Osceola

Osceola
Asi-yahola
Osceola by George Catlin
Seminole leader
Personal details
Born	1804 Talisi, Mississippi Territory, US
Died	30 January 1838 (aged 33–34) Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, US
Cause of death	Quinsy or malaria
Resting place	Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, US
Children	at least 5
Parents	Molly Coppinger & William Powell
Nickname(s)	Billy Powell

Osceola (1804 – January 30, 1838), born as Billy Powell, became an influential leader of the Seminole in Florida. Of mixed parentage, Creek, Scots-Irish, and English, he was raised as a Creek by his mother, as the tribe had a matrilineal kinship system. They migrated to Florida when he was a child, with other Red Stick refugees, after their defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars.

In 1836, Osceola led a small group of warriors in the Seminole resistance during the Second Seminole War, when the United States tried to remove the tribe from their lands in Florida. He became an adviser to Micanopy, the principal chief of the Seminole from 1825 to 1849. Osceola led the war resistance until he was captured in September 1837 by deception, under a flag of truce, when he went to a US fort for peace talks. Because of his renown, Osceola attracted visitors as well as leading portrait painters. He died a few months later in prison at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, of causes reported as an internal infection or malaria.

Osceola was named Billy Powell at birth in 1804 in the Creek village of Talisi. now known as Tallassee, Alabama, in current Elmore County. "The people in the town of Tallassee...were mixed-blood Native American/English/Irish/Scottish, and some were black. Billy was all of these." His mother was Polly Coppinger, a Creek woman, and his father was William Powell, an English trader. Polly was the daughter of Ann McQueen and Jose Coppinger. Because the Creek have a matrilineal kinship system, Polly and Ann's other children were all considered to be born into their mother's clan; they were reared as traditional Creek and gained their status from their mother's people. Ann McQueen was also mixed-race Creek; her father, James McQueen, was Scots-Irish. Ann was probably the sister or aunt of Peter McQueen, a prominent Creek leader and warrior. Like his mother, Billy was raised in the Creek tribe.

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