Speaker 1: They believe that spirits when they die, should be buried
Speaker 1: facing the east because when the sun comes up and
Speaker 1: the milky way comes out in the morning, just before
Speaker 1: the sun is full, the spirit needs that milky way
Speaker 1: to walk across to the spirit world where he's going
Speaker 1: to live. And if they don't bury him properly, And
Speaker 1: this is why they want Oziola's head, because he's buried
Speaker 1: in pieces and he can't rest until he's back together.
Speaker 1: And the critical thing about that story, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you now and I'll tell you again later on,
Speaker 1: is that the only people who have the right to
Speaker 1: make disposition of his head, if and when it is
Speaker 1: ever found, and I have worked hard looking for it,
Speaker 1: are the Seminole people in Florida, the only ones.
Speaker 2: In the history books. When a person dies and is buried,
Speaker 2: aside from the rippling impacts of their life on society,
Speaker 2: their story usually fades to an end. Their physical and
Speaker 2: material impact evaporate at death. That is, unless you're a Ostiola.
Speaker 2: The story continues the life of this war leader, the
Speaker 2: mastermind of the Seminole resistance to his tribes. Remove a
Speaker 2: lot of Florida stretches one hundred and twenty nine years
Speaker 2: post burial, when they decide to dig up his body
Speaker 2: in search of some unanswered questions, which really only give
Speaker 2: us more questions. My friends, mystery remains, and the truth
Speaker 2: is sometimes more wild than the myth. I really doubt
Speaker 2: that you're gonna want to miss this last episode on
Speaker 2: Ostiola on Thanksgiving Week, and as a bonus at the end,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk with the Florida Seminole about their
Speaker 2: partnership with Florida State University. It's pretty unique. My name
Speaker 2: is Klay Knukem, and this is the Bear Grease Podcast
Speaker 2: where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight
Speaker 2: and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of
Speaker 2: Americans who live their lives close to the land, presented
Speaker 2: by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing
Speaker 2: gear as designed to be as rugged as the place
Speaker 2: as we explore.
Speaker 1: I've gotten letters from people who are sure that Osciola
Speaker 1: has appeared to them in dreams, that they know where
Speaker 1: he is, that he's speaking to them, that if I
Speaker 1: would go out into my yard at the full moon,
Speaker 1: Osceola would speak to me and tell me where to
Speaker 1: find him. I've had every well, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say mean things about him. Maybe they cared,
Speaker 1: maybe they were interested, or maybe they only wanted the
Speaker 1: notoriety for themselves, you know, maybe they wanted to be
Speaker 1: able to say I did it, I found him. But
Speaker 1: these were not rational possibilities.
Speaker 2: The search for Osceola's head has been going on since
Speaker 2: the trail went cold when famous surgeon doctor Valentine Mott
Speaker 2: died in eighteen sixty five, inventory of his personal collections
Speaker 2: of medical specimens were accounted for and the head wasn't there.
Speaker 2: Since then, people have been trying to reunite Oceola's head
Speaker 2: and body, and we know where his grave is, or
Speaker 2: at least up until the nineteen sixties we thought we did.
Speaker 2: This story is wild and in case you missed it,
Speaker 2: on January thirtieth, eighteen thirty eight, Osciola died in Fort
Speaker 2: Moultrie Prison in South Carolina, within sight of the Atlantic Ocean.
Speaker 2: He was buried within twelve hours of his death, but
Speaker 2: not before being decapitated by doctor Frederick Whedon, his attending
Speaker 2: military contracted doctor. His head was stored in a glass
Speaker 2: jar in the name of science. If you remember, Osceola
Speaker 2: was one of two hundred and thirty seven seminoles captured
Speaker 2: awaiting removal to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. He'd been captured
Speaker 2: in late October eighteen thirty seven. While in prison, he
Speaker 2: was allowed to attend to play in downtown Charleston, and
Speaker 2: numerous portrait painters flocked to paint his likeness. Remember the
Speaker 2: thirty four year old Osceola, also known as Billy Powell,
Speaker 2: was a controversial national celebrity. In the last episode, we
Speaker 2: were scant on the details of his burial. Here are
Speaker 2: the deats from none other than Osceola authority, doctor Patricia
Speaker 2: Wickman of Tallahassee, Florida. Let's go.
Speaker 1: It was about six or seven o'clock in the evening
Speaker 1: on the same day when he died, when he was
Speaker 1: finally transported outside of the fort, and a hole had
Speaker 1: been dug, a grave had been dug in the angle
Speaker 1: of the fort, right out in front of the next
Speaker 1: to the sally Port gate, and he was lowered into
Speaker 1: the ground. And there are two more intra points that
Speaker 1: occurred then that have given rise to miss two stories
Speaker 1: about Assiola. There were four soldiers who were assigned to
Speaker 1: take the coffin and It was an old style what
Speaker 1: was called a towpincher coffin, and they were assigned to
Speaker 1: carry it out, and they did that by slinging ropes
Speaker 1: underneath the head and the feet, and four of them
Speaker 1: each one two on each side held the ropes. And
Speaker 1: as they walked out to the grave in the front.
Speaker 1: We found out later quite obviously the man who was
Speaker 1: up at the head of the coffin on what would
Speaker 1: be Osciola's right hand side, wasn't quite paying attention, and
Speaker 1: he dropped his rope and the body slid forward all
Speaker 1: the way up to the head of the coffin.
Speaker 2: How do we know that the coffin was dropped like that?
Speaker 2: Did they review the prisons surveillance videos or did we
Speaker 2: learn this by some other old school method. Regardless, the
Speaker 2: burial appeared to be an unceremonial moment. It wasn't written
Speaker 2: about recorded in any way. It's likely his wives were
Speaker 2: there watching them lower his body into the ground, but
Speaker 2: we really don't know that. They may have been permitted
Speaker 2: to conduct traditional ceremonies of a seminole burial, but it's
Speaker 2: really unknown. We do know they didn't let the seminoles
Speaker 2: see his headless body. Remember the decapitation was done in secret.
Speaker 2: But again, how do we know that the coffin was dropped?
Speaker 1: If his head had been in there at that time,
Speaker 1: the body never would have been able to go all
Speaker 1: the way to the head of that coffin. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't until later when we get to the archaeological story
Speaker 1: and why there was an archaeological evaluation of that grave
Speaker 1: and the evidence, the skeletal evidence.
Speaker 2: Doctor Wickman has brought up the big question of why
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty seven there was an archaeological dig into
Speaker 2: Ostiola's grave. I mean, how wild is that? Were they
Speaker 2: trying to move him back to Florida like Ostiola wanted
Speaker 2: or was it something else.
Speaker 1: The most interesting part of this latter story, that what
Speaker 1: we might call the epilogue of the Asciola story, had
Speaker 1: to do with a man in Miami who was a
Speaker 1: part of the Milk Board and he was running for
Speaker 1: public office and he had decided that he wanted to
Speaker 1: bring Osceola back to Florida. Now, as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: Osceola told doctor Whedon very close to his death that
Speaker 1: his only wish was to be brought back to Florida
Speaker 1: to rest in his homeland in Florida, but doctor Whedon
Speaker 1: ignored that nobody ever tried to do that. And ever
Speaker 1: since then there have been intermittent attempts by the state
Speaker 1: of South Carolina, by the state of Florida, state of
Speaker 1: Alabama to get these remains. There have been letters between governors.
Speaker 1: Then there have been letters from people here in Florida.
Speaker 1: There was one group who wanted to start a visitor
Speaker 1: attraction at Rainbow Springs over on Florida's near Florida's west coast,
Speaker 1: one of our many natural springs, and they were going
Speaker 1: to build a memorial to Asciola there and they were
Speaker 1: going to put his place's remains there. And each time
Speaker 1: the National Park Service, which later became the proprietors.
Speaker 2: Of Fortosophia Culture became a National park.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, and the National Park Service took it over.
Speaker 1: And the National Park Service said, now.
Speaker 2: In nineteen forty eight, the US military based Fort Moultrie
Speaker 2: would become a national park. And you can imagine what
Speaker 2: a touchy subject it would be to remove the body
Speaker 2: of a Native American. So it never happened. Also, this
Speaker 2: is coming into the time period when America had won
Speaker 2: World War Two, was becoming prosperous and influential in the world,
Speaker 2: and we started to become very interested in our history
Speaker 2: and the colorful American characters that filled in those spaces.
Speaker 2: If you remember, David or Davy Crockett was pretty much
Speaker 2: an obscure, forgotten character until he was rebirthed by Disney
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty five. It's interesting that the world was
Speaker 2: starting to get interested again in Osceola during this time.
Speaker 1: All right, Now, there's been some vandalism to his grave
Speaker 1: over the years. There have been these arguments back and
Speaker 1: forth between governors and states to try to bring him
Speaker 1: back to Florida. But the most serious attempt, let's say,
Speaker 1: was this man from South Florida who was running for
Speaker 1: office down there. I think he wanted to be on
Speaker 1: the city commission. And he went up to Charleston at
Speaker 1: one point in the nineteen sixties and he dug at
Speaker 1: went out in the middle of the night and dug
Speaker 1: at Osceola's grave, and then he put out a press
Speaker 1: release saying that he had Osciola's bones.
Speaker 2: He vandalized, he dug under a gate or a fence
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: He dug well, he dug at the pailing that was
Speaker 1: around the grave because there's a pailing that had been
Speaker 1: constructed there, and there's a tombstone, and part of the
Speaker 1: tombstone has fallen into disrepair, and people have taken pieces
Speaker 1: of at home as souvenirs. I don't know what they
Speaker 1: do with it when they get it.
Speaker 2: The man was from Miami and his name was Otis Shriver.
Speaker 2: He was a con man like Feller who vandalized the
Speaker 2: grave in nineteen sixty six and claimed that he had
Speaker 2: Ostiola's bones and that he'd reef buried them at a
Speaker 2: place called Rainbow Springs in Florida. If your last name
Speaker 2: is Shriver, you shouldn't feel immediate shame. But I'd suggest
Speaker 2: going back and making sure that you're not blood ken
Speaker 2: to this man, and if you are, you should keep
Speaker 2: it to yourself. I'm just glad it wasn't a nucom
Speaker 2: or a Reeves that pulled this stunt.
Speaker 1: And he put up such a fuss about it. He
Speaker 1: made it so public, and there were so many stories
Speaker 1: circulating from the Miami Herald to the Charleston Courier and
Speaker 1: back again that the National Park Service finally called their
Speaker 1: chief archaeologist for the Southeastern region. All right, whose name
Speaker 1: was John Griffin, and they said, come down. We want
Speaker 1: you to come down and do a complete dig, or
Speaker 1: we want you to dig in se whether he has
Speaker 1: actually gotten into the grave or not. Could he be
Speaker 1: telling the truth? Has he really found these bones? And
Speaker 1: when John saw the site, and I say John because
Speaker 1: he was a good friend of mine and because I've
Speaker 1: I've looked through his records with him and visited with
Speaker 1: him and discussed this topic with him, he went there
Speaker 1: and looked at it, and he said it didn't look
Speaker 1: as if they had gotten into the grave. But he thought,
Speaker 1: as long as I'm here, and as long as we
Speaker 1: have this opportunity, and it may never present itself again,
Speaker 1: let's take a look.
Speaker 2: Let's take a look. The archaeologist said, I've bet a
Speaker 2: lot of archaeologists would have said that, But I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that I would want to be digging up the
Speaker 2: bones of Ostola. But holy cow, I'd like to have
Speaker 2: been there when they did it. But are you surprised
Speaker 2: that doctor Wickman knew the archaeologists that exhumed Osciola's grave,
Speaker 2: not me. You remember I've said this like one hundred times.
Speaker 2: But she was the state historyan of Florida and at
Speaker 2: one time worked for the Seminal Tribe of Florida. She
Speaker 2: wrote books about Ostiola. She's straight up legit. But this
Speaker 2: wasn't the first rumor that Osceola wasn't in that grave.
Speaker 1: There was also a rumor that had circulated over the
Speaker 1: years that Osciola's bones had been dug up, that his
Speaker 1: grave had been desecrated all right, And as a consequence,
Speaker 1: John said, let's put the lie to all of this. Now,
Speaker 1: let's get some answers, and so he did a dig
Speaker 1: and it was John and that crew. The first thing
Speaker 1: they found was that the water table was very, very high.
Speaker 1: They wound up having to get help from the City
Speaker 1: of Charleston and sink well points at the corners in
Speaker 1: order to dry out the site before they could get
Speaker 1: into it. The next thing they found out was that
Speaker 1: the coffin the sides of the coffin had fallen in
Speaker 1: on top of the skeletal remains, and then the top
Speaker 1: of the coffin had fallen down when the sites fell in,
Speaker 1: so it was all collapsed.
Speaker 2: When John Griffin of the National Park Service got down
Speaker 2: into the grave, they found something they weren't looking for,
Speaker 2: something completely unexpected. Just take a minute right now, if
Speaker 2: you're riding down the road in your truck, you might
Speaker 2: probably got dogs barking in the tailgate. But ask who
Speaker 2: you're riding with what you think might be down there,
Speaker 2: because we're about to find out. Boy, would I like
Speaker 2: to have been a National Park landscape or rubbernecking when
Speaker 2: they found this. But to understand it, we're going to
Speaker 2: need to go back to just before Osciola's death. So
Speaker 2: right now, doctor Wickman is going to recount like a
Speaker 2: sliver of his death and tell us something important.
Speaker 1: He was very ill, He could hardly speak or talk.
Speaker 1: Both of his wives were there with him, all right.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, this is another mystery that attends the Asciola story.
Speaker 1: One of the people who was there said that one
Speaker 1: of his wives seemed to be more in favor with
Speaker 1: him than the other. All right, but it's highly possible,
Speaker 1: as we shall see in just a moment from the
Speaker 1: end of the story, it's highly possible that she was pregnant.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that she was in disfavor. It's just that
Speaker 1: she was sequestering slightly, because a seminole woman would do
Speaker 1: that when she was pregnant. That we also find out
Speaker 1: that Asceola was not the only person who was buried
Speaker 1: either that day or very soon after that day, because
Speaker 1: there were actually two coffins buried there, and the other
Speaker 1: one was the coffin of an infant, not a neonatal probably,
Speaker 1: but a very young infant. And we have no way
Speaker 1: of knowing anything about this child. There's no notation in
Speaker 1: the military records that I've ever found of whose child
Speaker 1: this was or why it was buried. Literally touching the
Speaker 1: side of Asiola's coffin they were buried.
Speaker 2: And we wouldn't know this for one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't know this until the mid twentieth century, all right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and we'd only know it from the skeletal remains that
Speaker 1: were examined as a result of the continuing saga of Osceola.
Speaker 2: This infant is a complete mystery. But here are the
Speaker 2: data points that we have. The child was buried in
Speaker 2: a military graveyard with a military prisoner of war. They're
Speaker 2: only two types of people here, American soldiers and seminole Indians,
Speaker 2: so the options are pretty clear. I assume that the
Speaker 2: child of an American soldier wouldn't have been buried there,
Speaker 2: so we have to assume that it was a Seminole
Speaker 2: prisoner's child that died within a few hours of osceola coincidence,
Speaker 2: I don't know. But in this next section, doctor Wickman
Speaker 2: shares her personal thoughts on where the child came from.
Speaker 2: I want to reiterate that this is speculation, but she's
Speaker 2: an authority, so I want to hear her thoughts.
Speaker 1: All right. And we have no records from the fort,
Speaker 1: from the soldiers who were there, from Pittgaren Morrison Noble,
Speaker 1: complete mystery, but I am I feel certain knowing Indian
Speaker 1: tradition and knowing that one comment about a wife who
Speaker 1: was less in favor than the other. All right. There
Speaker 1: is a tradition among the Seminole people and their ancestors,
Speaker 1: the Mushkogi people of the Southeast that in times of
Speaker 1: war or famine, a mother will kill a child, and
Speaker 1: they do it because of desperation, if there's no meanness,
Speaker 1: if there's if her husband has gone off to war
Speaker 1: and he gets killed in war and she's not going
Speaker 1: to have a man to hunt for her and protect
Speaker 1: her and bring them food. If she's in time of
Speaker 1: famine and they can't get what they want to eat
Speaker 1: to survive. You know, if there's disease, if there are
Speaker 1: any kinds of problems that mean that that child would
Speaker 1: be crippled or disempowered in its in its life, then
Speaker 1: they will stop it. They will not allow that child
Speaker 1: to have to go through that.
Speaker 2: Doctor Wickman believes the child was Osceola's after his day,
Speaker 2: the mother, knowing the imminent, dangerous and grueling move to
Speaker 2: Oklahoma that was coming, perhaps she ended the child's life.
Speaker 2: I really don't think it's fair to make that big
Speaker 2: of an assumption. We don't know where the child came from,
Speaker 2: but the timing of their deaths and burial is unusual.
Speaker 2: But as I understand it, and fanticide is fairly common
Speaker 2: in the hunter gatherer tribes of the ancient world. And
Speaker 2: not to bring up an incredibly controversial topic, but the
Speaker 2: elephant in the room is a comparison to the modern
Speaker 2: equivalent practice of abortion. This reminds me of Solomon's statement
Speaker 2: that there is nothing new under the sun. Here's doctor
Speaker 2: Wickman on what the excavation confirmed.
Speaker 1: So any rate John did the dig, he found out
Speaker 1: the first thing he found out was that there was
Speaker 1: no head in the coffin for sure, all right. The
Speaker 1: next thing he realized was that the head had gone,
Speaker 1: had had moved all the way up against the head
Speaker 1: of the coffin in the story that I related to
Speaker 1: you earlier.
Speaker 2: Right, So they when they put the coffin in, it
Speaker 2: kind of tipped and the body crumpled up towards the front.
Speaker 1: It did, it just slid down toward the front. And
Speaker 1: we know the from the work that John did. If
Speaker 1: you have a body that's laying on its back, and
Speaker 1: whether it's in rigor or not doesn't actually matter, all right,
Speaker 1: All the blood will begin to pool to the lowest
Speaker 1: extremities when when a prison dies, and if the head
Speaker 1: is laying there, the chin will begin to tilt downward.
Speaker 1: And if you make an incision to take off the
Speaker 1: head right at the bottom of the chin, you're going
Speaker 1: to take the head off. You're going to encounter the
Speaker 1: spine and take the head off at the fifth cervical vertebra.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened here, all right. So they
Speaker 1: took the head and everything below that, pretty much everything
Speaker 1: below that was still in the coffin. There were flanges missing, fingers, fingers,
Speaker 1: there were toes that were missing, digits that were missing,
Speaker 1: all right. So the old myth or the old story,
Speaker 1: the rumor about Osceola have been having been wounded in
Speaker 1: battle may have been true, and it could have been
Speaker 1: a wound only to his hand, But it also could
Speaker 1: have been a source of much of his illness and
Speaker 1: much of his debilitation in eighteen thirty seven. You know,
Speaker 1: he could have he could have been just too sick
Speaker 1: to lead, and that could have been true, all right.
Speaker 1: So the bones were examined by two physical anthropologists from
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Institution, t. Dale Stewart and Stewart and Red
Speaker 1: all Right. And I spoke with t DL Stewart not
Speaker 1: long before he passed away, and I asked him about
Speaker 1: the remains and what he was able to glean from
Speaker 1: the remains. The part that would have been most important
Speaker 1: for telling whether showing us whether there was any non
Speaker 1: Indian admixture, genetic admixture in him, was the part that
Speaker 1: was missing. You needed the cranium, all right. But there
Speaker 1: was some torsion, he called it, torsion in the long
Speaker 1: bones of the legs that at that time anthropologists thought
Speaker 1: might be a concomitant of black admixture in a person. Now,
Speaker 1: since then that has been disproven. It's no longer used.
Speaker 1: For instance, in a court of law, you wouldn't accept that,
Speaker 1: So that endsize. Yes, I have no way of knowing
Speaker 1: whether that Coppinger, that coping here was a slave of
Speaker 1: the Coppinger family who had run away and taken refuge
Speaker 1: for the Indians, or whether it was a Cuban all right,
Speaker 1: or who it was, I don't, I don't know. And
Speaker 1: the bones, several of the bones were actually molded, modeled,
Speaker 1: They made models of them, and they put all of
Speaker 1: the bones back into the coffin properly, and they sealed
Speaker 1: the top of the coffin. So nobody's going to dig
Speaker 1: into that coffin anymore.
Speaker 3: His resting places is in Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. But
Speaker 3: I always tell people that if you go to the
Speaker 3: gray Side over there, that's always telling them there's a
Speaker 3: headless corpse and then the casket in there. If you
Speaker 3: always say that weren't paying the respects I saw, You're
Speaker 3: gonna be up talking to a headless you know body
Speaker 3: in there. Except that that story is not really talked
Speaker 3: about a lot. You know, people will just you know,
Speaker 3: hear the story that he's buried but they don't ever
Speaker 3: hear that story where in his head and his body
Speaker 3: parts were removed.
Speaker 2: This is Jake Tiger. He's twenty six years old and
Speaker 2: a member of the Seminole tribe in Oklahoma, and he
Speaker 2: works in historic preservation. I have a question for him,
Speaker 2: and I was surprised by his answer. How do the
Speaker 2: Seminold people feel about oscil of being buried in South Carolina?
Speaker 3: So working in historic preservation and dealing with ancestral mains,
Speaker 3: you know, of course, you know there are certain certain
Speaker 3: circumstances where we would like to have our people buried
Speaker 3: in the traditional homelands. But if he was buried there,
Speaker 3: and if they're you know, the right ceremony was conducted
Speaker 3: to bury him, he should not be moved. That would
Speaker 3: would waken his spirit. And you know, he was put
Speaker 3: to rest for a reason. So if he's there and
Speaker 3: that's final resting place, we should leave it there. So
Speaker 3: that's at the traditional way to look at it, really, yeah,
Speaker 3: is you know, once that that body has been put
Speaker 3: in into the ground, and we we have certain ceremonies
Speaker 3: that allow us to rest in our final resting place.
Speaker 3: If as done, that's a done deal. You don't mess
Speaker 3: with the body.
Speaker 2: The location isn't as critical as the ceremony. According to
Speaker 2: to Weeden, the doctor to cut his head off. He
Speaker 2: wrote that Oscila wanted to want to how do you reconcile.
Speaker 3: That at that time period? If you know, I think
Speaker 3: his wishes could have been conducted back then when he
Speaker 3: was was buried. But since his is he was put
Speaker 3: in the ground in South Carolina, you know, it would
Speaker 3: be hard for a lot of us to to take
Speaker 3: them and move them once again.
Speaker 2: So it could have you're saying, like, best case scenario,
Speaker 2: his wishes would have been honored at the time and
Speaker 2: the in his only would have been in Florida. That
Speaker 2: didn't happen. He was a prisoner of war. The circumstances
Speaker 2: just it just happened that he was buried in South
Speaker 2: Carolina there on the fort. And as long as the
Speaker 2: ceremony was correct, you're okay.
Speaker 3: With that, Yeah, yeah, And that's always one of the
Speaker 3: taboos we have in my department and historic preservation is
Speaker 3: you know, some people think that, you know, we are archaeologists,
Speaker 3: and we're do the exact opposite archeologists. We're trying to
Speaker 3: get stuff off off of off of shells and universities
Speaker 3: and museums. You know, you know, these are the bones
Speaker 3: of our ancestors, and you know we're telling them if
Speaker 3: you put it back where you found it, it should
Speaker 3: have been never moved. You know, that's not our belief system.
Speaker 3: We don't you know, move our our ancestors around so
Speaker 3: you can studium mm hm. And so that's that's what
Speaker 3: really our whole offices has been founded on. That's why
Speaker 3: we have nacra Is through repatriot all these ancestral remains,
Speaker 3: and so that that's the way of United States trying
Speaker 3: to follow our our wishes now finally of having funery
Speaker 3: objects on museum displays, and these universities finally, you know,
Speaker 3: handing over these ancestral remains that were used by anthropology
Speaker 3: departments and archaeology departments, and I mean these universities they
Speaker 3: got you know, hundreds, you know, thousands of remains, and
Speaker 3: so it's really astonishing. And if you look at different
Speaker 3: museums and universities that have these remains and objects that
Speaker 3: belong to our ancestors and there on display, and it
Speaker 3: doesn't happen to any other ethnic group, but only American
Speaker 3: Indians and in that mass number, which is to me,
Speaker 3: it's always seems strange why anthropologies and archaeologist wanted to
Speaker 3: study us so bad. But but at the same time,
Speaker 3: if you look at it, there was there was some
Speaker 3: you know, someone will always you know, get entitled and say, well,
Speaker 3: it's for educational purposes, and you know, y'all should get
Speaker 3: over it and always tell someone to us as well,
Speaker 3: how would you feel if we went to Arlington National
Speaker 3: Cemetery and dug up all these vets and that fought
Speaker 3: for your independence. How would you feel if we did
Speaker 3: that and so and then they always get quite after that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's no way of looking at it.
Speaker 2: NAGPRA is an acronym NAGPRA for the Native American Graves
Speaker 2: Protection and Repatriation Act, which was enacted in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: and basically funded agencies to return Native American cultural items
Speaker 2: to the tribes. This is the final segment of our
Speaker 2: time on Bear Greece with the Osceola story. I'd now
Speaker 2: like to talk with a member of the Seminole tribe
Speaker 2: of Florida, which we've not up until this point. We've
Speaker 2: talked with Seminoles in Oklahoma. I'd like you to meet
Speaker 2: this guy.
Speaker 4: My name is Chandler Demayo. I'm a member of the
Speaker 4: Seminole tribal Florida. I grew up on the Hollywood Reservation
Speaker 4: in Hollywood, Florida, and I am a museum educator at
Speaker 4: our att the Gee Museum, located on the Big Cypress Reservation.
Speaker 2: Something that I think is interesting and we haven't yet
Speaker 2: talked about, is the Florida State University using the Seminoles
Speaker 2: at what most would understand to be a mascot. I
Speaker 2: wanted to see what Chandler had to say about Osceola
Speaker 2: and Florida State. I was surprised by his answer.
Speaker 3: We're going to.
Speaker 2: Jump in mid convo and he's talking about Ostiola standby.
Speaker 4: I'd say as a Seminole, he's a controversial figure, but
Speaker 4: I'm glad that he did what he did, and I'm
Speaker 4: glad that we have that name to look up to.
Speaker 4: You know, some people don't like him for whatever reason.
Speaker 4: I know some people don't like the fact that the
Speaker 4: tribe has him as FSU's mascot. Some people are happy
Speaker 4: that we have presentation that works with the tribe. I
Speaker 4: like the fact that they not only work with the tribe.
Speaker 4: They have a whole procedure and everything is made by
Speaker 4: tribal members. The outfit is historically accurate, they go through training.
Speaker 4: I'd much rather that because I remember asking my late
Speaker 4: grandpa about it, and I asked him, I said, you've
Speaker 4: grown up in Florida all your life on the res
Speaker 4: what was FSU's mascot before? And He's like, oh it,
Speaker 4: Sammy Seminole was a white guy in a loincloth with
Speaker 4: face paint who ran around with a hatchet and a
Speaker 4: head dress, you know. And he said when they were
Speaker 4: changing that they were thinking about changing the school's entire theme,
Speaker 4: and the tribe got with them and said, would you
Speaker 4: be willing to, you know, work with us on this
Speaker 4: and we would help you out. And I'm not sure
Speaker 4: exactly how that deal was made, but I know that
Speaker 4: out of that, we now have correct representation and they
Speaker 4: use our name and they don't use it in a
Speaker 4: bad way. You know.
Speaker 2: Is the sound of seventy nine thousand people doing the
Speaker 2: Florida State War chant while a Seminole warrior riding bareback
Speaker 2: on an apples a horse named Renegade ride onto the
Speaker 2: football field with a flaming spear it's really quite powerful,
Speaker 2: and that's a dang good horse. In the time of
Speaker 2: political correctness, it's refreshing to see a relationship between the
Speaker 2: tribe and the university, which FSU seems to take really serious.
Speaker 2: They have written on their website quote FSU pays tribute
Speaker 2: to the resilience and courage of the Florida Seminoles. When
Speaker 2: it refers to and represents the Seminole name and other
Speaker 2: symbols such as osceola and renegade, the Florida Seminoles are
Speaker 2: our partners, not our metastonts end of quote. I think
Speaker 2: that's pretty cool. I want to close with Chandler talking
Speaker 2: about the unconquered people.
Speaker 4: So whenever you hear us talk about or say we're
Speaker 4: the unconquered Seminoles or we're the unconquered, it refers to
Speaker 4: the fact that we never signed away a treaty and
Speaker 4: moved from our homeland. Once we all came down to Florida,
Speaker 4: we were already here in Florida. Depending on what group
Speaker 4: you're from, they kind of all said it. You know,
Speaker 4: the ones coming from up north, they were like, they're
Speaker 4: kicking us all out, and you know, they're throwing us
Speaker 4: out out west, and they even came down here and
Speaker 4: met with some of our elders at the time, the
Speaker 4: older generations. We joke about it. They kind of wind
Speaker 4: and dined them. They took them on train cars out
Speaker 4: west to Oklahoma and you know, fed them steak and
Speaker 4: lobster and showed them all the lands that they were
Speaker 4: to receive. And they came back and they said, all right,
Speaker 4: well you sign and they said no, but you know,
Speaker 4: thanks for the free trip. And the ones that did
Speaker 4: say that they were going to sign, when they came
Speaker 4: back to get their signature, they asked us and they said,
Speaker 4: where was you know, this older man. Where was this guy?
Speaker 4: You know, we took him out there he said he
Speaker 4: was going to sign. Where'd he go? Oh, he's over there,
Speaker 4: and you know, they point towards the tree line and
Speaker 4: it would just be, you know, a hole with him
Speaker 4: in it. You know, anybody that we found out was
Speaker 4: going to take money and sell away our land or
Speaker 4: sell out our people, if they were the leader of
Speaker 4: say a you know, a group of five hundred and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, yeah, I think I'm going to
Speaker 4: take the money and sign my people away. If they
Speaker 4: found out about it. They'd kill him and replace him,
Speaker 4: and they would explain, they would tell him exactly what happened.
Speaker 4: You know, Hey, he was going to sell us out.
Speaker 4: We killed him. Osciola was one of those ones who
Speaker 4: never really did that. He was always the voice against that.
Speaker 4: He was always you know, I've come from somewhere where
Speaker 4: they've taken everyone out. I've been to battles all throughout
Speaker 4: my whole life. We're not going from here. This is
Speaker 4: this is it for everyone, you know, this is the
Speaker 4: last stand. I like that as a seminole. That makes
Speaker 4: me proud, and it's something that I know. When I
Speaker 4: was growing up, they talked about it more, and they're
Speaker 4: starting to more with the younger generation, which I like
Speaker 4: they're letting them know even from a young age, there's
Speaker 4: a reason that we use this word, and there's a
Speaker 4: reason why you guys are still here and everyone else
Speaker 4: is gone on the East Coast for the most part.
Speaker 4: You know, the ones who are here are the ones
Speaker 4: in even all the ones who like we have a
Speaker 4: group of us in Oklahoma, a lot of them were
Speaker 4: the ones who signed away, and some of them were,
Speaker 4: you know, unfortunately taken from here during the war. You know,
Speaker 4: put in chains and forced to walk, and we talk
Speaker 4: about that, we talk about losing people and you know,
Speaker 4: the things that we had to do to survive. And
Speaker 4: we always try to make sure that everyone in the
Speaker 4: tribe knows that there's a reason why we're still here.
Speaker 4: It's those sacrifices that were made people like Osteola, people
Speaker 4: like all these other historical figures throughout our history that
Speaker 4: sacrificed and died and paid the ultimate price for you
Speaker 4: guys to be here in Florida still, you know, still
Speaker 4: enjoying the home that we that we have.
Speaker 2: The Seminole Tribe of Florida was officially recognized in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty seven. Today there are over forty two hundred members
Speaker 2: on six reservations that span over ninety thousand acres. The
Speaker 2: unconquered people is such a powerful descriptor, and it's clear
Speaker 2: that they take a lot of pride in that the
Speaker 2: Seminoles was stood the entire mit of the US military
Speaker 2: for over forty years. They weren't beaten and never signed
Speaker 2: a treaty given over their lands in Florida. The story
Speaker 2: of Ostiola is tragic, inspirational, and such a wild history.
Speaker 2: Lesson on the early years of America. I'm always kind
Speaker 2: of bummed out when we end these series. I feel
Speaker 2: like Ossiola has just been on my mind for the
Speaker 2: last several months, and I'm always so grateful to be
Speaker 2: able to tell these stories, to meet these wonderful people,
Speaker 2: and to learn. I find myself always rooting for the underdog,
Speaker 2: the overlooked, the gritty, rough cut ones that had the
Speaker 2: internal resolve to stand for something. I can't thank you
Speaker 2: enough for listening to Bear, Grease and Brent's This Country
Speaker 2: Life podcast. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving with
Speaker 2: friends and family. Please leave us a review on iTunes
Speaker 2: and share our podcast with a friend. Over the holidays,
Speaker 2: maybe you'll be chowing down on a big old obbler turkey,
Speaker 2: maybe some deer. But keep the wild places wild, because
Speaker 2: that's where the bears live.