Speaker 1: That was one of the most surprising things to me
Speaker 1: that I learned. What was that that enslaved people escaped
Speaker 1: and were running and assimilated into the Seminole tribes. That no, no, no,
Speaker 1: will you tell me about it? Thing?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, talk about a big myth, honey, Okay, let me
Speaker 3: tell you.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're into the war years of the
Speaker 1: Seminole leader Osceola. This is part two of our series.
Speaker 1: In the first part we talked about Osiola's childhood, but
Speaker 1: now we're talking about how him and his people, both
Speaker 1: in the swamps of Florida, were masters of guerrilla warfare,
Speaker 1: stretching the American army then for over forty years during
Speaker 1: the Seminole Wars, as America tried to bribe, trick, kill,
Speaker 1: and capture the Indians to get them out of Florida.
Speaker 1: We're searching for the true legacy of Osceola, an important
Speaker 1: figure in American history, and I really doubt that you're
Speaker 1: going to want to miss this one.
Speaker 3: They also knew because they had been told by their
Speaker 3: medicine people, and some of those people were called wal It,
Speaker 3: which means a seer, was that there was an end
Speaker 3: to Florida and that they would be pushed all the
Speaker 3: way to that end and they could go no farther
Speaker 3: because there was nothing beyond there but water. They knew it,
Speaker 3: and that's what happened, and that's what happened. The good
Speaker 3: news is they're still here today.
Speaker 1: My name is Clay Knukem, 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.
Speaker 4: Who lived there.
Speaker 1: Life lives close to the land presented by f HF gear,
Speaker 1: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed
Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the places we explore.
Speaker 5: There's all these stories that we grew up hearing of
Speaker 5: when we were in battle. Well, first of all, I
Speaker 5: grew up with this idea that the Seminal Nation was
Speaker 5: the only we were the only people that didn't get
Speaker 5: defeated by the US government. And it was the first
Speaker 5: time that the US government ever had gorilla warfare used against them.
Speaker 5: These are the stories I heard growing up.
Speaker 1: This is Sterling Harjoe. He's a Creek Seminole living in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: He's a famous filmmaker too. You guys know who he is.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's pretty bad when you're growing up as
Speaker 5: a kid and you're like, oh, yeah, you know, because,
Speaker 5: like I mean, I grew up just like y'all were
Speaker 5: not that far apart, and the differences. My grandma was
Speaker 5: seminal and told stories about babies being killed on the
Speaker 5: trail of tears, and you know, on the other side
Speaker 5: of my family, my grandma's white. But to grow up
Speaker 5: with that knowledge of like there was people that I'm
Speaker 5: supposed that I have to stand up every day and
Speaker 5: salute the flag and say the you know, the pledge
Speaker 5: of allegiance, which I did proudly, but also knowing that
Speaker 5: part of your ancestors were in direct defiance of that
Speaker 5: same flag for survival and to save our culture and
Speaker 5: to also protect me.
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting when people find themselves living
Speaker 1: in conflicted places. I think it helps keep us humble
Speaker 1: when we realize how rare black and white answers actually are,
Speaker 1: and to put this whole thing into cond text. In
Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen, the US annex twenty three million acres extending
Speaker 1: from Georgia to Mississippi, which was Indian land, and it
Speaker 1: scattered them like balls on a pool table. Many of
Speaker 1: the Creeks and some other tribes were pushed into the
Speaker 1: Spanish territory of Florida, and this assortment of Indians would
Speaker 1: become the Seminoles, a name derived from the Spanish word cimarron,
Speaker 1: meaning wild, untamed, or runaways. Sterling's ancestors would walk from
Speaker 1: Florida to Oklahoma in the wake of Andrew Jackson's eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty Indian Removal Act.
Speaker 4: However, some of his tribe.
Speaker 1: In defiance of the United States government, stayed in Florida.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the biggest gift and curse of living conflicted is
Speaker 1: the feverish self reflection. It kind of sounds like an
Speaker 1: internal war. Here's doctor Patricia Wickman getting us up to
Speaker 1: date on Osceola.
Speaker 4: You'd better pay attention.
Speaker 3: We know by eighteen eleven Cumpsa had come, as I said,
Speaker 3: and by eighteen fourteen the world of the Mushkogi people
Speaker 3: in the lower Southeast was so fragmented because of the
Speaker 3: Creek War of eighteen thirteen fourteen that people were moving everywhere.
Speaker 3: There's going to be another war here in Florida, the
Speaker 3: beginning of a series of three wars here in Florida.
Speaker 3: In eighteen seventeen that will occupy essentially the entire first
Speaker 3: half of the nineteenth century, and they were reported day
Speaker 3: by day, by night by day in every newspaper across
Speaker 3: the country. There were reports from the troops, there were
Speaker 3: reports from the soldiers, and it wasn't until much late,
Speaker 3: until eighteen thirty five, that Ostiola began to rise to prominence.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime he was surrounded. He was growing
Speaker 3: up in warfare. War.
Speaker 1: For those of us who've not been to war, assumption
Speaker 1: of how it affects a human is a mere intellectual exercise,
Speaker 1: and war on your land, as in the case of Ostiola,
Speaker 1: is very different than inflicting war on someone else's land.
Speaker 1: Ostiola would gain national and even global fame in his
Speaker 1: short life. It's really interesting to me how we pick
Speaker 1: our heroes. Doctor Wickman is from Tallahassee, Florida, and she's
Speaker 1: a national expert on Ostiola, having written a heavy hitting
Speaker 1: book called Ostiola's Legacy. She was the senior historian for
Speaker 1: the State of Florida and the former director of Anthropology
Speaker 1: and Genealogy for the Seminole Tribe of Florida. She has
Speaker 1: some serious credentials and She's a wonderful and kind woman.
Speaker 1: When she talks, you listen to understand Osceola, you acknowledge
Speaker 1: his entire life was dominated by war, which also means
Speaker 1: death and hiding and running away and fear and disease
Speaker 1: and hunger. I bring up this word fear not because
Speaker 1: we saw this as external evidence in Osceola's life, but
Speaker 1: it just had to be there. He was a human.
Speaker 1: Fear of losing land and culture and family, fear of moving.
Speaker 1: This fear had to have fueled this indomitable resistance that
Speaker 1: we see in the Seminole people. It made them fight
Speaker 1: for their lives. As a timeline catch up, Ostiola was
Speaker 1: born in Alabama in eighteen oh four. Fled the Creek
Speaker 1: Wars with his mother and family to Florida in eighteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: and what was known as the Seminole Wars started in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventeen and lasted until eighteen fifty eight, over forty
Speaker 1: years long, like two generations of people. A Spanish philosopher
Speaker 1: once said only the dead have seen the end of war.
Speaker 1: Osceola's war would end with his death in eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: eight at the age of thirty four. Here's doctor Wickman
Speaker 1: with a high level overview of the history of Florida
Speaker 1: that preceded this war. This is very important, folks, and
Speaker 1: might be on the bear Greece render quiz.
Speaker 3: Florida had been Spanish dominated from fifteen sixty five until
Speaker 3: seventeen sixty three. In seventeen sixty three, the Seven Years
Speaker 3: War in Europe ended, and as a part of that,
Speaker 3: the Spaniards had to leave Florida and leave it to
Speaker 3: the British. So the Second Spanish occupation began in seventeen
Speaker 3: eighty four, all right, And by this time the American
Speaker 3: Revolution was was, you know, in not on in progress,
Speaker 3: but the United States was coming into being, was in
Speaker 3: its earliest years. And as a consequence, they knew they
Speaker 3: were going to need Florida. It had too much coastline,
Speaker 3: It was too easy for people for other countries to
Speaker 3: get here. You needed the Atlantic Gulf current. You needed
Speaker 3: the Gulf, all right. And as a consequence, even for
Speaker 3: just for military protection, you needed the whole territory of Florida.
Speaker 1: The Seminole Wars was America's attempt to de Indian Florida
Speaker 1: by relocating the tribes to Oklahoma. In eighteen eighteen oh
Speaker 1: Hickory himself. Andrew Jackson would kick off the First Seminole
Speaker 1: War by illegally going into what was then Spanish Florida
Speaker 1: to try to stamp out the Indian problem. In eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: Florida would be given to the United States by Spain.
Speaker 1: These wars were just battle after battle, too many to
Speaker 1: talk about. Out of the US pursuing the Seminoles, pushing
Speaker 1: them further and further into Florida. Ostiola would have been
Speaker 1: a teenager during that first war, but likely would have
Speaker 1: fought in eighteen twenty three. The consensus of history is
Speaker 1: the Seminoles were bribed and intimidated into signing the Treaty
Speaker 1: of Moultrie Creek, which seated twenty eight million acres of
Speaker 1: land and allotted the tribe of four million acre reservation,
Speaker 1: all sold for the big amount of two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty one thousand dollars that went to the Seminoles. That's
Speaker 1: not even one cent per acre. So they were trying
Speaker 1: to put the Seminoles on a reservation even back then,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't have it. Later, Andrew Jackson, as President
Speaker 1: of the United States, passed through Congress the Indian Removal Act,
Speaker 1: of eighteen thirty, which undid the Treaty of Moultrie Creek.
Speaker 1: It erased, and the Seminoles sure couldn't take that. Here's
Speaker 1: doctor Wickman describing the type of warfare that was seen
Speaker 1: in these Seminole wars.
Speaker 3: Every one of these warriors had the right to leave
Speaker 3: if he thought the war was going badly, if he
Speaker 3: thought the battle was going badly, because their method of
Speaker 3: warfare was a to strike at night out during the day,
Speaker 3: and to do what we would call hit and run.
Speaker 3: They would throw flaming arrows, they would throw spears, They
Speaker 3: would wait for the warriors to run out and kill them.
Speaker 3: They would capture the women, some of the men they
Speaker 3: captured to take back later on for a torture or
Speaker 3: just to kill them later. And as a consequence, the
Speaker 3: idea of a pitched battle with lines of troops facing
Speaker 3: each other and firing at each other, and a pitched
Speaker 3: battle as a part of a larger set piece of
Speaker 3: a war, it just wasn't within their ken. It wasn't
Speaker 3: something that they understood at all. And so all three
Speaker 3: of those wars are going to be the Indians prosecuting
Speaker 3: the war in their style, and the white people who
Speaker 3: are inexorable, and you know that, and there are many
Speaker 3: of them, as there were fleas on a poor animal.
Speaker 3: They're going to be prosecuting the war their way. There
Speaker 3: were more and more and more and more and more
Speaker 3: and more of them.
Speaker 1: The height of the Seminole wars, there might have only
Speaker 1: been four or five thousand seminoles in Florida, is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yes? I think probably at the highest point early in
Speaker 3: the war there might have been five thousand. So yes.
Speaker 3: And beside which, they knew these lands. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, they had names for Florida. The each of
Speaker 3: these speakers called Florida the Ichi bomen the nose of
Speaker 3: the deer, and the Mushkogi speakers called it egonfushged, which
Speaker 3: meant the sharp or pointed land.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: So they had a sense of the shape of Florida.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they did.
Speaker 1: And they also had I guess it's not really that surprising,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting, but.
Speaker 2: They tunted it. They knew it.
Speaker 3: They also knew because they had been told by their
Speaker 3: medicine people, and some of those meds of people were
Speaker 3: called wallet, which means a seer, someone who can see
Speaker 3: the future. One of the things that they told the
Speaker 3: people in Osceola's day was that there was an end
Speaker 3: to Florida and that they would be pushed all the
Speaker 3: way to that end, and they could go no farther
Speaker 3: because there was nothing beyond there but water. They knew it,
Speaker 3: and that's what happened, and that's what happened. The good
Speaker 3: news is they're still here today.
Speaker 1: It's no spoiler, but the end of this story is
Speaker 1: that the Florida Seminoles never signed a treaty with the
Speaker 1: United States were in search of Osceola's fingerprint on that resistance.
Speaker 1: He was not a chief, but rather a war leader
Speaker 1: who specialized in bad to the bone guerrilla warfare. Even
Speaker 1: after decades of fighting American Indians, the US still waged
Speaker 1: war in these formal European style formations. I want to
Speaker 1: now read a description of a young Seminole warrior that
Speaker 1: was written by a guy named Clay McCauley, an early
Speaker 1: visitor to the Seminole nation. He wrote, Physically, both men
Speaker 1: and women are remarkable. The men as a rule, attract
Speaker 1: attention by their height, fullness of symmetry of development, and
Speaker 1: the regularity and agreeableness of their features in muscular power
Speaker 1: and constitutional ability to endure. They excel. I noticed that
Speaker 1: under a large forehead or deep set, bright black eyes,
Speaker 1: small but expressive of inquiry and vigilance. The nose is
Speaker 1: slightly aquiline and sensitively formed.
Speaker 4: About the nostrils.
Speaker 1: Lips are mobile, sinuous and not very full disclosing when
Speaker 1: they smile, beautiful regular teeth, and the whole face is
Speaker 1: expressive of the man's sense of having extraordinary ability to
Speaker 1: endure and to achieve. We may pronounce the Seminole men
Speaker 1: handsome and exceptionally powerful. I always find these old descriptions
Speaker 1: really interesting. Here's doctor Wickman with the summary of things
Speaker 1: going on in Osceola's early adult life from eighteen eighteen
Speaker 1: to eighteen thirty five.
Speaker 3: That period between eighteen seventeen and eighteen thirty five, which
Speaker 3: will be the opening the summer of eighteen thirty five,
Speaker 3: will be the opening of the Second Seminole War. This
Speaker 3: is a period when Osceola went through his right of
Speaker 3: passage into manhood, when he was definitely calling ballgames, When
Speaker 3: he and his mother and his sisters moved down the
Speaker 3: peninsula of Florida and possible into what's called the cove
Speaker 3: of the with Lacuchi the with Lacuchi river makes a
Speaker 3: bend that's almost like a horseshoe, and the land that's
Speaker 3: in that horseshoe is called the cove of the with
Speaker 3: Lacucci and it's where Osciola had his camp during the war,
Speaker 3: and it took a long time for the soldiers to
Speaker 3: figure that out and get in there. It's also undoubtedly
Speaker 3: a time when he took a partner. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, we know for a fact that you took
Speaker 3: it these two women at one time, because that was
Speaker 3: not unusual. Having several sisters or sorrow ratee polygyny it's called,
Speaker 3: was a standard, particularly in an instance where there were
Speaker 3: more women than men.
Speaker 1: Osciola was described by many in writing. There were no
Speaker 1: TV cameras, but this period is characterized by detailed written
Speaker 1: descriptions of people as well as paintings, and the writing
Speaker 1: would describe their looks but also their demeanor. People were
Speaker 1: so desperately wanting to know who these people were. The
Speaker 1: head of the Office of Indian Affairs, Thomas McKinney wrote
Speaker 1: about Ostiola, saying the mind of Ostiola was active rather
Speaker 1: than strong.
Speaker 4: And his conduct that of a cunning.
Speaker 1: And ambitious man who was determined by his own exertions.
Speaker 1: His habits were active in enterprising, and to quote John
Speaker 1: Sprague said, he was about five feet eight inches high,
Speaker 1: with a manly, frank and open countenance. End of quote.
Speaker 1: Ostiola was rather small in stature. But his most striking characteristic,
Speaker 1: it seems, was his intelligence, his cunning, but also his ego.
Speaker 1: He seemed to be quite interested in looking good for
Speaker 1: some reason. It seems odd that an Indian leader should
Speaker 1: have any kind of vanity, but why wouldn't that. They're humans,
Speaker 1: just like the rest of us. You guys probably remember
Speaker 1: the Creek seminole Jake Tiger over in Oklahoma. He's twenty
Speaker 1: six years old and a descendant of Ostiola.
Speaker 4: Here's Jake.
Speaker 7: So this is where history kind of gets befuddled a
Speaker 7: little bit. So you only have different historians that referred
Speaker 7: to Ocil as a chief.
Speaker 6: He was never a chief.
Speaker 7: They had chiefs at the time, but a lot of
Speaker 7: them were kind of, how should I say, not as
Speaker 7: aggressive as him working against removal. And so even though
Speaker 7: he was not a chief, he was a warrior, but
Speaker 7: he was a high ranking warrior, so it was kind
Speaker 7: of like, you know, like a general in the army,
Speaker 7: and his ideas were more aligned with what the seminar
Speaker 7: people than some of the chiefs had in mind. You know,
Speaker 7: his ideologies that had kind of resonated to everybody else
Speaker 7: since they followed him. Because his narrative, which was not
Speaker 7: to be removed from traditional lands we had always been at,
Speaker 7: and so that was his whole struggle, was resisting removal
Speaker 7: because he knew that removal meant not only decimated our population,
Speaker 7: but also would have been a tragedy on our culture
Speaker 7: as well.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to understand Osciola's authority in modern military terms.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a hereditary chief, but a war leader, given
Speaker 1: power simply by merit and being able to fight, gather, inspire,
Speaker 1: and lead men. This isn't the perfect analogy, but I
Speaker 1: recently described it kind of like Joe Rogan's influence versus
Speaker 1: an actual elected politician. Rogan has a ton of influence,
Speaker 1: often more than someone with official power, kind of like
Speaker 1: Osceola had more power than a lot of hereditary chiefs.
Speaker 1: It's basically leadership by merit and charisma, not title.
Speaker 4: This was Osceola.
Speaker 1: He gained this authority through guerrilla warfare in the swamps,
Speaker 1: of Florida in the First Seminole War. But by the
Speaker 1: time the Second War started around eighteen thirty five, he
Speaker 1: was in his early thirties, hitting his prime.
Speaker 4: Here's doctor Whickman.
Speaker 3: We've now gone through the First Seminole War of eighteen
Speaker 3: seventeen eighteen. We've got the burgeoning Second Seminole War that's
Speaker 3: going to start in eighteen thirty five. All right, But
Speaker 3: lot going on, a lot going on in an entire
Speaker 3: the entire nation. What there was of the nation in
Speaker 3: those days was watching. They were paying attention. Why did
Speaker 3: Osceola catch their attention? This was a period when the
Speaker 3: nobility of war was a concept that was still in
Speaker 3: common parlance, in common usage. I don't think that most
Speaker 3: of us living today would put those two words together
Speaker 3: in a phrase. There's nothing noble about war. Dead is dead.
Speaker 3: But in those days, you know that in the American Revolution,
Speaker 3: during the time when the Marquis de Lafayette had French
Speaker 3: troops here who were aiding the American columnists, he brought
Speaker 3: with him a brace, a pair of large dogs. The
Speaker 3: way they've been described to me, I think they sound
Speaker 3: like Russian wolfhounds. He used to chew tobacco, and he's
Speaker 3: with his tobacco on the dogs. And there was one
Speaker 3: point in one battle when the dogs got away from
Speaker 3: him and the soldiers. The American soldiers stopped the whole
Speaker 3: entire battle and had a subalter and captured the dogs
Speaker 3: and deliver them back to Lafayette. All right, this is
Speaker 3: the nobility of war, almost like a game, Almost like
Speaker 3: a game, except that life was cheaper than and people
Speaker 3: still died. The American image of the Indians then and now,
Speaker 3: and I can tell you experiences that proved to me
Speaker 3: that this is still the image. Most of it has
Speaker 3: to do with with John Wayne imaging.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: People thought that the Indians were wild, they were free,
Speaker 3: they rode across the prairies, or they fought like wild people.
Speaker 3: They didn't have laws and taxes and all these other things,
Speaker 3: and they had no idea what Indians really were. But
Speaker 3: the image made them quote unquote noble savages. And that
Speaker 3: one is repeated over and over and over and over.
Speaker 1: Just for the record, the word savages in reference to
Speaker 1: the American Indian is a no no word, similar to
Speaker 1: other derogatory terms describing certain ethnicities.
Speaker 4: It's common in our movies and our.
Speaker 1: Literature, but it's like not something you would say despite
Speaker 1: the perception. Just like the Americans, Indians were concerned with
Speaker 1: family security, land legacy. They cried when family members died,
Speaker 1: celebrated when they were born, struggled with insecurity, fear, and
Speaker 1: being misunderstood. They had deep rooted culture and laws and morality.
Speaker 1: There were good Indians, there were bad Indians, just like
Speaker 1: every other human. These people were humans. They were separated
Speaker 1: from the Europeans by this perception of the use of
Speaker 1: technology and culture, which was really not a real thing.
Speaker 1: If there is one thing that humans have no excuse
Speaker 1: for not learning by even by this time, is that
Speaker 1: all humans have similar motivations and were basic all the same.
Speaker 1: Around eighteen thirty four is when Osceola's name began to
Speaker 1: be talked about in America. Here's Jake Tiger with more
Speaker 1: details on probably the most famous story about Ostiola, and
Speaker 1: we briefly discussed it in the last episode. Though the
Speaker 1: details of this story are disputed, it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It impacted the nation.
Speaker 7: Well, there's all these really great stories that we hear
Speaker 7: of Osceola during the Seminal Wars. One that really resonates
Speaker 7: with all of us, and it really kind of encapsulated
Speaker 7: the seminal mindset back then, and it still resonates what
Speaker 7: would most of us today, which is that famous story
Speaker 7: at the treaty signing of Fort Gibson Treaty where oh
Speaker 7: Still had walked up to the table and plunged his
Speaker 7: knife into the treaty and told them this is how
Speaker 7: I'll sign because he became so en rasia at all
Speaker 7: these different chiefs that were suing their names alway, so.
Speaker 1: There were multip chiefs there and they were signing signing
Speaker 1: this treaty.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yes, And he walks up to that table and
Speaker 7: it pushed into his belt and then pulls out a
Speaker 7: knife and insteads of a treaty and looks at all
Speaker 7: these army officials and tell them that it's it's it's
Speaker 7: we're going to war now. And there's there's a really
Speaker 7: good quote by by him that that was said to
Speaker 7: uh General Clinch and in February of eighteen thirty four.
Speaker 7: You know, I always looking back at a quote now,
Speaker 7: like I said, that's those things that he says, it
Speaker 7: really resonates with our our mindset of being what the
Speaker 7: definitional term is as similar similaronies as being free people,
Speaker 7: and that's what he really encapsulated. And so he says,
Speaker 7: you have guns, and so have we. You have pattern
Speaker 7: lead and so have we. You have men, and so
Speaker 7: have we. You're a man will fight and solo ours
Speaker 7: to last drop of similar blood has moisten the dust
Speaker 7: of his Honting ground. That was said the General Clinch
Speaker 7: in eighteen thirty four.
Speaker 1: Everyone agrees that Ostiola was at that treaty signing and
Speaker 1: that he had a knife. Doctor Whickman doesn't fully buy
Speaker 1: that he stabbed it. She notes how a credible eye
Speaker 1: witness said that Ossiola waved the knife around but never
Speaker 1: stabbed the paper. However, she did say that the treaty
Speaker 1: does have a hole in it. That sounds like pretty
Speaker 1: good evidence to me. You can actually see that handwritten
Speaker 1: treaty online. It's pretty wild to me that someone with
Speaker 1: handwriting that bad could be responsible for such a huge
Speaker 1: land transfer. Regardless, I'm standing with the Seminoles on this one.
Speaker 1: Me Sterling and Jake know that Osciola stabbed that treaty. Regardless,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. This incident got Osciola's name into
Speaker 1: the American public. Here's the second incident that put him
Speaker 1: on the radar of the American public, and it involved
Speaker 1: the basically assassination of a United States Indian agent named
Speaker 1: Wylie Thompson.
Speaker 3: So that one of the opening gambits had to do
Speaker 3: with a man named Wiley Thompson who was an Indian
Speaker 3: agent who had been sent down to Florida, and he
Speaker 3: was stationed his home and office were at Fort King.
Speaker 3: Fort King is now Okalla, Florida, and Wiley Thompson he
Speaker 3: had tried to schmooze it's a Yiddish word, but it's
Speaker 3: perfect here. He had tried to schmooze Asiola in order
Speaker 3: to get him and his people to give up and
Speaker 3: commit to going to the West. And it didn't work,
Speaker 3: and they got into an argument, and Wilely Thompson, who
Speaker 3: had a gigantic ego on his own, decided that he
Speaker 3: had been insulted by Asiola, and he literally had Asciola
Speaker 3: clapped in irons and put in what passed for a jail,
Speaker 3: and that was the wrong thing to do to an Indian.
Speaker 3: And he finally told Osciola that if Asciola would agree, oh,
Speaker 3: he even gave him gifts. He gave him a silver
Speaker 3: mounted rifle. But he finally said to Aziola, if you
Speaker 3: will promise me that you will agree to go to
Speaker 3: the West, I'll let you out so that you can
Speaker 3: go and call in all your people and you can
Speaker 3: all go together. And Aziola promised him. And I don't
Speaker 3: think that that promise meant a single thing to him.
Speaker 3: All that mattered was he was a warrior who was
Speaker 3: being held as a prisoner against his will and he
Speaker 3: had no right. Wiley Thompson had no right to do that.
Speaker 3: And so Ociola got out and within a couple of
Speaker 3: months he waited for his moment, and the war council
Speaker 3: knew this, and the war council let him go and
Speaker 3: take revenge on Wiley Thompson. And Thompson had dinner one
Speaker 3: after late one afternoon, and then he went outside around
Speaker 3: the fort stockade to have a walk and he was killed,
Speaker 3: and Aciola killed him.
Speaker 1: Ostiola wasn't messing around Wiley Thompson was a US Indian agent,
Speaker 1: not in the military. That's why him like cuffing up
Speaker 1: Ostiola was so upsetting. It's hard to understand, but there
Speaker 1: was no centralized Indian government, and people like Thompson would
Speaker 1: develop relationships with Indian leaders and try to persuade them
Speaker 1: to lead the people that they influenced.
Speaker 4: Out of Florida.
Speaker 1: So the Seminoles were this big tribe, but different leaders
Speaker 1: had different influence over different groups of people in the tribe.
Speaker 1: Ostola actually had many encounters and personal relationships with the
Speaker 1: United States military officials too, But we also see that
Speaker 1: he didn't do any favors to people just because they
Speaker 1: were Indians. In that same year, eighteen thirty five, the
Speaker 1: same year he killed Wiley Thompson, Ostiola assassinated Seminole chief
Speaker 1: Charlie Amathela was planning to move.
Speaker 4: His people to Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: This guy was an assassin and he was also known
Speaker 1: in battle to have a unique war cry that distinguished
Speaker 1: him from other war leaders. Here's Jake Tiger with an
Speaker 1: interesting story that continues to paint the picture of the
Speaker 1: time period.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because you know, I said Ostiola and to come fifth,
Speaker 7: and they were They weren't just fighting for fighting because
Speaker 7: it was fun, because they're fighting for a way of life.
Speaker 7: These two we were so deeply rooted into their culture.
Speaker 7: They knew if we were taken away from these lands.
Speaker 7: It's kind of like they were ahead of their time.
Speaker 7: They knew what was going to happen afterwards, you know,
Speaker 7: this different assimilation of policies that were taking place, and
Speaker 7: it's already happened to that time period. No, there's you know,
Speaker 7: there's different people and tribal nations that have already assimilated.
Speaker 7: Take David Moniac for example, he was the first Indian
Speaker 7: graduate from West Point who was a Muskogee Creek, and
Speaker 7: he fought for the US Army and he actually got killed
Speaker 7: during similar wars in the Battle of Wahoo Swamp. He
Speaker 7: was supposed to be a big thing for the United States,
Speaker 7: but his first actual combat, he was the first one
Speaker 7: killed on the battlefield fighting against the Seminoles. And so
Speaker 7: it was all just because you know, those two different
Speaker 7: cultures are clashing. That's why William Penn was given a
Speaker 7: two row wamping belt. As those Northeastern American Indians, they
Speaker 7: told William Penn in the seventeen hundreds, they present the
Speaker 7: two or wamping belt, saying one person can't write in
Speaker 7: two canoes. At the same time, he said, you'll go
Speaker 7: on your path and we'll go on ours. But we
Speaker 7: should never intersect. They should never collide. We should always
Speaker 7: go on our own pass.
Speaker 1: This story of this Muskogee Creek Indian graduating from West
Speaker 1: Point Academy puts this time period into perspective. You could
Speaker 1: falsely get the idea that the Indians and Americans were
Speaker 1: just meeting each other for the first time, But this
Speaker 1: Euro Indian conflict in America had been pulsating for almost
Speaker 1: three hundred years.
Speaker 4: This wasn't a new thing.
Speaker 1: I now want to talk to doctor Wickman about one
Speaker 1: of the most fascinating aspects of the Seminole Wars in Florida,
Speaker 1: which is how enslaved people escaped into Florida and we're
Speaker 1: grafted into the Seminole tribes who were staunchly anti slavery,
Speaker 1: and the Seminoles made this big political statement about being
Speaker 1: anti slavery. The first book that I read on Ostola
Speaker 1: stated this is a fact, and so does the Osceola
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page. But let's see what the doctor has to
Speaker 1: say about this. I'm going to learn that you can't
Speaker 1: believe everything that you read. We're jumping right in mid conversation.
Speaker 1: That was one of the most surprising things to me
Speaker 1: that I learned. What was that that enslaved people escaped
Speaker 1: and were running and assimilated into the Seminole tribes, and
Speaker 1: that became no, no, no, will you tell me about
Speaker 1: a thing?
Speaker 3: No, okay, talk about a big myth? Honey, Okay, right,
Speaker 3: let me tell you.
Speaker 1: I'm all heirs, Doctor Wigman, please forgive me. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: narrative is more complex than this little SoundBite that I
Speaker 1: grabbed off the internet. But how could historians get this
Speaker 1: so wrong?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: In this war, the white people who were prosecuting the war,
Speaker 3: who were trying to push the Indians out, actually were
Speaker 3: fighting two enemies. They were not only fighting the Indians,
Speaker 3: they were also fighting black ex slaves who had either
Speaker 3: been bought by the Seminole people or had escaped from
Speaker 3: up north anywhere and had run down into Florida. This
Speaker 3: had been going on while the Spaniards, called the First
Speaker 3: Spanish Occupation was in process. And there is even a
Speaker 3: fort that was allowed them called Gracia Real de Santa
Speaker 3: Teresa demos Today it's just called Fort mo And they
Speaker 3: were on the north side of Saint Augustine in a
Speaker 3: position where they could be there to be part of
Speaker 3: the defenses of Spanish Saint Augustine. So by the time
Speaker 3: we get around the period of the Seminole Wars, particularly
Speaker 3: all the way to eighteen thirty five, when this had
Speaker 3: been going on since the late sixteen hundreds. In the
Speaker 3: early seventeen hundreds in Florida, the blacks knew x slaves
Speaker 3: knew that Florida was a good place to run to,
Speaker 3: that it was outside offerrent country.
Speaker 1: Well it was until to eighteen well.
Speaker 3: Until eighteen nineteen and eighteen twenty one.
Speaker 1: So it was a destination if you could get to Florida, if.
Speaker 3: You could, and if you could, a lot of them
Speaker 3: went to the Indians thinking that they would be protected
Speaker 3: or that they could make common cause with the Indians.
Speaker 3: What they didn't understand is that the Indians did not
Speaker 3: see them automatically as friends, all right. But what the
Speaker 3: Indians did, even though there were some Indians who had
Speaker 3: actually had enough money to buy.
Speaker 1: Slaves, would have been okay in their view of the world. Yes,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, no problem with that.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, not at all.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, it becomes a major bone
Speaker 3: of contention when, as I said earlier, when the American
Speaker 3: army is trying to buy their cattle and their horses
Speaker 3: and their pigs and their slaves, all right, in order
Speaker 3: to push them out. They want to return slaves to
Speaker 3: their owners, where the slaves obviously don't want to go.
Speaker 3: What the Indians did with these groups of blacks who
Speaker 3: congregated near them was they would give them a field
Speaker 3: or a piece of property that was near them, and
Speaker 3: they would let them plant, because these people had learned
Speaker 3: agriculture right in American settings, and as a consequence, they
Speaker 3: were more effective at growing foods than the Indians were
Speaker 3: because the Indians were still essentially hunter gatherers. So essentially
Speaker 3: the deal was that the blacks would give a set
Speaker 3: portion of everything they grew to the Indians in the
Speaker 3: Indian community, and they were allowed to live there. And
Speaker 3: when the Indians went to war, there were blacks who
Speaker 3: wanted to go to war as well, and the Indians,
Speaker 3: the War Council of the Indians, allowed some of them
Speaker 3: to have the unit.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't as clean cut as oho Enslave people
Speaker 1: escaped got here and were assimilated in because that's the way.
Speaker 1: That's the way it was portrayed, and some of the
Speaker 1: reading I've done well, of course, it was would that
Speaker 1: myth have been there, like abolitionists would have wanted that
Speaker 1: myth why would we.
Speaker 3: Want to think that it was convenient?
Speaker 1: It made them enemies to the US, like these these seminoles,
Speaker 1: these are bad people. They're they're harbor and our slaves, and.
Speaker 3: Our slaves are bad people because they ran away.
Speaker 1: Okay, So it was it was an impetus for war.
Speaker 1: It was it was demonizing in America. We needed to
Speaker 1: demonize them so we'd have a way to dehumanize them
Speaker 1: so we could kick them out of there.
Speaker 3: That's right, absolutely, that makes sense. Now we are still
Speaker 3: to this day, and you know that because we are
Speaker 3: still bigoted to this day, and we are still carrying
Speaker 3: bigotries that are born out of nothing in the world
Speaker 3: except guilt and fear. And as a consequence, we're always
Speaker 3: afraid that the other, the cultural other, is going to
Speaker 3: do to us what.
Speaker 2: We've done to him.
Speaker 3: And as a consequence, we think if we let down
Speaker 3: our guard that it will be too late. We'll be
Speaker 3: out of power and possibly out of life. It's a
Speaker 3: very sad situation that we have to use fear as
Speaker 3: a way of dealing with other human beings. So in
Speaker 3: the Second Seminole War, there were units or contingents of
Speaker 3: blacks who were allowed to fight under their ownly when
Speaker 3: the Indians fought, when the Indians attacked right, and it
Speaker 3: was a big bone of contention between the United States government,
Speaker 3: augmented by the United the power of the United States
Speaker 3: military and the Indians.
Speaker 1: Forgive me for interrupting. No, No Ostiola. Also, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of why this myth persisted and why we liked
Speaker 1: it so much. The northern abolitionists, it helped them. And
Speaker 1: I'm on this quest of why Ostiola has lived so
Speaker 1: long in the American consciousness. If he was harboring slaves
Speaker 1: and he was adamant that these people be protected, I
Speaker 1: mean that was for their purposes, very beneficial to make
Speaker 1: him a hero if he was anti slavery. But you're
Speaker 1: telling me that he wouldn't have been.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: This is really confusing to some Americans. The Seminoles fighting
Speaker 1: the American army beside black was an anti slavery statement,
Speaker 1: making Astola an abolitionist hero. But to the Southern States
Speaker 1: and Andrew Jackson, it was an impetus for war, making
Speaker 1: him a villain, yet a noble one to be respected.
Speaker 1: It really seems like people interpret things according to the
Speaker 1: narrative in their own mind. But according to doctor Wickman,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that black and white, and it wasn't a
Speaker 1: political statement at all. The joining of the blacks in
Speaker 1: the seminoles was simply two groups of people with the
Speaker 1: same enemy. It's interesting to me how such a small
Speaker 1: difference in a narrative can make the meaning so different today.
Speaker 1: The Wikipedia page on Ostiola says that he was fiercely
Speaker 1: opposed to slavery, that he even had a black wife,
Speaker 1: which was a common belief but probably isn't true. However,
Speaker 1: it really gets confusing because today these groups of blacks
Speaker 1: who fought in Florida are called the Black Seminole. This
Speaker 1: is a complex topic and we have not exhausted it
Speaker 1: in this conversation, and I don't claim to know the
Speaker 1: nuances of it completely, but we just got to keep moving.
Speaker 1: We're continuing to examine why America loved Doceola even in
Speaker 1: his lifetime, and oddly America like the idea of this
Speaker 1: rebel fighting against an unbeatable system that's undeniable. Remember, America
Speaker 1: kind of had done this same thing about fifty years prior,
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy six. Maybe we saw ourselves in this
Speaker 1: seminole leader here's Sterling Harjoe on Rebels.
Speaker 6: Right. No, but I mean also, you know we love
Speaker 6: book bank robbers.
Speaker 1: I mean people that stand against the system.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Clyte, Bonny and Clyde. You know, they
Speaker 5: have captured the I mean, if you watch that movie,
Speaker 5: it was like one of the most popular movies that
Speaker 5: came out, Like a Warren Baby driving around Robin Banks.
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, there's.
Speaker 5: I'm not saying we should all roll Banks, but I'm
Speaker 5: just saying, like, as a kid, it's kind of cool
Speaker 5: to go we thought to get something that was immovable.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and man, that is exactly why Ostiola, even in
Speaker 1: his life, was nationally famous.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: He was fighting against the United States government, the whole
Speaker 1: tribe was. He was just the one that the world
Speaker 1: kind of picked out of that group to highlight. And
Speaker 1: people loved him. I mean, like Americans, who their country
Speaker 1: is at war, they were toasting Ostiola, right, toasting Ostiola's life,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, we kind of love an outlaw.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5: I mean I think that through history of popular culture,
Speaker 5: we think of Native people as very different, you know,
Speaker 5: like not we but like the America thinks of Native
Speaker 5: people is very different. If I'm to go ask the
Speaker 5: average guy, and I don't know Idaho.
Speaker 6: Actually they might know Nias. But like you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying, Like you asked somebody in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6: There you go, yeah, and it's.
Speaker 1: Like they got no culture up there.
Speaker 6: So we're very We're viewed as very different, but we weren't.
Speaker 4: We're humans, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: I am very sorry for that cheap dig It was
Speaker 1: just too convenient. I actually love Pennsylvania. I have an
Speaker 1: aunt that lives there. Shout out to Aunt Karen and
Speaker 1: Uncle Tony. But I think Sterling's point is well taken.
Speaker 1: Doctor Wickman lived on the Seminole Reservation in Florida for
Speaker 1: over fifteen years. She thoroughly enjoyed her time there, and
Speaker 1: I thought this was really interesting. What she's calling BC
Speaker 1: is the big Cyprus reservation in the Everglades.
Speaker 3: The first time I carried photographs, I know I'm getting
Speaker 3: off the track here and I'm going to get back on.
Speaker 3: I swear right soon. I would carry photographs out to them.
Speaker 3: When I moved into Hollywood and James gave me an
Speaker 3: office up in the Tribal office building, I would carry
Speaker 3: photographs out to BC, because I knew that this picture
Speaker 3: was in taken in BC, but I didn't know where,
Speaker 3: and I didn't know who, all right, And I would
Speaker 3: say to somebody, do you know who these people are?
Speaker 3: They would never begin by telling me the names the people.
Speaker 3: They would begin by telling me about the trees. They
Speaker 3: would tell me that tree is right behind what's the
Speaker 3: water tower now, or that tree was on the property
Speaker 3: where they built the tribal office building, out here the
Speaker 3: field office.
Speaker 2: Building, and way down the line.
Speaker 3: In the discussion, i'd get them to get around to
Speaker 3: who are the people in this picture?
Speaker 1: Surely there's some insight into the way that they viewed
Speaker 1: kind of the natural world.
Speaker 3: Of course, that all of their sense of humor, all
Speaker 3: of their sense of humor, has to do with the
Speaker 3: visual world, the geography, the land around them. And if
Speaker 3: they make jokes that include people, it's usually a story
Speaker 3: about a man who tripped over a log and nearly
Speaker 3: shot himself one day hunting, or you know, somebody who
Speaker 3: fell in a river or something. But it starts out
Speaker 3: with the land. It starts out because they live so
Speaker 3: closely with the land, because they've spent centuries and centuries
Speaker 3: and centuries and centuries and centuries, at.
Speaker 1: Least their starting place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's always, it's always. It's not just their starting place,
Speaker 3: it's their matrix.
Speaker 2: It's where they live.
Speaker 4: You believe that's still today?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, really, Oh honey, you better believe it now.
Speaker 3: I will tell you that it's at its strongest out
Speaker 3: in BC, because BC is the only res that's not
Speaker 3: terribly close to a white man's town. But BC is like,
Speaker 3: it's like the center of traditional life, and than that
Speaker 3: is getting pushed.
Speaker 1: That is interesting. And don't forget that there are today
Speaker 1: two separate seminole nations, one in Florida and one in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to the war. We're building a
Speaker 1: case for why America loved Alceola, but also why we
Speaker 1: killed him.
Speaker 3: So throughout the war, I said that a lot of
Speaker 3: the problems had to do with the sickliness of trying
Speaker 3: to fight in Florida in the summer. In particular, the
Speaker 3: eighteen thirty five gamuts didn't work, And in eighteen thirty
Speaker 3: six we're going to see Osceola move to the zenith
Speaker 3: of his power, and his power isn't going to last
Speaker 3: very long. This is another interesting thing did the Americans
Speaker 3: keep thinking that they're going to end this war. It
Speaker 3: starts in late eighteen thirty five and it goes on
Speaker 3: for seven years. Millions of dollars and thousands of troops
Speaker 3: who come in to prosecute this war, and the Americans
Speaker 3: never managed to end it. So Osceola is going to
Speaker 3: have his role and his visibility over about eighteen months,
Speaker 3: and that's it. That's all he gets. It's highly possible
Speaker 3: that during the late eighteen thirty six or eighteen thirty
Speaker 3: early eighteen thirty seven, that he became ill with malaria,
Speaker 3: because malaria was a problem. Dysentery was a terrible problem
Speaker 3: for the white soldiers. There were a number of instances
Speaker 3: down here when a regiment was so sickly, had so
Speaker 3: many men on sick call, that they couldn't go out
Speaker 3: and fight.
Speaker 1: You know, because they would have had to have drank
Speaker 1: the water.
Speaker 3: They would have drunk the water, they would have short rations.
Speaker 3: They were living in the heat, and the bugs with mosquitos,
Speaker 3: you know, with snakes. And so he's gaining publicity in
Speaker 3: the papers. Every bad thing that happens, every strike, every
Speaker 3: Indian and strike, every battle that doesn't go the way
Speaker 3: it should. Osciola becomes the foil for every story. He's
Speaker 3: seen here. He's seen at Tampa one day, and the
Speaker 3: next day he's all the way over it at Fort Millon,
Speaker 3: at Daytona Beach.
Speaker 1: He kind of becomes larger than life to the American people.
Speaker 3: He does absolutely when he becomes the real tragic hero,
Speaker 3: the noble savage. Is when we.
Speaker 2: Get to late eighteen thirty.
Speaker 1: Seven and Ociola's stance was we're not leaving, yes, I
Speaker 1: mean that was if you could boil him down to
Speaker 1: his message during this was.
Speaker 3: The whole entire fight. This is what this man's life
Speaker 3: was all about. This is our land, This is where
Speaker 3: our mothers gave birth to us. This is where our
Speaker 3: we would say umbilical cords are buried. This is where
Speaker 3: we are, This is who we are, and no white
Speaker 3: men are going to push us out. There's an incredible
Speaker 3: instance in the middle of the war where he actually
Speaker 3: went into a camp to have a parley with General
Speaker 3: Harney and wound up spending the night in General Harney's
Speaker 3: tent as his guest.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was a different time of war, wasn't it. There
Speaker 1: was some very very DearS were.
Speaker 3: Well the whole entire point, as I discerned it is
Speaker 3: that the Whites were absolutely positive that somehow they could
Speaker 3: convince the Indians to just quit this fighting and go
Speaker 3: to the west, get out of our way. You'll be
Speaker 3: safer if you leave this land to us. And at
Speaker 3: one point they even sent a party, a delegation all
Speaker 3: the way out to Oklahoma to look at the land
Speaker 3: that was being offered to them, and they signed a
Speaker 3: treaty of capitulation out there, this delegation that was sent
Speaker 3: out there. What they didn't know was the delegation that
Speaker 3: was sent out there had no right to make that
Speaker 3: decision for everybody else. It wasn't up to them to
Speaker 3: sign about whether the whole tribe would go or not.
Speaker 3: It just wasn't their business. So the Indians said, no,
Speaker 3: we didn't sign it, We're not going.
Speaker 1: I think this goes back to the way that a
Speaker 1: Western mindset would have thought about land. Oh, of course
Speaker 1: it doesn't. And the way that the Seminoles all Indian
Speaker 1: people would have thought about land would be vastly different.
Speaker 1: All these people had been on this continent for maybe
Speaker 1: a generation, you know, maybe two. They viewed the land
Speaker 1: from like a utilitarian standpoint like, Oh, if there's better
Speaker 1: land over here, you'd go there. You'd take the best
Speaker 1: land you could.
Speaker 3: You're headed in the right direction, and I will give
Speaker 3: you points, Clay, you have understood some things. You're headed
Speaker 3: in the right direction. In the case of land, they
Speaker 3: did not believe in the land ownership. They believed that
Speaker 3: the great spirit, the giver of breath dischag Michit, had
Speaker 3: put them on this land to take care of it,
Speaker 3: to use it, to get the good out of it.
Speaker 3: But they didn't believe in owning it. Whereas the white
Speaker 3: people were ownership first, the Indians believed that they just
Speaker 3: used the land, and they had to use it wisely.
Speaker 2: They couldn't, They couldn't.
Speaker 1: Just would that have endeared again? Ossiolas his mantra was,
Speaker 1: we're not leaving. We can't go somewhere else.
Speaker 3: What else did he have? What else did he have?
Speaker 3: Wickman's first car Larry to Murphy's law is everything in
Speaker 3: life is just a matter of alternatives. If you live
Speaker 3: in the land, if your whole entire world is based
Speaker 3: in those woods, if your mother lived there, and your
Speaker 3: plan lives there, and your ancestors died and their blood
Speaker 3: is in that land. Then you are a part of
Speaker 3: that land. You're attached to that land. It's more than
Speaker 3: your home, you know, it's like your mother. You're not
Speaker 3: going to give that up and walk away from it.
Speaker 3: And the white people never understood that if they cared,
Speaker 3: and the bottom line is that didn't really care.
Speaker 4: In our to Comess series, we talked about.
Speaker 1: How many American Indian origin stories, basically their religions were
Speaker 1: often site specific and connected to geography. They were tied
Speaker 1: to specific pieces of land, mountains, rivers, and if you
Speaker 1: remove them, its stripped away that power and their identity.
Speaker 1: Europeans did not have this kind of connection with the land.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to move forward and head into Ostiola's
Speaker 1: downfall and the nature of his relationship with the American military.
Speaker 3: We're up to eighteen thirty seven. Asceola wanted to talk
Speaker 3: with General Jessop, who was in charge of troops east
Speaker 3: of the east of the Swanee River. General Jessop arranged
Speaker 3: with General Ernandez, who lived in Saint Augustine, whose ancestors
Speaker 3: are still there today. I know them, that they were
Speaker 3: going to meet. There was going to be a parley
Speaker 3: at Fort Payton, and Jessop sent out a piece of
Speaker 3: cloth that the piece of white cloth that the Indians
Speaker 3: could tear up into pieces, and they were told to
Speaker 3: make flags out of these and to come in with
Speaker 3: these flags as a sign that they were coming in
Speaker 3: for the parlay, they were not coming to make war.
Speaker 3: And so in late October eighteen thirty seven, Aziola went
Speaker 3: in and he knew that they were never going to
Speaker 3: let him come out again. He knew this, and.
Speaker 1: He would have met with these leaders. It might it's
Speaker 1: a little confusing to me. Oh, he would have met
Speaker 1: with these leaders before and had meetings with them and
Speaker 1: left and so like in today's warfare tactics, it would
Speaker 1: be like if you had a guy that was enemy
Speaker 1: number one, terrorists number one, and like he wouldn't come
Speaker 1: meet with the President of the United States face to
Speaker 1: face and talk and then go back to those people.
Speaker 1: But this was a time of the Ay, different time
Speaker 1: of military.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, And they've been all over Florida together, they'd
Speaker 3: crossed paths.
Speaker 2: In these Florida one.
Speaker 1: This wasn't unusual for Osceola to go meet with the
Speaker 1: general of the US military.
Speaker 3: Beside which the Americans were using war as a last resort.
Speaker 3: But they resorted to it rather quickly, all right. The
Speaker 3: Indians just didn't want to go, and they kept believing
Speaker 3: that if they showed the white people how strong they were,
Speaker 3: if they had a good battle, a good attack, if
Speaker 3: they could fight fast, they could convince the white people
Speaker 3: that they deserved to stay there, that this was their land,
Speaker 3: and they could go in and talk, they could parley,
Speaker 3: and that they.
Speaker 2: Would be allowed to live here. Jessop was furious.
Speaker 3: Jessop was absolutely furious at Osiola because Aziola had said
Speaker 3: to him on several occasions that he would turn himself in,
Speaker 3: that he would bring his people. Yes, yes, let me
Speaker 3: go out and gather my people and we'll all go
Speaker 3: over to Fortbrook and we'll await transport to the west. Well, no,
Speaker 3: he never did, and he wasn't going to. And if
Speaker 3: Jessop had an ounce of sense in his head or
Speaker 3: cared enough about the Indians to know who he was
Speaker 3: talking to, he never would have believed that to begin with.
Speaker 3: But Jessop finally said that he was sick and tired
Speaker 3: of this and that he was absolutely not going to
Speaker 3: talk any more. And Osceola is sad, he is ill,
Speaker 3: he's been sick and he knew that if he was
Speaker 3: in the clutches of the white men, that he had
Speaker 3: done quote unquote some bad things to them and they
Speaker 3: would never let him out. But they had already arranged.
Speaker 3: General Hernandez gave a signal, and I understand from his
Speaker 3: family that the signal was that he lifted his hat,
Speaker 3: and when he did, the soldiers moved around the Indians
Speaker 3: and captured them.
Speaker 1: And this was like a what we would call like
Speaker 1: a war crime today, like this was out of bounds.
Speaker 6: Is that right?
Speaker 3: It was considered the fact that they were being captured
Speaker 3: under a white flag of truce meant that they were
Speaker 3: quote unquote violating a flag of truth. This was not
Speaker 3: something that an honorable soldier did.
Speaker 1: But they at this time, it's so deep into these wars,
Speaker 1: the United States military is just like, we're laying everything aside.
Speaker 1: We just got to get this guy, Jessop.
Speaker 2: It's Jessup.
Speaker 3: It's not just the whole United States government, it's Jessup.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you that Jessup is going to
Speaker 3: pay for it for the rest of his natural life.
Speaker 1: Because America didn't like that they cheated Osiola.
Speaker 2: Despised him nationally.
Speaker 4: So he this question. This word goes back.
Speaker 1: They report that Jessup, under a white flag of troops
Speaker 1: captured Osciola Ossiola. Is this hero in America already.
Speaker 3: The noble savage who has been seduced into coming in
Speaker 3: under a white flag of truth, and he has been
Speaker 3: captured in an absence.
Speaker 1: Resolutely dishonorable by dishonorable Americans. Didn't like that.
Speaker 3: The Americans despised it. Fifty years later, Jessop was still
Speaker 3: answering in the newspaper to articles that were being written
Speaker 3: about him.
Speaker 1: In late October eighteen thirty seven, the great Seminole War leader,
Speaker 1: who had only known war his entire life, was captured,
Speaker 1: and he would only survive three more months. After almost
Speaker 1: twenty years since the beginning of the Seminole War, in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, the first Seminoles were moved to Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and by eighteen thirty nine most of the tribe had
Speaker 1: been relocated to Oklahoma. An eighteen forty two census stated
Speaker 1: that three thousand, six hundred and twelve Seminoles lived in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: in less than five hundred remained in Florida, and they
Speaker 1: never left. On the next episode, we'll learn about the
Speaker 1: bizarre circumstances of Ossiola's death, including how he lost his
Speaker 1: head in the nineteen sixty seven exhuming of his grave.
Speaker 1: It's gonna get really wild. I can't thank you enough
Speaker 1: for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast.
Speaker 1: We're putting our heart and soul into this and you
Speaker 1: guys listening and sharing this podcast means the world to old.
Speaker 4: Brent and I.
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Speaker 4: Until next time, keep the wild Places wild.