What’s in a name? What is blood? A special drink steeped from the Yaupon Holly bush was prevalent in several Native cultures of the Southeast. Highly caffeinated, this “Black Drink” or “Asi” had several ceremonial purposes; among them was a drink before battle. A few years ago, an editor contacted me to see if I knew anything about asi or anyone producing it commercially. I’d not heard of it, but of course, I had to investigate, which led me down a highly unexpected trail that left me here, telling the story of how what would now be considered a “domestic terrorist” became radicalized.
In 1804 William and Polly Powell had a son. William was an English trader in the village of Talisi, Mississippi Territory, currently known as Tallassee, Alabama. The inhabitants of Talisi were a mix of Scots, Irish, English, Black, and Native and between William and Polly, William Jr, or Billy as he was known, checked most if not all of those boxes. Polly was a Creek, and per their matrilineal system, this conferred Billy into Polly’s clan, and she raised him as such.
In 1813 a civil war started within the Creek nation that resulted in two factions; Red Sticks, who wanted war with the US, and White Sticks, who didn’t. A year later, the Red Sticks suffered defeat at the hands of Andrew Jackson’s forces, and all of the Creeks, Red and White Stick alike, were forced to cede 23 million acres of their ancestral land to the US. It mattered not what marriage or paternity lent to a person’s ethnic makeup; a single drop of Creek blood was enough to divest a person from their land. Polly and Billy found themselves refugees and moved south to Spanish Florida with other Red Sticks, eventually joining the Seminole.
Three years later, Andrew Jackson was back again, in what would later be known as the First Seminole War, leading US forces into Florida to “harass” the Seminole and allied fugitive enslaved people to reclaim escaped “property.” This harassment was just a piece of an ongoing effort to gain US control over Florida, considered a haven for free and escaped Black people at the time. The US signed an agreement in 1819 to take Florida off of Spain’s hands and took complete control of the territory in 1821.
The Seminole and their allies, unfortunately, occupied the part of Florida that whites considered to be most conducive to the plantation economy. In the conflict over land between anglo versus Native and Black, I think we can all guess who the winner was. In 1823 the US Army removed the Seminole and their allies from the “cotton counties” and onto Florida's sparsely populated peninsular part. The land reserved for the Seminole stretched from Ft King, present-day Ocala, to Ft Brook, present-day Tampa. A buffer surrounded the reservation to prevent the Seminoles from reaching the coast, where they might trade with the Spanish from Cuba or the Brits from the Bahamas.
By 19 years of age, Billy had gone from living freely to being a refugee, back to living freely, and then forced onto a reservation. It’s understandable how one might start to foster a mild resentment toward white people after all of this. Billy gained two wives and a new name in the next few years, not in any particular order. The mixed-race Billy Powell became the Seminole, Asi-Yahola. As mentioned before, asi translates to black drink while yahola means “shout” or “shouter” in the Muskogee tongue. Some stories around the name say that it was a ceremonial position, rounding up people for an asi ceremony by yelling; others imply that he might have enjoyed the effects of the asi a little too much. I’m going with the latter, simply because it suits. As multiple words are often too difficult for the lazy anglo tongue, Asi Yahola became known to white people as Osceola.
Just nine years after the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, which relegated the Seminole to the reservation, there was another treaty on the table. The 1832 Treaty of Payne’s Landing dictated that all Seminoles were to relocate to the “Indian Territories” in three years, should the Seminole chiefs find the territory agreeable. Three big problems with this. First, the Seminole weren’t precisely what one could call monolithic. They were an affiliation of groups and villages that had leaders, but those leaders in no way spoke for the whole. This decentralized concept was confusing to the Americans, who only drew from European-style governance for reference. Second, the proposed land in the Territories was directly adjacent to the White Sticks. It was the government’s opinion that the Seminole were just Creeks on vacation and everyone would get along just fine and dandy, neglecting the fact that they’d fought a civil war just 20 years earlier. Never mind that many of the Seminole were not Creek. Many were from the Miccosukee or Hitchiti, who originated in the same area and shared a common language but not familial clans.
Third, the leaders that did go to the Territories signed the treaty by coercion and later recanted, the first two points be damned. A fourth big point is shamefully often overlooked in the history books. Any Blacks living with the Seminole would be sold into enslavement. The justification for the enslavement policy was that the Black people living among the Seminole were either fugitive enslaved people or the children the same. As such, any Black person was the fruit of ill-gotten gains. This policy was especially loathsome because many Seminole families were of mixed Native/Black ethnicity or family. Families could be torn apart and sold and the determination of Black or Native was a completely arbitrary decision made by the Americans. The Seminole balked hard, and the government flexed. While some leaders reluctantly agreed to have themselves and their people voluntarily removed, others like Osceola were appalled by the idea of enslavement and relocation, adamantly refusing all terms of the treaty, and prepared for more severe measures.
It’s not supported by documentation, but there are statements out there that one of Osceola’s wives was black and therefore subject to direct enslavement. Whether that is true or not, it is known that Osceola had a deep hatred for the institution of slavery.
Wiley Thompson was the “Indian Agent” at Ft King in charge of the reservation. He and Osceola shared a friendship for a time, with Thompson even giving Osceola a gun when he complained that being prohibited firearms was akin to subservience. When faced with signing a new treaty of Thompson’s creation, some antiquated and embellished stories portray Osceola stabbing the treaty with his knife. Thompson ordered him arrested for his refusal and held him prisoner at the fort for his defiance. Eventually, agreeing to the terms of the treaty, he was released. But instead of preparing to move, Osceola disappeared into the wilds.
December 1, 1835, was the date set by Thompson as the last day for any Seminole leaders to sell their cattle and other agricultural goods at Ft King in preparation for removal. Charley Emathla, one of the leaders who had gone to Oklahoma and ultimately signed the first treaty, was returning from selling his cattle when he encountered Osceola on the road. In a display of disgust, Osceola killed Charley, scattering the money from the cattle sale over his dead body. Tensions, which were already high, were reaching a peak.
On December 28, things jumped off. Wiley Thompson liked to take a walk outside the fort's walls each morning. That morning, while on his constitutional, he failed to notice a band of Seminole fighters in the woods before Osceola put a bullet through him. On the same day, two companies of reinforcements under the command of Major Francis Dade were about halfway through a march from Ft Brooke to reinforce Ft King. General Duncan Clinch, the commander of Ft King, had removed most of the garrison to guard his private plantation a few miles from the fort in case of impending hostilities. Near present-day Bushnell, 300 Seminole fighters, led by Micanopy, Alligator, and Jumper, attacked the American troops, killing 105, with only three survivors. The Second Seminole War was on. Had Clinch not been serving his self-interest, the reinforcements would not have been necessary, and we would never have heard of the Dade Massacre. Of course, history only calls these massacres when white people do the dying.
Still unaware of an organized revolt on his hands, Clinch walked into an ambush at the Withlacoochee River three days later. Osceola’s fighters routed the US troops with only light casualties. Entire fields of study revolve around the Second Seminole War, so it’s not my place or purpose to go deep into the details. It’s enough to know that the war lasted for seven years, burned through eight American generals, and was the costliest “Indian War” in history. Ultimately, it was a war of attrition, with most of the Seminole leaders agreeing to be relocated solely because of exhaustion and starvation. A surrender treaty was never signed.
Osceola’s part was shorter-lived. Although his reputation was legendary and he was deeply feared in the hearts and minds of the American public, his people were tired and hungry. and he reached out to General Joseph Hernández (who might be a story on his own at a later date) to negotiate a truce. Approaching Ft Peyton, near St Augustine under a flag of truce on October 21, 1837, Hernández seized Osceola and his people under direct orders from Commanding General Thomas Jesup. In this act of Great American Bullfuckery, 80-ish people were taken that day. It mattered not if they were fighters (many of whom were Black), women, or children. All taken under a white flag. There was a general public outcry and congressional condemnation about this later, but extra shipments of thoughts and prayers were the direct response to public indignation, even then.
Osceola and his people were imprisoned at Ft Marion (Castillo San Marcos) in St Augustine for a short time. After their arrival, Coacoochee (Wildcat) and 19 other Seminole escaped their imprisonment at the fort in late November. Although Osceola was not among them, Jesup did not want to risk a high-value asset such as him and ordered Osceola to be better secured elsewhere. In late December, approximately 200 Seminole, obviously including Osceola and also leaders Micanopy and Philip, were relocated to Ft Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island at the mouth of Charleston Harbor.
To memorialize the feared “noble savage,” Robert Curtis was sent to paint Osceola’s now-famous portrait. He donned his finery, earrings, plumed hat, silver courgettes, leggings, and garters and sat for the painter. He was dead by the end of January. Malaria and an infection caused by tonsillitis in a pre-antibiotic world took down the acclaimed fighter. He’s buried at Ft Moultrie, but not completely. White folks hadn’t had enough of causing him indignities.
Army doctor Fredrick Weedon created a death mask of Asi Yahola as a tribute to the great warrior before burial. For reasons unknown, he also decapitated his corpse and embalmed his head. Osceola's head-in-a-jar passed from father to son-in-law, (as etiquette dictates for dismembered parts of famous dead people,) before it ultimately settled on display in the Surgical and Pathological Museum in New York City in 1843. It remained there until 1866, when fire destroyed the museum.
Asi Yahola’s story is not unique in this country, then or now. A modern American pastime is clutching pearls and wondering why someone would snap in such a way. Be it a Native revolt almost two centuries ago or the BLM protests of 2020, people fail to see the years of people’s treatment as less-than by policy, word, and institutions. They simply feel a little less safe in the world and refuse to examine why.
Why in the name of Zeus should it be shocking to anyone? It’s simply a question of which of the multitudes of indignities will be the flashpoint.
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