Osceola
Osceola (Maskókî—Black Drink singer, ca. 1804–1838), Native American war leader.Osceola was born into the Tallassee tribe of Maskókî speakers (called Creeks by the British), whose village was near present‐day Tuskegee, Alabama. He was never a chief.
Dispossessed by Andrew Jackson's settlement of the Creek War of 1813–14, he and part of his family migrated southward into the Spanish Floridas. His plight and passion captured the imagination of the U.S. press, which romanticized Osceola as a symbol of Indian resistance to forced removal. Acquisition of the territory by the United States in 1821 increased tensions, and the young warrior spoke vehemently against the treaties by which the United States sought to confine Florida Indians to peninsular reservations. Imprisoned for several days by U.S. Indian agent Wiley Thompson in 1835, Osceola determined to fight removal. Along with tribal...
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