Four American Indians Part 17

THE STORY OF OSCEOLA

BY FRANCES M. PERRY

THE STORY OF OSCEOLA

I. THE EXODUS OF THE RED STICKS

The sun was low in the west and sent long shafts of light across the tops of the trees that bordered a quiet, shining lake in northern Florida. It shone upon a company of Indians who were straggling along the sh.o.r.e, and made their bright turbans and many colored calicoes look gay in spite of dirt and tatters.

The company was a large one. In it were not only braves, but also squaws and pappooses, and a few negroes. They trooped along with the unhurried swiftness and easy disarray of men and women who have journeyed for many days and have many days of travel still before them.

Here and there a strapping brave bestrode a horse, while his squaw trudged beside him, sharing with a black slave the burden of household goods. But for the most part ceremony had given way to necessity and the warriors went afoot, leaving the horses and mules to carry the old men, aged squaws, and young children, who were too feeble to walk.

This was a band of Red Stick Indians who had left forever the camping grounds of their fathers on the Chattahoochee River, to escape the oppression of their powerful kinsmen, the Creek Indians. They had rebelled against the rule of the Creeks, because the Creeks refused them their share of plunder in battle, and laid claim to their lands and their slaves. The Red Sticks hated the Creeks so bitterly that they could no longer live near them. They were resolved to leave altogether the territory that the United States government recognized as belonging to the Creeks, and seek homes with the Seminoles or runaways in Florida.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CREEK INDIANS]

The Red Sticks had left the Creek country far behind them, and had arrived, as we have seen, in northern Florida. The land into which they had come was uncultivated, wild, and sweet. The lakes and rivers were full of fish; the forests were full of game; fruits and berries grew in abundance. Everything seemed to invite the wanderers to tarry there and build themselves homes. Still they marched on over rich brown fields, past dancing lakes and streams, over fertile hillsides shaded with live oak and magnolia. No spot, however beautiful, could induce them to pause for more than a few days' rest. Their object was not to find a pleasant camping ground but to escape the hated Creeks. They were bound for a distant swamp. On the borders of the Okefinokee marsh they planned to make their homes. There they would be reasonably safe from the enemy, and even if the Creeks should follow them there, the swamp would afford them a secure retreat.

But this goal was still many miles away, and the fugitives were now pressing toward a little hill, where they expected to make a short halt.

The young men were silent but alert. Now and again one raised his bow and brought down a goose or a wild turkey, and some youngster plunged into the thicket to find it and fetch it to his mother. Here and there were groups of women burdened with kettles and pans and bundles of old clothes, or carrying small children and raising a great clamor of chatter and laughter.

A little apart from the main company a tall and handsome Indian woman plodded silently along by herself. The splendor of her kerchief had been faded by sun and rain; her skirts were torn by briers, but the necklace of silver beads wound many times about her throat retained its glory. On one hip rested a huge basket, packed and corded. Astride the other rode a st.u.r.dy-limbed boy of about four years of age. Nearly all day the child had run by her side without complaint. But toward evening he had begun to lag behind, until at last, when, after a good run, he caught up with his mother, he clutched her skirts to help himself along. Then she had stooped and picked him up with a sort of fierce tenderness and in a moment he had fallen asleep.

Soon the Indians reached the hilltop where they were to camp for a few days. Their preparations for the night's rest consisted chiefly in building camp fires; for, though the days were warm, the nights were chilly. Besides, fires were needed to cook food and to keep the wild beasts away during the darkness. A small fire of light brush was made first. Then several large logs were placed about it, each with one end in the flame, so that they looked like the spokes of a great wheel radiating from a center of fire. As the ends of the logs burned away, the fiery ring at the center grew wider and dimmer. When a hotter fire was wanted, the logs were pushed toward the center till the glowing ends came together once more and burned briskly.

On the morning after the Red Sticks went into camp on the hill, while others lounged and talked together, the woman wearing the necklace of silver beads still kept apart. She sat on the unburned end of a fire log and for a time paid no heed to the question her small son had repeated many times. At last she looked up and said: "Do not ask again about the baby with the blue eyes. Do not think of her. She does not cry for you.

She plays with little Creek pappooses. She is not your sister any more.

Go, play at shooting turkeys with black Jim. He loves you like a brother."

The woman was the daughter of a chief. She had married a man of her own tribe, but after he fell in battle she married a Scotch trader, named Powell, who lived among the Creeks. When the time came for the flight of the Red Sticks her heart turned to her people. She enjoyed too much the glory of being a trader's wife to give up her position and her home without much bitterness. But she was too true an Indian to desert her tribe. As her husband had no notion of leaving his trading station among the Creeks, she had left him and her blue-eyed baby and had come with her kindred, bringing with her her little son, a true Indian, the child of her first husband.

The boy played at shooting wild turkeys with black Jim that day, and many times afterward. As time pa.s.sed he thought less and less of the blue-eyed sister and more and more of his comrade with a black skin.

II. THE FLORIDA HOME

These Red Sticks were not the first wanderers who had sought homes and safety in Florida. For some fifty years bands of Indians enticed by the rich hunting grounds, or driven by the persecutions of the Creeks, had left their kindred in Georgia and Alabama to try their fortunes in Florida.

They had found other tribes in possession of the peninsula, but the newcomers were more warlike and soon made themselves and their claim to the land respected by the natives. Indeed, the immigrants soon came to be looked upon as the ruling people. They were called Seminoles, which means runaways.

The Seminoles would not attend Creek councils. They refused to be bound by treaties made by the Creeks. In all ways they wished to be considered a separate and distinct people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEMINOLE INDIANS]

Among the Florida Indians there lived a people of another race, the Maroons or free negroes. In those days Florida was owned by Spain.

Therefore, American slaves once safely within its borders were free men.

They became Spanish subjects and their former masters had no power to reclaim them. Florida formed a convenient refuge, and slaves were sure of welcome there, especially if they were willing to exchange a white master for a red one. Most negroes were glad to do this, for the slaves of the Indians were happy, independent slaves. Their chief duty to their masters was to raise for them a few bushels of corn each year. Though the Indians in general regarded themselves as superior to the negroes, the two races of exiles felt strong sympathy and affection for each other. They lived in the same manner, observing common customs. They fought together against a common enemy. They even intermarried.

But the country was extensive and only thinly settled; and so, notwithstanding the frequent increase of their force by Indians and negroes, warriors were still more valuable than land in the eyes of the Seminoles. The tribe of Red Sticks that went to Florida in 1808 was received with great friendliness.

The Indian woman with the silver beads soon married another brave, and went to live on a "hammock" near Fort King, not far from the place where Ocala now stands. She took with her her son. He was called Powell by some who remembered his stepfather, the trader. But his mother called him Osceola, which means the rising sun. Osceola grew up loving Florida as his home. And, indeed, it was a home that any Indian might have loved.

The climate was healthful for the Indians, and so warm and pleasant that clothing was a matter of small concern. The soil was rich, and corn and koontee were to be had in abundance. The forests were full of deer and small game.

A few skins thrown over some poles afforded sufficient protection for ordinary weather. But if rains made a more substantial dwelling necessary the palmetto furnished material for posts, elevated floor, and thatched roof.

Not least among the advantages of the Florida home were its wonderful waterways leading off through dense mysterious forests, where strange birds called and strange plants grew--a labyrinth full of danger for the intruder, but a safe and joyous retreat for the Seminole floating on the dark water in his dugout.

Though the Indians could have lived comfortably in this country without much effort, the Seminoles did not choose to live in idleness. They saw the flourishing farms of the Spanish settlers and wished to have farms of their own.

So it happened that when Osceola was a boy he saw the Indians around him make the beginnings of what they believed would be permanent homes. He saw them cultivate the soil and tend their herds of cattle and horses and hogs. He watched them build their dwellings and storehouses--palmetto lodges without walls for themselves, substantial log cribs for their corn and potatoes.

When a child, he imitated not only the warriors and hunters, but made cornfields of sand with tall gra.s.s spears for cornstalks, and built "camps" and corncribs out of little sticks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FISHING WITH A SPEAR]

As he grew older he often hoed the corn and ground the koontee and drove the cattle. He did cheerfully the work of a farmer, though he liked best to hunt and fish and explore. He had a strong boat made by burning out the heart of a large cypress log. In this he often glided swiftly and noiselessly down some stream where the salmon trout lived. He held in his right hand a tough spear, made of a charred reed with a barbed end.

When he saw a fish almost as large as himself close at hand he hurled his harpoon at it with all his force. And the fish darted off, leaving a trail of crimson in the clear water and dragging the boat behind it; for the boy clung to the end of the spear and soused the wounded fish in the water until its strength was exhausted. Then with the help of a friend he dragged it into the boat, and began to watch for another fish.

Osceola was so energetic that he enjoyed work for its own sake. He had unusual endurance, and could keep at work or play long after others were tired. He was a famous ball player, and distinguished himself at the green corn dances. There he drank without flinching such large draughts of the bitter "black drink" that he was nick-named by some "a.s.seola,"

which means "black drink."

Once when acting as a guide for a party of Spanish hors.e.m.e.n he asked them why they rode so slowly. They told him that as he was unmounted they traveled easily to accommodate him. He laughed and replied that they might go as fast as they liked, they would hear no complaint from him. At this they spurred their horses to a livelier pace. Then seeing that Osceola still seemed to be making little effort they rode faster and faster to test his swiftness and strength. They were soon convinced that the young Indian had made no idle boast, and rode the entire day as if all the members of the party had had horses. When they reached the end of their journey Osceola seemed less tired than the hors.e.m.e.n.

Osceola was not only active and enduring. He was also generous and helpful. His bright face, his frank manner, and true kindness made him a great favorite with all who knew him, Indians, negroes, or white men.

III. THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR

When Osceola was a light-hearted boy of twelve, with kind impulses toward every one, something happened to rouse in him a bitter hatred, a thirst for blood.

During the War of 1812 large numbers of negroes in the South took advantage of the general excitement to make good their escape from bondage. The Indians welcomed them and shielded them from bands of slave hunters that made sallies into the Spanish territory for the purpose of recapturing them. In this the Indians were aided by the British, who saw an opportunity to make trouble for the republic on its southern border, while the United States troops were occupied on the Canadian frontier. A British agent built a strong fort on Spanish soil on the Appalachicola River. After the close of the war the British withdrew and left the fort, well filled with ammunition, in the hands of the Indians and negroes.

The Seminoles and their negro friends rejoiced over this. They could not foresee the doom that this fort was to bring upon them.