The Story Of  Brave And Gallant Man......

Osceola (Black Drink), also known as William Powell. The great Seminole leader, was a man of peace whom war was thrust----a war precipitated by congressional passage of the Indian Removal Bill in 1830, which was designed to shift southeatern iIndians to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. Among the tribes facing removal were the Seminoles of Florida, who a majority of had already been forced to occupy an inadequate reservation.

Seminole resistance to removal gradually centered around the handsome, powerful, and brilliant young warrior, Asi-Yahola, or Osceola, as white men called him. he was niether a chief nor born a Seminole. A refugee from the Creek War of 1813-1814, he had migrated from Alabama to Florida with a band of Creek fugitives. After the First Seminole war in 1818, he joined the Seminoles, married a lovely girl called Morning Dew, and hoped for peace.

Continued and stubborn resistance to removal by Osceola and tribal chiefs led to the Second Seminole war, which began in 1835 and ended in 1842. (Actually, this bitter war never ended in formal peace!)

Osceola was the seminole war leader during the critical years. At no time were there more than 1,500 Seminoles engaged, but the United states put 40,000 soldiers in the field during the period. The war cost the government $40 million, and the white death toll exceeded 1,500. In one slashing attack after another, Osceola and his warriors battered white military positions, constantly harassing the soldiers with clever guerrilla tactics.

Unlettered and untrained except through experience and rare intelligence, Osceola successfully fought the best officers of the U.S. Army---among them Generals Duncan Clinch, Winfield Scott, E.P. Gaines, and Thomas S. Jesup.

During October 1837, General Jesup agreed to a parley with Osceola under a truce flag. Osceola attended the meeting, but Jesup disregarded the truce flag and had the Seminole leader arrested. It was one of the blackest stains on American military history. Osceola was imprisoned at Fort moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, where he died of malaria on January 31, 1838, at the age of thirty-four.

Nevertheless, many of his inspired followers carried on the conflict. His spirit, the memory opf his determination to hold tribal lands, kept seminole bands fighting as late as 1855.

Although Osceola was captured at last through trickery, he never surrendered, and his people as a nation, were never conquered. The war he fought was the only war the United States failed to win against the Indians.

The story of Osceola is an eloquent and inspiring testament to one man's singular courage and dedication to the cause of his people. And it has sad and ironic parallels in twenty-first century America where the Indian is still fighting to regain his rightful place in stature and society.