is the medicine man who was teaching Assiola. So we
Speaker 3: know that he had war medicine. It was a source
Speaker 3: of great pride to him. Fine ego. Nobody has a
Speaker 3: problem with that.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 3: But he was an exceedingly intelligent person. He had been
Speaker 3: raised in an area where he had access to some
Speaker 3: very fine social and cultural and intellectual affairs that were
Speaker 3: passing in front of him and around him every day.
Speaker 3: And he cared about his people, and he took to
Speaker 3: himself part of the responsibility to be a warrior and
Speaker 3: to fight for them. Well, there's an old controversy, in
Speaker 3: another word, an old argument over whether the man makes
Speaker 3: the times or the times make the man. In his case,
Speaker 3: it was a collision of the two, and he was
Speaker 3: viewed by the American public as a noble warrior, as
Speaker 3: a man who was fighting for his people, and a
Speaker 3: man who was treated unjustly at the end of his
Speaker 3: life and unjustly in a situation which created the end
Speaker 3: of his life, and as a consequence, he has never
Speaker 3: been forgotten.
Speaker 2: This has set us up well to understand the war
Speaker 2: years of Osceola's short life. I can't thank all of
Speaker 2: my guests enough, Sterling, Doctor Wickman, Jake, thank you for
Speaker 2: sharing what you know about this striking figure in American history.
Speaker 2: The next episode is going to be even wilder. We'll
Speaker 2: be having some trivia on the render, so be ready.
Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease
Speaker 2: and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Please share our podcast
Speaker 2: with a friend this week leave us a review on iTunes.
Speaker 2: Until next time, keep the wild Places Wild.