WEBVTT - Ep. 274: Exhuming Osceola's Grave 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.440 They believe that spirits when they die, should be buried 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.640 facing the east because when the sun comes up and 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.880 the milky way comes out in the morning, just before 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.200 the sun is full, the spirit needs that milky way 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.320 to walk across to the spirit world where he's going 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.120 to live. And if they don't bury him properly, And 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:32.080 this is why they want Oziola's head, because he's buried 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.560 in pieces and he can't rest until he's back together. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.680 And the critical thing about that story, and I'm going 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:41.760 to tell you now and I'll tell you again later on, 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:47.600 is that the only people who have the right to 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.839 make disposition of his head, if and when it is 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.599 ever found, and I have worked hard looking for it, 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.360 are the Seminole people in Florida, the only ones. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.360 In the history books. When a person dies and is buried, 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.959 aside from the rippling impacts of their life on society, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.480 their story usually fades to an end. Their physical and 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:17.520 material impact evaporate at death. That is, unless you're a Ostiola. 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.200 The story continues the life of this war leader, the 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.960 mastermind of the Seminole resistance to his tribes. Remove a 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.480 lot of Florida stretches one hundred and twenty nine years 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.280 post burial, when they decide to dig up his body 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:38.840 in search of some unanswered questions, which really only give 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:45.080 us more questions. My friends, mystery remains, and the truth 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:51.000 is sometimes more wild than the myth. I really doubt 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.560 that you're gonna want to miss this last episode on 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:59.400 Ostiola on Thanksgiving Week, and as a bonus at the end, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.160 we're going to talk with the Florida Seminole about their 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:29.880 partnership with Florida State University. It's pretty unique. My name 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.240 is Klay Knukem, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.799 where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.560 and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.279 Americans who live their lives close to the land, presented 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:51.840 by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.160 gear as designed to be as rugged as the place 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:56.079 as we explore. 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.239 I've gotten letters from people who are sure that Osciola 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.960 has appeared to them in dreams, that they know where 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.520 he is, that he's speaking to them, that if I 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.320 would go out into my yard at the full moon, 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.920 Osceola would speak to me and tell me where to 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:30.760 find him. I've had every well, you know, I don't 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.120 want to say mean things about him. Maybe they cared, 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.280 maybe they were interested, or maybe they only wanted the 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.760 notoriety for themselves, you know, maybe they wanted to be 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.120 able to say I did it, I found him. But 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.320 these were not rational possibilities. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.440 The search for Osceola's head has been going on since 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.880 the trail went cold when famous surgeon doctor Valentine Mott 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.840 died in eighteen sixty five, inventory of his personal collections 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.160 of medical specimens were accounted for and the head wasn't there. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:12.600 Since then, people have been trying to reunite Oceola's head 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.479 and body, and we know where his grave is, or 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.040 at least up until the nineteen sixties we thought we did. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.800 This story is wild and in case you missed it, 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:27.719 on January thirtieth, eighteen thirty eight, Osciola died in Fort 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.479 Moultrie Prison in South Carolina, within sight of the Atlantic Ocean. 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.919 He was buried within twelve hours of his death, but 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:40.440 not before being decapitated by doctor Frederick Whedon, his attending 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:45.000 military contracted doctor. His head was stored in a glass 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.320 jar in the name of science. If you remember, Osceola 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.640 was one of two hundred and thirty seven seminoles captured 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.440 awaiting removal to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. He'd been captured 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.279 in late October eighteen thirty seven. While in prison, he 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.039 was allowed to attend to play in downtown Charleston, and 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:10.480 numerous portrait painters flocked to paint his likeness. Remember the 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:14.520 thirty four year old Osceola, also known as Billy Powell, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:20.040 was a controversial national celebrity. In the last episode, we 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:24.800 were scant on the details of his burial. Here are 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.599 the deats from none other than Osceola authority, doctor Patricia 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.560 Wickman of Tallahassee, Florida. Let's go. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.320 It was about six or seven o'clock in the evening 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.760 on the same day when he died, when he was 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:46.240 finally transported outside of the fort, and a hole had 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.320 been dug, a grave had been dug in the angle 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.599 of the fort, right out in front of the next 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.320 to the sally Port gate, and he was lowered into 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.960 the ground. And there are two more intra points that 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:05.280 occurred then that have given rise to miss two stories 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:09.919 about Assiola. There were four soldiers who were assigned to 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.839 take the coffin and It was an old style what 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.640 was called a towpincher coffin, and they were assigned to 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.440 carry it out, and they did that by slinging ropes 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.680 underneath the head and the feet, and four of them 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.320 each one two on each side held the ropes. And 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.600 as they walked out to the grave in the front. 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.479 We found out later quite obviously the man who was 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.800 up at the head of the coffin on what would 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:44.920 be Osciola's right hand side, wasn't quite paying attention, and 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:50.080 he dropped his rope and the body slid forward all 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.800 the way up to the head of the coffin. 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.960 How do we know that the coffin was dropped like that? 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.800 Did they review the prisons surveillance videos or did we 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:08.440 learn this by some other old school method. Regardless, the 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:13.200 burial appeared to be an unceremonial moment. It wasn't written 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.760 about recorded in any way. It's likely his wives were 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.760 there watching them lower his body into the ground, but 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.240 we really don't know that. They may have been permitted 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:29.080 to conduct traditional ceremonies of a seminole burial, but it's 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.840 really unknown. We do know they didn't let the seminoles 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.920 see his headless body. Remember the decapitation was done in secret. 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.040 But again, how do we know that the coffin was dropped? 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.400 If his head had been in there at that time, 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.840 the body never would have been able to go all 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.640 the way to the head of that coffin. So it 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:57.040 wasn't until later when we get to the archaeological story 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:02.280 and why there was an archaeological evaluation of that grave 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.760 and the evidence, the skeletal evidence. 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:10.320 Doctor Wickman has brought up the big question of why 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.800 in nineteen sixty seven there was an archaeological dig into 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.880 Ostiola's grave. I mean, how wild is that? Were they 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.880 trying to move him back to Florida like Ostiola wanted 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:24.720 or was it something else. 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.800 The most interesting part of this latter story, that what 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.960 we might call the epilogue of the Asciola story, had 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.000 to do with a man in Miami who was a 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.720 part of the Milk Board and he was running for 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.480 public office and he had decided that he wanted to 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:49.000 bring Osceola back to Florida. Now, as you mentioned earlier, 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:54.040 Osceola told doctor Whedon very close to his death that 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.120 his only wish was to be brought back to Florida 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:01.600 to rest in his homeland in Florida, but doctor Whedon 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.800 ignored that nobody ever tried to do that. And ever 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:11.439 since then there have been intermittent attempts by the state 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.960 of South Carolina, by the state of Florida, state of 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:21.880 Alabama to get these remains. There have been letters between governors. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.319 Then there have been letters from people here in Florida. 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.959 There was one group who wanted to start a visitor 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.720 attraction at Rainbow Springs over on Florida's near Florida's west coast, 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.560 one of our many natural springs, and they were going 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:43.040 to build a memorial to Asciola there and they were 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.199 going to put his place's remains there. And each time 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:54.079 the National Park Service, which later became the proprietors. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.600 Of Fortosophia Culture became a National park. 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.920 Yes, absolutely, and the National Park Service took it over. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:05.959 And the National Park Service said, now. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.120 In nineteen forty eight, the US military based Fort Moultrie 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.600 would become a national park. And you can imagine what 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.760 a touchy subject it would be to remove the body 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:19.360 of a Native American. So it never happened. Also, this 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.520 is coming into the time period when America had won 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:27.160 World War Two, was becoming prosperous and influential in the world, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.959 and we started to become very interested in our history 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:36.599 and the colorful American characters that filled in those spaces. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.440 If you remember, David or Davy Crockett was pretty much 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.760 an obscure, forgotten character until he was rebirthed by Disney 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.720 in nineteen fifty five. It's interesting that the world was 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.800 starting to get interested again in Osceola during this time. 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.040 All right, Now, there's been some vandalism to his grave 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.400 over the years. There have been these arguments back and 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.480 forth between governors and states to try to bring him 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:08.880 back to Florida. But the most serious attempt, let's say, 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.440 was this man from South Florida who was running for 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:15.840 office down there. I think he wanted to be on 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.480 the city commission. And he went up to Charleston at 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:25.800 one point in the nineteen sixties and he dug at 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.079 went out in the middle of the night and dug 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.760 at Osceola's grave, and then he put out a press 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.880 release saying that he had Osciola's bones. 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.000 He vandalized, he dug under a gate or a fence 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:39.520 or something. 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.600 He dug well, he dug at the pailing that was 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.280 around the grave because there's a pailing that had been 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.520 constructed there, and there's a tombstone, and part of the 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.480 tombstone has fallen into disrepair, and people have taken pieces 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.760 of at home as souvenirs. I don't know what they 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:56.959 do with it when they get it. 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.880 The man was from Miami and his name was Otis Shriver. 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.960 He was a con man like Feller who vandalized the 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.160 grave in nineteen sixty six and claimed that he had 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.760 Ostiola's bones and that he'd reef buried them at a 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.640 place called Rainbow Springs in Florida. If your last name 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:21.120 is Shriver, you shouldn't feel immediate shame. But I'd suggest 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.960 going back and making sure that you're not blood ken 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.679 to this man, and if you are, you should keep 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.800 it to yourself. I'm just glad it wasn't a nucom 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.120 or a Reeves that pulled this stunt. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.240 And he put up such a fuss about it. He 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.760 made it so public, and there were so many stories 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.160 circulating from the Miami Herald to the Charleston Courier and 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:48.000 back again that the National Park Service finally called their 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:52.080 chief archaeologist for the Southeastern region. All right, whose name 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:55.880 was John Griffin, and they said, come down. We want 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.800 you to come down and do a complete dig, or 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.160 we want you to dig in se whether he has 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.520 actually gotten into the grave or not. Could he be 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.200 telling the truth? Has he really found these bones? And 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.520 when John saw the site, and I say John because 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.600 he was a good friend of mine and because I've 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.120 I've looked through his records with him and visited with 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.440 him and discussed this topic with him, he went there 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.600 and looked at it, and he said it didn't look 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.800 as if they had gotten into the grave. But he thought, 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.520 as long as I'm here, and as long as we 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.640 have this opportunity, and it may never present itself again, 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:34.360 let's take a look. 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.400 Let's take a look. The archaeologist said, I've bet a 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.840 lot of archaeologists would have said that, But I'm not 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.200 sure that I would want to be digging up the 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.120 bones of Ostola. But holy cow, I'd like to have 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.080 been there when they did it. But are you surprised 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.360 that doctor Wickman knew the archaeologists that exhumed Osciola's grave, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.600 not me. You remember I've said this like one hundred times. 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:01.960 But she was the state historyan of Florida and at 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.520 one time worked for the Seminal Tribe of Florida. She 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.959 wrote books about Ostiola. She's straight up legit. But this 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.959 wasn't the first rumor that Osceola wasn't in that grave. 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.280 There was also a rumor that had circulated over the 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.800 years that Osciola's bones had been dug up, that his 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.880 grave had been desecrated all right, And as a consequence, 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.640 John said, let's put the lie to all of this. Now, 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.720 let's get some answers, and so he did a dig 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.400 and it was John and that crew. The first thing 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.240 they found was that the water table was very, very high. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.000 They wound up having to get help from the City 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.280 of Charleston and sink well points at the corners in 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.880 order to dry out the site before they could get 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.040 into it. The next thing they found out was that 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:56.040 the coffin the sides of the coffin had fallen in 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.320 on top of the skeletal remains, and then the top 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.200 of the coffin had fallen down when the sites fell in, 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:04.520 so it was all collapsed. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.280 When John Griffin of the National Park Service got down 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:14.480 into the grave, they found something they weren't looking for, 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.760 something completely unexpected. Just take a minute right now, if 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.200 you're riding down the road in your truck, you might 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.560 probably got dogs barking in the tailgate. But ask who 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.080 you're riding with what you think might be down there, 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.960 because we're about to find out. Boy, would I like 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.880 to have been a National Park landscape or rubbernecking when 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.600 they found this. But to understand it, we're going to 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.920 need to go back to just before Osciola's death. So 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.800 right now, doctor Wickman is going to recount like a 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.560 sliver of his death and tell us something important. 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.320 He was very ill, He could hardly speak or talk. 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.640 Both of his wives were there with him, all right. 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:05.800 Interestingly enough, this is another mystery that attends the Asciola story. 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:11.720 One of the people who was there said that one 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.240 of his wives seemed to be more in favor with 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.120 him than the other. All right, but it's highly possible, 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.080 as we shall see in just a moment from the 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.000 end of the story, it's highly possible that she was pregnant. 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.640 It wasn't that she was in disfavor. It's just that 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:33.320 she was sequestering slightly, because a seminole woman would do 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.440 that when she was pregnant. That we also find out 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.160 that Asceola was not the only person who was buried 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.600 either that day or very soon after that day, because 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:49.280 there were actually two coffins buried there, and the other 0:16:49.400 --> 0:17:03.720 one was the coffin of an infant, not a neonatal probably, 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:08.119 but a very young infant. And we have no way 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:12.399 of knowing anything about this child. There's no notation in 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.159 the military records that I've ever found of whose child 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:20.520 this was or why it was buried. Literally touching the 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.639 side of Asiola's coffin they were buried. 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:25.840 And we wouldn't know this for one hundred and fifty years. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:30.560 We wouldn't know this until the mid twentieth century, all right, absolutely, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.159 and we'd only know it from the skeletal remains that 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:46.960 were examined as a result of the continuing saga of Osceola. 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.680 This infant is a complete mystery. But here are the 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.159 data points that we have. The child was buried in 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.680 a military graveyard with a military prisoner of war. They're 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:04.000 only two types of people here, American soldiers and seminole Indians, 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.240 so the options are pretty clear. I assume that the 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.359 child of an American soldier wouldn't have been buried there, 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:13.800 so we have to assume that it was a Seminole 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:19.600 prisoner's child that died within a few hours of osceola coincidence, 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.920 I don't know. But in this next section, doctor Wickman 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.879 shares her personal thoughts on where the child came from. 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.320 I want to reiterate that this is speculation, but she's 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.919 an authority, so I want to hear her thoughts. 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.280 All right. And we have no records from the fort, 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:44.560 from the soldiers who were there, from Pittgaren Morrison Noble, 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.760 complete mystery, but I am I feel certain knowing Indian 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.840 tradition and knowing that one comment about a wife who 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.720 was less in favor than the other. All right. There 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:01.560 is a tradition among the Seminole people and their ancestors, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.120 the Mushkogi people of the Southeast that in times of 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:10.919 war or famine, a mother will kill a child, and 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:15.640 they do it because of desperation, if there's no meanness, 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.120 if there's if her husband has gone off to war 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:22.120 and he gets killed in war and she's not going 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.120 to have a man to hunt for her and protect 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.320 her and bring them food. If she's in time of 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.200 famine and they can't get what they want to eat 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:35.200 to survive. You know, if there's disease, if there are 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.240 any kinds of problems that mean that that child would 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:45.200 be crippled or disempowered in its in its life, then 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.000 they will stop it. They will not allow that child 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:50.080 to have to go through that. 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.960 Doctor Wickman believes the child was Osceola's after his day, 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.399 the mother, knowing the imminent, dangerous and grueling move to 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.919 Oklahoma that was coming, perhaps she ended the child's life. 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.880 I really don't think it's fair to make that big 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.040 of an assumption. We don't know where the child came from, 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.400 but the timing of their deaths and burial is unusual. 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:24.359 But as I understand it, and fanticide is fairly common 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.119 in the hunter gatherer tribes of the ancient world. And 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.919 not to bring up an incredibly controversial topic, but the 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.720 elephant in the room is a comparison to the modern 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:41.200 equivalent practice of abortion. This reminds me of Solomon's statement 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.560 that there is nothing new under the sun. Here's doctor 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.439 Wickman on what the excavation confirmed. 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.440 So any rate John did the dig, he found out 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.720 the first thing he found out was that there was 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.720 no head in the coffin for sure, all right. The 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.639 next thing he realized was that the head had gone, 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.680 had had moved all the way up against the head 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.439 of the coffin in the story that I related to 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:12.080 you earlier. 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.200 Right, So they when they put the coffin in, it 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.720 kind of tipped and the body crumpled up towards the front. 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.280 It did, it just slid down toward the front. And 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.720 we know the from the work that John did. If 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.040 you have a body that's laying on its back, and 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.960 whether it's in rigor or not doesn't actually matter, all right, 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.760 All the blood will begin to pool to the lowest 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:40.600 extremities when when a prison dies, and if the head 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.840 is laying there, the chin will begin to tilt downward. 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:47.879 And if you make an incision to take off the 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:52.080 head right at the bottom of the chin, you're going 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:54.399 to take the head off. You're going to encounter the 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.120 spine and take the head off at the fifth cervical vertebra. 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:02.880 And that's exactly what happened here, all right. So they 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:08.560 took the head and everything below that, pretty much everything 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:14.600 below that was still in the coffin. There were flanges missing, fingers, fingers, 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:17.800 there were toes that were missing, digits that were missing, 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.480 all right. So the old myth or the old story, 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.359 the rumor about Osceola have been having been wounded in 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.520 battle may have been true, and it could have been 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:32.119 a wound only to his hand, But it also could 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.879 have been a source of much of his illness and 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.959 much of his debilitation in eighteen thirty seven. You know, 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.520 he could have he could have been just too sick 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:45.560 to lead, and that could have been true, all right. 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:52.199 So the bones were examined by two physical anthropologists from 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:57.920 the Smithsonian Institution, t. Dale Stewart and Stewart and Red 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.240 all Right. And I spoke with t DL Stewart not 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:06.520 long before he passed away, and I asked him about 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:10.280 the remains and what he was able to glean from 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:14.760 the remains. The part that would have been most important 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:20.639 for telling whether showing us whether there was any non 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:24.960 Indian admixture, genetic admixture in him, was the part that 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:29.760 was missing. You needed the cranium, all right. But there 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.480 was some torsion, he called it, torsion in the long 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:40.000 bones of the legs that at that time anthropologists thought 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:46.040 might be a concomitant of black admixture in a person. Now, 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:50.760 since then that has been disproven. It's no longer used. 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:54.560 For instance, in a court of law, you wouldn't accept that, 0:23:55.000 --> 0:24:00.520 So that endsize. Yes, I have no way of knowing 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.640 whether that Coppinger, that coping here was a slave of 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:08.000 the Coppinger family who had run away and taken refuge 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:12.400 for the Indians, or whether it was a Cuban all right, 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:16.640 or who it was, I don't, I don't know. And 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:22.360 the bones, several of the bones were actually molded, modeled, 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:25.600 They made models of them, and they put all of 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:30.160 the bones back into the coffin properly, and they sealed 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:32.520 the top of the coffin. So nobody's going to dig 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:33.919 into that coffin anymore. 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:49.960 His resting places is in Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. But 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:51.560 I always tell people that if you go to the 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:54.200 gray Side over there, that's always telling them there's a 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:57.680 headless corpse and then the casket in there. If you 0:24:57.680 --> 0:24:59.680 always say that weren't paying the respects I saw, You're 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:02.960 gonna be up talking to a headless you know body 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:05.480 in there. Except that that story is not really talked 0:25:05.480 --> 0:25:07.000 about a lot. You know, people will just you know, 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:09.840 hear the story that he's buried but they don't ever 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:12.280 hear that story where in his head and his body 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:13.320 parts were removed. 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:17.440 This is Jake Tiger. He's twenty six years old and 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:20.080 a member of the Seminole tribe in Oklahoma, and he 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:23.840 works in historic preservation. I have a question for him, 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:28.080 and I was surprised by his answer. How do the 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:31.320 Seminold people feel about oscil of being buried in South Carolina? 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:36.600 So working in historic preservation and dealing with ancestral mains, 0:25:36.920 --> 0:25:39.760 you know, of course, you know there are certain certain 0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:43.520 circumstances where we would like to have our people buried 0:25:43.880 --> 0:25:47.359 in the traditional homelands. But if he was buried there, 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:50.879 and if they're you know, the right ceremony was conducted 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:53.680 to bury him, he should not be moved. That would 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:57.280 would waken his spirit. And you know, he was put 0:25:57.320 --> 0:25:59.720 to rest for a reason. So if he's there and 0:25:59.760 --> 0:26:02.639 that's final resting place, we should leave it there. So 0:26:02.880 --> 0:26:06.080 that's at the traditional way to look at it, really, yeah, 0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:10.040 is you know, once that that body has been put 0:26:10.040 --> 0:26:14.200 in into the ground, and we we have certain ceremonies 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:18.080 that allow us to rest in our final resting place. 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:20.480 If as done, that's a done deal. You don't mess 0:26:20.520 --> 0:26:20.960 with the body. 0:26:21.119 --> 0:26:25.560 The location isn't as critical as the ceremony. According to 0:26:25.560 --> 0:26:28.880 to Weeden, the doctor to cut his head off. He 0:26:28.960 --> 0:26:34.600 wrote that Oscila wanted to want to how do you reconcile. 0:26:34.160 --> 0:26:37.600 That at that time period? If you know, I think 0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:40.840 his wishes could have been conducted back then when he 0:26:41.040 --> 0:26:45.080 was was buried. But since his is he was put 0:26:45.080 --> 0:26:47.960 in the ground in South Carolina, you know, it would 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:50.080 be hard for a lot of us to to take 0:26:50.119 --> 0:26:52.080 them and move them once again. 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:55.680 So it could have you're saying, like, best case scenario, 0:26:55.880 --> 0:26:58.760 his wishes would have been honored at the time and 0:26:58.840 --> 0:27:01.920