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Uchee Billy or Yuchi Billy (unknown–1837, Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida) was a chief of the Yuchi Nation.The Yuchi nation has received such scant historical scholarly attention, that it was a significant event when they reported that Uchee Billy delivered a fatal shot to a U.S. soldier, Officer Lieutenant McNeil. His fate as a chief of the Yuchi nation was greatly altered at a temporary camp by a surprise attack of the U.S. Army during the Second Seminole War. The U.S. soldier killed was the nephew of President Franklin Pierce.

EARLY LIFE
Uchee Billy was born in the state of Georgia. He may have been descended from John Hicks, also known as Tuko-See-Mathla, a Mikasuki. The identity of the Yuchi nation experienced cultural upheaval between neighboring nations during the removal era. It was speculated that Mikasuki and Yuchi peoples relations were similar in their ethnographic constructs so it is likely that John Hicks fathered Uchee Billy and his brother Uchee Jack. The Yuchi culture and language is based on the foundation of the land. The preservation of language is a gift from the creator and has an irreplaceable value as it relates to Yuchi ancestors and the seven generations to come. The preservation of language relied heavily on oral traditions, dances, and busk festivals for sacred ceremonies and community healing. This is significant in that it provides a motive for The Yuchi chiefs to protect the sacred land along the southern banks of the Arkansas River.

CAREER
By 1818, Uchee Billy was recognized as chief by officers in the Andrew Jackson invasion during the Second Seminole War. The Flag of Truce was made between a son of King Philip, Uchee Billy, his brother Uchee Jack, several chiefs, and band members thus revealing their reason for traveling to St. Augustine. Another possible reason they were heading toward St. Augustine may have been for employment of Indigenous peoples in the Florida campaign, made by the secretary of war. Uchee Billy’s involvement in The Second Seminole War was a result of Indigenous resistance to the forced relocation out of their traditional territories and into a newly designated Indigenous territory. During the war, a mixture of over 100,000 army regulars and East Florida militia were utilized to capture and collect roughly over 5,000 Indigenous people. Indigenous peoples were resisting the settler’s expansion plans. The Niles’ National Register outlines the fact that Uchee Billy, his brother Jack, three warriors, women and children were taken on the intelligence received from African Americans.

The U.S. Army set out to capture Uchee Billy on 10 September 1837. The Americans sent five companies of troops. In the end, the troops captured King Philip, Tomoka John, men, women, and children. The American troops were guided to the camp near the Tomoka River by a Black Seminole. Two fifty-man columns guided by Tomoka John and commanded by Lieutenant Peyton McNeil circled Uchee Billy’s camp. They hid amongst the palmettos and waited to launch their attack at daybreak on September 11, 1837. They were 10 miles away from the camp which suggests that the Black Seminoles did not know the exact location. The dogs at the Yuchi camp began to bark, signifying that there were intruders approaching the camp. Yuchi peoples managed to fire a few shots after their dog’s warning. One of the shots fired by Uchee Billy fatally wounded Officer Lieutenant McNeil. The Lieutenant was the only military casualty in the exchange of fire between the opposing sides. It was later reported that Uchee Billy had fired first on Officer Lieutenant McNeil. The accounts of the event indicated that Uchee Billy fired the fatal shot at McNeil from a makeshift defensive structure made of bags of coontie roots, which provided the army with ample justification as to why they killed Yuchi warriors. The possible motivations for Tomoka John to participate in this excursion may have been for the purposes of plundering goods found in Uchee Billy’s camp. The morning’s attack was described by one of the participants as follows: “The wildness and interest of the scene were considerably augmented by the glaring eyes, streaming black hair and red painted faces of the [sic] Yuchi peoples, as they danced and skipped about in fruitless efforts to escape. They evidently had not the time to make their toilet becomingly, for the reception of the early visitors; for we found them either perfectly naked, or only half clad with hunting shirts, their faces however covered with war-paint.”

CAPTURE
A report from the Army and Navy Chronicle on September 13, 1837, said that Officer Lieutenant McNeil had been killed by Uchee Billy three days earlier. This establishes the location of Uchee Billy on September 10 and provides further detail as to how Lieutenant McNeil had died. The Niles’ National Register reported that the first shot was fired by Uchee Billy, and it was in fact, the fatal shot that killed McNeil. The Army and Navy Chronicle reported on September 20, 1837, that John Hicks and ten of his nation’s members surrendered and later became prisoners. He was imprisoned by Brigadier General Joseph Hernandez, commander of the East Florida Militia. Hernandez was led to the site by a Seminole brave, Tomoka John, who had been captured along with Seminole Chief King Philip two nights earlier at Dunlawton Plantation.[2] Uchee Billy along with his band was imprisoned in Fort Marion in St. Augustine, where Coacoochee and Osceola had also been held.[2]

A stone memorial marker was made commemorating the death of Officer Lieutenant John Winfield Scott McNeil of the 2nd Regiment of Dragoons, at the old Protestant graveyard at St. Augustine National Cemetery in Florida. The marker includes the name of Uchee Billy as McNeil’s killer, "killed by Uchee Billy". The Yuchi peoples’ surrender or capture became a priority for the U.S. military after the death of Officer Lieutenant McNeil.

DEATH
It was not reported how Uchee Billy died at Fort Marion in St. Augustine on November 25, 1837. His death occurred 66 days after his surrender. The attending physician Fredrick Weedon removed the flesh from Uchee Billy’s skull and kept it as a token. The same attending physician had decapitated Osceola, after his death at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina and kept in a jar of preservative.[4][5]