Bear Grease - Ep. 261: Osceola - The Black Drink Singer

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

In this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, we begin a dive into the origin, life, and legacy, of The Seminole War leader Osceola. Many people know the name, but few know why. As we continue our pursuit to "explore things forgotten but relevant," listen as light is shed on the significance of a man who stood for what he believed in and it cost him his life. Osceola expert and historian, Dr. Patricia Wickman, describes his early life and culture, Jake Tiger of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma talks about his lineage to Osceola, and Seminole filmmaker, Sterlin Harjo, shares his personal impact from history and lore surrounding the life of Osceola. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. The word Seminole comes from Simmeron, which is runaway in Spanish. And so Simmeron became Simaul, and then that became Seminole.

And so we were the wild ones, you know. Like we broke off and went down to Florida to fight and to get away. In this episode, we're going into the deep water, paddling through some hard-hitting history, rife with controversy, in justice highlighting the spirit of resistance and the ferociousness of a man when it comes to family and land. We're trying to understand and celebrate the life of a Seminole Indian war leader, Osceola. Born in present day, Alabama, he fled under duress to spend most of his life in Florida and died in a prison in South Carolina at the age of 34.

He received global fame in his lifetime. and the people of America toasted celebratory drinks to the long life of Osceola. But why? This vibrant renegade leader fought against the United States and the only war on American soil that it didn't win. The bigger story, the one behind the man, is the unconquered tribe of the Seminoles. I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one.

I'm intrigued by your choice of the word controversy, because there certainly exists controversies concerning Osceola to this day, which is part and parcel of the fact that he's still in the national consciousness and the international consciousness. Do you see that little figurine sitting right over there? That's a statue of Osceola. And about 10 years ago, a friend of mine in South Florida was in Belgium. And she found that statuette. Really, in Belgium. In Belgium. And it was made in Italy.

So he was famous all over the world. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Greece podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. These use that glass ashtray as a coaster. There you go for you drink. Yeah, that's okay. I have been known to leave a ring or two on my furniture, and I'd much rather blame me than you.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I do the same thing when people come over and like, use the coaster. I'm in the home of historian and author Dr. Patricia Wickman in Tallahassee, Florida. She's a generous and kind woman, but you better be on your A-game. Of all the people I've interviewed, from hillbillies to Ph.D. Toten academics, I've never interviewed anyone with more detailed knowledge, passion, and ability to communicate about their expertise more than Dr. Wickman. and her passion is the Seminole Osceola. As a matter of fact, she was the senior historian for the state of Florida

and the former director of the Department of Anthropology and Genealogy for the Seminole tribe of Florida. She's actually a Spanish Floridian whose family has been here since the 1750s, but she lived with the Florida Seminoles for over a decade. She is going to help us immensely in this story. I was up in Iowa one time some years ago where they had a statue of a totem pole, a pseudo-totem pole, that had been carved for them by a man in Branson, Missouri, and it was supposed to be in honor of Osceola. And I found that absolutely fascinating. So I'm never surprised to hear anything about him. I'm never surprised that he exists in the national consciousness even to this day.

There are over 20 counties, cities, there's even a bridge and a mountain in the United States named after Osceola. Osceola's legacy lasting into modern times, almost 200 years after his death, shows the impact of his life. but here is a mainstream American pseudo-totem to the Seminole leader, and I bet you're going to recognize it. John Anderson's song Seminole Wind was a straight-up country hit. It was nominated for the 1993 CMA song of the year. And if you don't like this song, I'm not sure what to say. But it really hits its stride near the end.

Listen who gets a call out by name. He heard the ghost of Osceola crying. That's powerful imagery. And there ain't a person who ever heard that song that didn't like that part. But do you even know who Osceola is? What he did. Up until recently, I'd have to answer, no, not really. But this brings up two interesting and old points that we've got to address at the top.

Number one, Americans have always been enamored with Native American leaders, treating them almost like comic book characters or mythical creatures. In the 1800s, even while our government was at war with and systematically moving them to Oklahoma, America couldn't read enough and see enough about Indians. This trend rolled into the 20th century. It's an odd philosophical position idolizing people you were displacing and, and trying to kill. If you remember,

Tacomsa, the Shawnee, had national fame in his life and was viewed as a noble foe of America. At the end of his life, when he was in prison, the nation's most famous painters were lined up at the door ten deep to paint his portrait.

And when he died, his possessions and even parts of his body were stolen, sold, and touted as showpieces, including his head, which is still missing. It seems like America liked the golden egg but didn't want the goose. The romantic idea of a free people, unaffected by modernity,

living independently and harmoniously off the land was appealing. We actually grafted some of that into American identity, which differentiated us from the stuffy aristocracy of Europe from which we'd come. But we couldn't have unassimilated people who didn't really, want to be part of America living here. We'd rather just have stories about how they used to live here. And we couldn't have them living here, especially if they owned land. And did the Native Americans ever own some prime real estate? The second consideration, I said there were two, is how Americans were constantly in search of individualistic heroes that validated our national value system.

we are so enamored with individualism that we don't know that there is even another way to view the world, but the native people didn't have this individualistic view. I was helped to see this by Shawnee Chief Ben Barnes a couple of years ago when we did that to Compsa series. He basically said, you people are always trying to sensationalize individuals, but we see them as a product of their community, standing on the shoulders of others that they can't be seen. separated from. Do you remember the grammatical structure of the Shawnee language giving precedence to verbs rather than nouns, like actions rather than people? Meaning they're most interested in what got done, not who did it. In English, you would say, Susie made the soup with an emphasis on who did it.

Susie did it. They might say the soup was made and who made it really wasn't that important. I'm attempting to not tell Osceola's story through these historic tropes, but it's almost impossible not to. I just want to learn who the sky was and why people today are still so interested in him. I do know one thing, and that's that I've found some great people to help tell this story. One of them is my friend from Oklahoma, Muskogee Creek and Seminole, Sterling Harjo. I asked him when he first would have known about Osceola. I don't remember when I first heard about him.

It's early enough that I don't remember. I just knew that he was our leader. He's our number one leader that we think of. Even though there were a lot of other leaders, he was the one that was very popular. So Enoch Kelly Haney's a painter. He painted the painting, who was also a former chief.

He painted the painting of Oceola stabbing the treaty. And I remember that being a very striking painting that I always remembered growing up. But, you know, just sort of this ultimate, just some, I mean, like, he died under like a banner of, you know, flag of truth, you know, which supposedly outraged people that he was tricked. He's the ultimate sort of, he, I mean, he died for me to be alive. I think that that's a part of the fabric of whether that was ever said to me or not.

I felt that. There's a famous moment in Osceola's life when he went to sign Payne's treaty with the United States government in 1832, but rather than signing it, he stabbed a knife into the paper contract. It's interesting because many historians say that this actually didn't happen, but the Seminoles say that it did, and herein lies the trouble with history. But Sterling did answer my question. This leader's legacy was built into the everyday lives of the Seminoles, and I'd like to introduce you to Jake Tiger, a 26-year-old Creek Seminole living in Oklahoma.

He's got something to say about history. Yeah, a lot of Anglo history is kind of mostly written documentations, and with American Indians, ours is just oral traditions. So that's why there's always a big discussion of, you know, authenticity and authenticity, what's reputable and then what's, you know, what's a legit source. And so, and some people are actually coming around to that, you know, they're starting to understand that these, you know, PhD, you know, ethnologists, anthropologists, their stories don't line up with what the tribal communities actually have to say, and stuff that actually happened. Because we have to remember also at the same time, whenever these different anthropologists and different Indian agents at the time, they didn't understand the culture.

They're just writing down what they're seeing. And so that's most of it's a lot of kind of speculation, too. So even though as historians, we do like to refer back to do firsthand documentation, and we always got to take with a grand assault. There are many problems when comparing oral history to written documentation. But I think we have to acknowledge that it's a real thing. Let's do a hypothetical. Imagine someone from a faraway country.

Let's just say it's in Asia who did not speak English. Came to your house, went to church with you, watched you eat, marry, discipline your children, and observed your politics. And then they got to be the ultimate authority on your culture and history. How accurate could that even be? And what if they actively wanted your land and had the power to take it? Could a narrative be crafted that was advantageous to their goals? But at the same time, many observations don't need cultural interpretation. They simply happened or they didn't. And we all know that oral stories have a tendency to change over time, get exaggerated,

and can also be crafted into complementary narratives. Most non-Indian historians believe Osceola actually didn't stab the treaty paper. But Sterling saw the painting. Whether it happened or not, it imprinted him with a cultural doctrine. Dr. Wickman has dedicated decades of her career to understanding Osceola. She is not a Seminole, nor does she speak for them, but she's undoubtedly a national authority on the known details of his life. She's now going to get us started in understanding the historical context.

This story starts with the Muskogee Creek people in Alabama and a figure familiar to Bear Greece. First and foremost, I think we have to look at the collision of the man and the times. I think those two elements are exceedingly important. So my elder son fusses at me. He said to me one time, how come I ask you for the name of that flower, and you have to begin by giving me the geology of the hill? That's perfect.

We're going to get along great. So that's what I do. But if you understand the setting, if you have the matrix, then nothing is going to seem irrational to you, and you're going to make better sense out of the whole entire story. All right, there was the War of 1812, which touched the southeast. There was Tukumse and his movement to try to push white people off the continent. And in 1811, Ticumpsa came down to the Mashkoi or the Mashkoaggi people in the southeast,

in order to bring them the word of his brother, Tenchuatuwa. Now, the Seminoles say that Tenchuatu means the open door. But he came to a town called Tugebajee, and it was literally right across a creek from the little village of Talashe, which is the village where Asiola was born. What he was preaching was that white people had no business here and that they were going to destroy the world for the Indians,

and he wanted all the Indians to rise up against them and push them out. Unfortunately for the Musko-Galgi, the Muskogee people, there was a white government agent in the lower portion of what we today call Georgia and Alabama. His name was Benjamin Hawkins, and he was preaching peace. He wanted the Indians to stay calm, to build houses, to become an aggrimable, Agrarian society. To assimilate. Unfortunately for him and for the Indians,

there was a large number of the ancestors of Osceola who took the talk of Takumsa. Talking the talk of Tacomsa meant one thing. War. Tecumsa led a nativist revival, traveling like an evangelist from the Great Lakes to Alabama, preaching with ground-shaking conviction that the Indians should not assimilate

and should go back to their traditional ways. They should quit wearing white man's clothes, use bows and arrows for hunting, even start making fire in the traditional ways. He garnered a pan-Indian, multi-tribe, confederation that was the largest Indian army to ever stand against the United States. To this day, he's considered one of the greatest orators in American history,

though there are no recordings of his voice. There are transcripts of his speeches, but it was primarily gayed, by how he could move people to action. I'd like to remind you that Tecumse was a 22 inductee into the Bear Grease Hall of Fame. It appears Osceola's life was influenced by him. Here's more from Jake Tiger.

Yeah, and I've talked to a couple of people here in the Similomination. I even talked to my Shawnee friends, you know, the importance that Comfif his impact had on the Skoggi Creek. he played a pretty big role. He came to the different towns and it's documented, and then they're most likely would have been a young Osceola kind of sitting out there, listening to, to Kempsook, kind of deliver his message,

and that kind of resonated probably with him. And so it's kind of cool to think about. We see those kind of, it's kind of like a spider web of different stories and historical aspects that he would never think about until you kind of really fall down that rabbit hole that he might have been present when Tecumptus had come to that troubled town to give his speech.

Tecumseh came to the Alabama Creeks in 1811, two years before his death. Osceola was likely born in 1804, so he would have just been a child when Tecumse was there. But undoubtedly, his family took the talk of the nativist revival at a critical time in Osceola's life. Recent human development research has highlighted the years of national. nine to 13 as critical years for building lifelong identity, maybe the most important period of a young person's life. This time period for Osceola would have been the years seeing his family implement the talk of Tecumse and will see that impact throughout his life.

He would rather die than assimilate. And he did. Here's something really interesting from Jake that you might not have seen coming. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen.

But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? that's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com.

I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. So I'm related to Usiahola through my mother's side, through her father, from our Powell family. Because Osceola's original name, or his English name, I should say, was William Powell. So he had a son that came to Indian Territory after removal of John Powell.

And he had some children. We all kind of settled in the Holdenville area here in Indian Territory. And we've been here ever since. We draw that direct descendancy from Osceola through William Powell and John Powell and people like Susie May and Sisi Kacha, people like those. That's how we come from them. Jake just dropped two interesting things on us. The first being that he's a direct descendant of Osceola. That is very cool.

I've also learned that there is controversy around who Osceola's descendants actually are, As is often the case in war-torn, displaced people, record-keeping becomes complicated. Some claim that Osceola had no direct descendants. Others claimed to be them. Secondly, he told us that Osceola's other name was Billy Powell. That is surprising. We're going to have to come back to that. But I want to get back to Jake.

Some people will say his name as Osceholo, but I think that's more of a, might be more of a Mekisuki way to say it. Given the name, he is Muskogeean because he came from Alabama. And so his true name would be Assyahola. Like two words. Yeah, yeah, because it's... Oseahola. I hear a pause in there.

Yeah, so it's Usiahola. And then it was anglicized to Oceola. Oceola. Yep, yeah. So now it's more people will call it Oceola. But his original name was Ussi Yohlo, the Black Drink singer. Yeah. But what would they're...

referring to the black drink and all the southeastern people have this this plant the chickasasas muskogee creeks the yuchis they all have this plant but the black drink is is from the english term yopan holly but the muskogian people we call the osir bocci that that's the only caffeinated plant here in north america that's only found in the southeast part of the united states some of you can find here in oklahoma indian territory it doesn't grow that well because the climate's here a little too hot for it a little too dry But that plant plays a significant role in our ceremonies. Here's Dr. Wickman with more detail on his name in this black drink.

The man who brings this to the medicine man at the height of the green corn ceremony has to chant the song of the wolf. The wolf is yaha. So his wolf song is yajola. And he is called Ashen Yajola. And that's why English-speaking. heard it later on and they were never allowed to know his baby name. They knew an English name Billy Powell, but when you go through Ging Corn, you get an honorific

title and that's how you're going to be known from then on. So he was Ashen Yahola and when English speakers heard it with their standard penchant for rearranging everything they heard, Ashenyahola became Acheola and then it became Osceola So he was named by his leadership in that ceremony. He was named by his position. Don't use the word leadership. Okay. Okay.

By carrying the black drink to the medicine man, he was the... Yeah. Think of an acolyte in a Roman Catholic Mass who brings up the censor that has the incense in it. Or he goes to the priest and he takes him the patents that are going to be given out his communion. Would that not, would that name have been common in the seminole? So it would have been... Well, not common, but there would be a lot of other people who had gone through their rights of passage. It might have been called the same thing.

Yes. A person's name is always important, especially with the American Indians. This is complicated, but it's now time to understand his genealogy, whose parents were, and why his name was originally Billy Powell. one of the white men who came among the Indians in the lower southeast was a man named James McQueen and I've tried very hard to fix on him and find out exactly who he is and I think I know but the fact is that he was probably a sailor on a British ship who got into an altercation with an officer and struck the officer and realized very quickly that the better part of

of valor was to get out of Dodge. And he did. But he started moving across the southeast, and he, as the phrase was in those days, he sat down with an Indian woman. All right. And very shortly, he became a part of the life of a little village called Talassi. James McQueen was Osceola slash Billy Powell's great-grandfather who sat down with an Indian woman around 1716.

He was one of the first European traders to the creeks. These are matriarchal societies, so the children are heavily influenced by their mother. James's son, Peter McQueen, Osceola's grandfather, half Indian, half Scottish, but 100% culturally Indian. Are you with me? You awake? This Peter, his grandfather, was one of the firebrands,

heavily influenced by Tecumse. He had a daughter named Nancy, who had a daughter named Polly, who married another Scottish trader dude named William Powell. They were the parents of Billy Powell, later named Osceola. And folks, this is going to be on a bare grease-rendered quiz, so you better remember it. I have some questions about this, though.

Would it have been common for a person of European descent to sit with an Indian woman and be grafted into the tribe, like this? Well, it's all situational. Because depending on how you march into town, you might be dead before you could get out. If you came in and required things of them that they didn't like, you wouldn't come back. And that's a fact. If you came in the right way, if you wanted to trade, if you were helpful to them, if it looked like you might learn their language and stick around for a while, then there's a good possibility that they would be kind to you. Yeah. So, yes, that happened. Beside which a lot of these were traders and they wanted the trade. They became

addicted, as you can imagine, to iron pots and not having to flake flint arrows and having accoutrements that they had never had before. Mirrors. So it's time for some interesting math. So Billy Powell, who would become known as Osceola, he was not, he was like one-eighth Indian. Is that correct? It's surprising, isn't it? Most historians agree that Osceola was one-eighth Moskogi Creek and seven-eighths European. And from my limited understanding, most of the tribes accept this. And what we're going to learn is that the Muscogee Creek, and Muskogee Creeks become the Seminoles. It's interesting when you look at the blood quantum requirements of the tribes today,

which it really isn't entirely fair for us to compare today how they regulate who's in the tribe. It's just interesting. So we're going to talk about that, but this next section, just a little heads up for any young ears in the audience. We are going to use the term S-E-S-E-E-S. X a couple of times. The minimum for citizenship in the Seminole tribe of Florida is one quarter.

All right, one quarter Q, we referred to it, quantum, blood quantum. So Osceola wouldn't have qualified? He wouldn't have qualified today. No. Not entirely, not solely on the basis of blood quantum. No, he wouldn't. And yet there was not a person who ever met him,

whoever knew him, who knew what he was about, who had the vaguest idea of what he was doing would have ever called him anything except an Indian. Right. And it doesn't matter because you're focusing on something that non-Indians focus on. And you have to understand what they focus on. Because I've seen this before. They're more focused on the, I mean, culturally, he was 100% Indian. You got it.

I'm getting two thumbs up. You got it. So, yeah, so they were less focused on the natural, the physical, which is what our society might look at. In the first place, sex wasn't the serious kind of problem for them that it is for white people. They're not as prurient in their interests. And as a consequence, they have a system for pairing people off and for creating husband-wife relationships. but the fact of the matter is that if a man came in, if the Mago allowed him to stay, if for any reason he wanted him to stay, he might see to it that he had a woman.

It might be one of the Mago's own sisters or his daughter. And it didn't bother them. What mattered was that it was an Indian woman because the child would only have a clan if it was his mother who was an Indian. All right. And it mattered that this child stayed with the tribe. The child was hers. In the Muskogee world, in the Seminole world,

if a man and woman separate, he has no right to those children. They're not his children. They're her children. They stay in her camp with her people. Okay, I got a question. I'm dying to ask you. Okay.

Daniel Boone. he was adopted into the Shawnees and stayed with them for months. And there was, there's very undocumented lore that he had an Indian wife and maybe even Indian children. As I'm hearing your story, and I kind of discredit that. I'm kind of like, no, he didn't.

Sure he did. Do you know much about Boone? Do you think? No, no, but I don't doubt that for a moment. Just knowing what you know about the way that all the tribes operated. Yeah. because sex isn't the big thing among them. I mean, it's a natural part of life, and that's all there is to it.

Okay? They had other more pressing concerns, and they had more important social tradition, social mores that required certain things of people, all right, and they weren't the same things that occur in the non-Indian world. Oh, boy. that really stresses me out. I cannot hide it. A core component of my worldview

and biblical doctrine places a high priority on fidelity to one's wife. And Boone met Rebecca at the cherry picking in 1753 and was married to her for 56 years and they stacked up kids like cordwood. There is zero documentation that Boone took a Shawnee wife. It's just what they say.

So here we are again with no written documentation. And I think it's unfair to assume that Boone would have denied his own cultural value system and been unfaithful to Rebecca. Boone did read the Bible. We know that because his son Nathan Boone wrote about his father's conviction about the Bible. You know what? I think now I'm pretty certain that Osceola did stab that treaty.

I don't care if a white dude wrote it down or not. I hope you're picking up the sarcasm in that comment where I'm crafting the narrative to fit. what I want it to be. But moving on, I think it's important to understand the wider community of Osceola. Here's Dr. Wickman with the etymology of the name Muskogee Creek, which is functionally the same tribe, which we'll see is important in understanding who the Seminole tribe would become. This is a building block for our story and maybe on the quiz. Do you understand how the word creek came to be. Muschoggi is not a muskogi word, and it wasn't the muskogi people themselves who called themselves Muskogee. Their enemies just up the road for them and what we call the

Carolinas were the Chiloget people. And the English didn't say Chiloget. They said Cherokee. It was the Cherokee people who looked down at their enemies in the Lower South and called them the Muskogee or the Muskoagalgi, the people of the swampy ground. the people who traveled in canoes. And if you have as much swamp and as much water as we have in the southeast, then a canoe makes much more sense than a horse does. Okay, but what about the name Creek? There were two creeks that came together.

One was the Ogichi and the other was Okone, creeks. And so the traders would write back to Charleston and they would say we're going out to see the Indians on the Okone and Ogichi Creeks. And then a few years later, they'd get tired of that and they'd say, we're going out to see the Indians on the creeks. And pretty soon they just said, we're going to the creeks. So the word creek was just a shorthand way of talking about the Indians who lived in great numbers in this particular area. Wow. It's amazing how whittled down and simplified and unconnected that a name can become.

Absolutely. And we look at it today. And because you don't know what's behind it, you don't. you don't know the trajectory of that term, then it's very, very easy to ascribe new meanings to it and to change the whole entire history just because you don't have the opportunity to learn. Now, this is a real digression. Is the phrase Lord Willen and the Creeks don't rise? Is that connected to the Creek Civil War?

Not that I know of. Okay. I saw that on the internet and my gut told me that it wasn't true. But here's what's going on with the Muskogee Creeks in Alabama. And remember, all this is building a foundation for us to understand Oceola's life, which could ultimately be summarized by resistance to assimilation and fighting for land. And remember, Benjamin Hawkins was the Muskogee Creek's U.S. government Indian agent. So Benjamin Hawkins was trying to keep the southernmost members of these groups peaceful.

He was trying to get them to build houses, to build log cabins, and to become farmers. That did not work out well for most of them. The northern contingent wanted to go to war. And what happened in the midst of the war of 1812 was an internecine battle that began between or among the Creek people, and it's called the Creek War of 181314. It didn't help matters that there were among the Indians of the Southeast, many who went and fought with Andrew Jackson and those who fought against him with the British. In the Treaty of Ghent that finally settled the War of 1812, the British required that one

article of that treaty should require the United States government to return all of their lands to the Muskogee people. They were to give them back because they'd been terribly dispossessed in the battles and the warfare and the fires and the deaths that were concerned with the War of 1812 and the Creek War of 1813, 14. The United States government totally ignored that. Totally. ignored that, and began to hand out land to white settlers. This would not make life simple for Osceola and for his people, and as a consequence of that fact, by 1814, his mother and he, and probably at least one sister and maybe other sisters,

they had already made it to St. Augustine. Bear-Gree Scholars, this is critical chronology. Osceola, also known as Billy Powell, was born in 1804, but was pushed into Florida out of his native Muskogee Creek homeland in Alabama by Andrew Jackson and the Creek Civil Wars. He arrived in Florida in 1814 when he was about 10 years old. Please take a moment, pause your listening device, and recite those dates. Okay, thanks. Welcome back. I'd like to weave in another interesting bear grease character, David Crockett, who, if you remember, fought under Andrew Jackson in the Red Stick War in Alabama.

This is a gruesome story. Crockett recounted in his autobiography when his regiment wiped out the creek village of Toulouseahatchie, setting fire to a hut watching 50 creeks burn alive. He said an old woman used her foot on. on the handle of abode to shoot one of the Americans. This was the first man Crockett ever saw die by an arrow wound. After the fire died down, Jackson's starving army ate the potatoes stored under the burned house. Crockett said, and I quote,

The oil of the Indians we had burned up on the day before had run down on them, and they looked like they had been stewed with fat meat. Crocket never liked potatoes after that and he was impacted by the brutality later he would stake his political career against Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act declaring that his decision would quote not make me ashamed at the day of judgment

this my friends is our conflicted American history I interpret Crocket's stance on the Indian removal act to be a redeeming action in his life, showing his regrets from the Red Stick Wars. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest.

It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut,

and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers. who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Back to our story. Here is an insightful analogy,

an interesting side note on Muskogee Creek Life. I have looked for years for some image that I could use to make sense out of this for people who don't look at the details and who don't need to have the details. I'll tell you the only image that I've been able to come up with thus far. think of a pool table. Think of the balls when they're set up for the break. Think of the minute that the cue ball hits those balls and think of the way they scatter.

Now think of those tribes all over the southeastern United States because that's the way they went. They did not have, at least as far back as we can tell archaeologically and historically, they did not have any fixed villages. They didn't necessarily have to stay in one place all their lives. We know, for instance, that if lightning struck a ballpole, and the ball game was very, very important for spiritual and for warfare, for military reasons, if lightning struck a ballpole, they would pick up and move. Ballpole, what's that mean?

Oh, probably the major game, and I use that term advice. Oh, okay, it was one of their games. They had a pole. erected. It was the game. Okay. But ball games were frequently a way of avoiding war or they were used in place of war

because one village would play another village and people would die in this game. It was not. And they settled disputes. They settled disputes or they claimed territory and there were individuals who

became such important ball players that they were a lot like the people in the limelight today, like our sports stars today. They could travel from village to village in the province where they belonged. And they could be fed, they could be offered a night's lodging, they could be taken care of and treated like real heroes to the people. Was that unique to the creeks, the skogies? The ball game occurs in a number of regions. It occurred among the Aztecs. And death was a part of the park. of potential death was a part of their game also.

Wow. So it's not... I interrupted you. That's fascinating. So if lightning struck one of their ballpoles, you were talking about how they used the land? They'd move. They'd move.

They'd leave the village. I did not know that they used sports like this, having something similar to like professional ballplayers moving from village to village. I now want to hear from Sterling Harjo about his tribe. he's going to tie the Muscogee Creek to the Seminole and wrap this all up for us in a nice little bundle. Growing up, that's all I knew was, you know, we were Seminole and Creek. A lot of people are Seminole and Creek.

And I'll interchange Creek and Muscogee, you know, or say Muscogee Creek. But, you know, the Muskogee Creek was a, it was a confederacy of people that had the same spiritual views and customs. and I just grew up knowing the Seminoles, we basically fled assimilation and European contact and was sort of sparked out of rebellion from the Muscogee Creek Nation. And then we went down into Florida

to sort of get further away. Tacomsa sort of helped spark that. Yeah, yeah. His philosophies. We're skipping ahead a little bit, but you kind of have to understand this now to piece it all together. But today, as I understand it, there are two Seminole nations, one in Florida and one in Oklahoma.

We'll learn that some Seminoles never left Florida while others were forcibly removed to Oklahoma. Muscogee Creeks were dealing with that. And you had Upper Creeks and Lower Creeks who are very divided in how they, Upper Creek towns and Lower Creek towns who are very divided in what they thought culturally we should do with sort of European influence. And, you know, the red sticks formed out of the upper creeks. And there was a rebellion. Like, let's, you know, let's fight this and let's not assimilate. Well, the Seminoles, which I'm sure people have told you this, but Simmeron, I've always been told, you know, we don't have ours in our language. They sound like, la. And so the word Seminole comes from Simmeron, which is

runaway in Spanish. And so Simmeron became Simaul. And then that, became seminal. And so we were the wild ones, you know? Like we broke off and went down to Florida to fight and to get away. I like that. The wild ones. Here's Jake Tiger summarizing and setting up for us the second part of Osceola's life. When his people, his mother's family had left Alabama

during the rest of the war and settled and what is now in present-day Florida, That was essentially because Florida was at that time a Spanish territory wasn't, you know, United States territory until 1818. And so they're leaving was essentially United States, Alabama, and jump into border going into the Spanish colonies is because the lower creeks had signed his lands away to the United States. And so that enraised a lot of the traditional creeks. You know, you have a ruthless administrator that's running the nation. And he's just going on a whole blood campaign. He wants these southeastern American Indians to be annihilated. They want them assimilated.

They want them removed. And so that was his whole policy. So you have a young individual. He's a young man now. Elstiel has seen what the ties of war have done to his people. Countless time with removal and conflict. And so there's a point where he just puts his foot down and takes the reins. When Osceola and his family make it to Florida, the story really begins to take shape.

I don't try to understand it, but American Indians highly valued medicine people in their culture for many things, including war. And these people were believed to have great supernatural power. This next tidbit of information will set us up for understanding Osceola's involvement in the Seminole Wars of Florida, which would be a thorn in the side of America that was never removed. We know that Osceola was studying medicine, and he was being taught by one of the, quite possibly by the oldest and most important and most honored medicine people in the entire southeast. In the 16th century, when the Spaniards first got here and they began to found out across the country, country and create maps when the explorers were going through. On one of their maps, they fixed a town that they called A-B-E-C-A, but it's a B-E-C-A. And that word affixed, it translated from generation to

generation with medicine people who were the descendants of that original medicine person, who was so honored and so powerful that the entire village was known by his name. So that when we get down to the time of Aseola, we find that there is a medicine person named Abeuki, and he is the medicine man who was teaching Aseola. So we know that he had war medicine. It was a source of great pride to him. He had a fine ego. Nobody has a problem.

With that, he did. But he was an exceedingly intelligent person. He had been raised in an area where he had access to some very fine social and cultural and intellectual affairs that were passing in front of him and around him every day. And he cared about his people. And he took to himself part of the responsibility. to be a warrior and to fight for them. Well, there's an old controversy, another word, an old argument over whether the man makes the times

or the times make the man. In his case, it was a collision of the two. And he was viewed by the American public as a noble warrior, as a man who was fighting for his people and a man who was treated unjustly at the end of his life, life and unjustly in a situation which created the end of his life. And as a consequence, he has never been forgotten. This has set us up well to understand the war years of Osceola's short life. I can't thank all of my guests enough. Sterling, Dr. Wickman, Jake, thank you for

sharing what you know about this striking figure in American history. The next episode, it's going to be even wilder. We'll be having some trivia on the render, so be ready. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Please share our podcast with a friend this week and leave us to review on iTunes. Until next time, keep the wild places wild. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called Prime. cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I help with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com.

I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.