Seminole Warrior
We honor Seminole leader Osceola today, the anniversary of his 1838 death.
Osceola led his people during the Second Seminole War (1835–42), when they opposed the U.S. government's attempts to remove them from their Florida homeland. After calling a truce, federal troops tricked and captured the Seminole leader in 1837 and sent him to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, where he died of malaria. In 1838, the same year Osceola died, artist George Catlin visited the prisoner at Fort Moultrie and painted this portrait. Catlin described the great leader as follows:
"I have painted him [Osceola] precisely in the costume, in which he stood for his picture, even to a string and a trinket. He wore three ostrich feathers in his head, and a turban made of a vari-coloured cotton shawl—and his dress was chiefly of calicos, with a handsome bead sash or belt around his waist, and his rifle in his hand.
"This young man is, no doubt, an extraordinary character, as he has been for some years reputed, and doubtless looked upon by the Seminoles as the master spirit and leader of the tribe, although he is not a chief. From his boyhood, he had led an energetic and desperate sort of life, which had secured for him a conspicuous position in society; and when the desperate circumstances of war were agitating his country, he at once took a conspicuous and decided part; and … acquired an influence and a name that soon sounded to the remotest parts of the United States, and amongst the Indian tribes, to the Rocky Mountains.
"This gallant fellow, who was, undoubtedly, captured a few months since, with several of his chiefs and warriors, was at first brought in to Fort Mellon in Florida, and afterwards sent to this place [Fort Moultrie] for safe-keeping, where he is grieving with a broken spirit, and ready to die, cursing white man, no doubt, to the end of his breath."
Source: William H. Truettner. The Natural Man Observed: A Study of Catlin's Indian Gallery (Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution Press in cooperation with the Amon Carter Museum and The National Collection of Fine Arts, 1979).
Pictured: George Catlin 1796–1872, Osceola, the Black Drink, a Warrior of Great Distinction, 1838, oil, 30 7/8 x 25 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.
We honor Seminole leader Osceola today, the anniversary of his 1838 death.
Osceola led his people during the Second Seminole War (1835–42), when they opposed the U.S. government's attempts to remove them from their Florida homeland. After calling a truce, federal troops tricked and captured the Seminole leader in 1837 and sent him to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, where he died of malaria. In 1838, the same year Osceola died, artist George Catlin visited the prisoner at Fort Moultrie and painted this portrait. Catlin described the great leader as follows: