User:Afh1858/Wild Cat (Seminole)

Early Years and Family History
Wild Cat's (Coacoochee) exact year and place of birth is unknown. Seminole scholars believe he was born between 1808 and 1815 on an island in Lake Tohopekaliga, south of present-day Orlando. After the United States purchased Florida from the United States in 1821, tensions mounted between the Seminole and new white invaders, who took Seminole cattle ranches. (CITE MONACO) Because Seminoles allowed slaves to live in their own family compounds and to work cattle, black slaves from neighboring Georgia did escape to Florida. Members of the powerful Wind clan, Coacooche's parents were King Philip (or Emathla) and his wife from the Micco Nuppa family. Wild Cat may have had a twin sister who died at birth. As a twin, he was regarded by Seminoles as having special gifts. Before the Second Seminole War began, he and his family moved to a Seminole village along the St. Johns River in northern Florida, along with other Seminoles who had chosen to resist removal to Florida.

Second Seminole War, 1835-1843
The U.S. began the Second Seminole War December of 1835, with the expressed goal to find every Seminole village, destroy it, and send any living Seminole to Indian Territory. The war's first battle was a successful Seminole raid on U.S. Army's Major Frances Dade's two companies of soldiers. Only 4 men survived and the deaths of 106 U.S. troops put the Seminole war and its warriors on the front pages of U.S. newspapers. As a young adult and the son of a micco, Coacoochee joined raiding parties against Florida white settlers and US Army forts.

Wild Cat's father, Emathla or King Philip was captured by American soldiers in September of 1837, and imprisoned at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina. After his father died in 1838 and the more visible leader Osceola was imprisoned in 1837, Wild Cat became the most important leader of the Seminoles. Newspapers reported that Wild Cat's band of warriors included both Seminoles and formerly enslaved people and that he was especially crafty as a leader. After Osceola's capture in 1837, Coacoochee appeared before American forces in a ceremonial peace headdress, claiming to be an emissary of the war chief Osceola. After he negotiated with Colonel Thomas S. Jesup, American authorities agreed to peace talks, but when the Seminole representatives arrived without weapons and intending to agree to a peace treaty, Jessup ordered their arrest. While imprisoned at Fort Marion, Wild Cat escaped with nineteen other Seminole. They reportedly fasted for six days until they could slide between the bars of their jail cell; they then dropped from the walls into the moat on the outside of the fort.

The Second Seminole War ground on for six long years. Many Seminole leaders and war chiefs were jailed by the Americans, including Osceola, Huithli Emathla (Jumper), and King Philip, Emathla of St. Johns River town, who was Coacoochee's father. They all died at Fort Marion Prison in 1838. Even though many Seminoles had tired of fighting and the constant defensive moving of villages, cattle, and cornfields, Coacoochee took lead of the group that resolved to stay. As the most visible Seminole figure remaining in the war, soldiers and newspaper men described their outspoken antagonist as handsome, charasmatic, dangerous and crafty.

Indian Territory after War and Removal
When Coacoochee arrived in Indian Territory in 1841, like the other Seminoles he was assigned land in a community long settled by Osage people and recently given to Muscogee Creeks. Because of his lineage and efforts in the war, he became one of several miccos (leaders). Now aged about 25, he met with Major Ethan Allan Hitchcock, now inspecting Fort Gibson, and decided to locate his people in the Cherokee Nation rather than settling on the towns along the North Canadian River within Muscogee territory.

'''in 1849, Coacoochee and John Cowaya, who had known each other in Florida, led a group of Seminoles and their Black kinspeople to Mexico. They sought freedom from Creek domination and hoped that the Black Seminoles might get liberty from slavery. After spending several months in Texas, the Seminoles joined up with some Kickapoos, and crossed over into Mexico in 1850. The mixed group of Native people, about 351 strong, was hired by the Mexican government to work as border guards in Piedras Negras. Coacoochee, the Seminoles, and the Kickapoos received a land grants of 70,000 acres in return for patrolling against Lipan Apaches and Comanches and to protect former slaves who had escaped from Texas.'''

Several months later Coacoochee (Wildcat) returned to Indian territory and recruited 30 to 40 more Seminole families along with nearly of the Black Seminoles who remained in Indian Territory. They all arrived at the new military colony in the fall of 1851 and built several towns surrounded by fields, animal pens, and fences. Within a year, 356 blacks, mostly fugitive slaves had settled in the community.

'''The Seminoles who had remained in Indian Territory received their own land and tribal independence in the Treaty of 1856. Even though that treaty had given Seminoles access to land not part of either the Muscogee Creek or Cherokee land, own land, Coacooche remained in Mexico until his death from smallpox in 1857. Mexican Seminoles began returning to Indian Territory'''

Legacy

Today, the aftershock of removal continues for the Seminole Nation, especially with issues relating to black tribal members.

FROM DADE MASSACRE article: In 1837, Louis Pacheco, the mulatto slave who guided and interpreted for the Dade command, resurfaced and gave a third eyewitness account of the battle. Pacheco had been ahead of the column, by his account, and was taken prisoner by the Indians. Some thought him to be a turncoat or informer. He was shipped west with the Indians about that time, but returned to Florida shortly before his death in early 1895.