October 20 was the last day Osceola was free to walk the sands and oak hammocks of his beloved Florida.
On October 21, Osceola arrived, with about 100 fellow Seminoles, including some women and children, at a camp about a mile south of Moultrie Creek. He had come, once again, to talk to the leaders of the United States Army about seeking a solution to the almost two years of war that had cost thousands of lives and the near total destruction of a way of life for both the Seminole nation and the settlers in the young Florida territory.
General Joseph Hernandez, the commander of the Florida Militia, was ordered by General Thomas Jesup, commander of the Federal forces, to meet with Osceola and demand that he surrender and agree to leave Florida.
When Hernandez, and 250 soldiers, arrived at the camp of the Seminoles, Osceola was standing under a white flag, a common sign for a truce and a time to talk. In fact, Jesup had himself provided the cloth for the making of these truce flags, assuring the Indians that with this sign, they would be able to come and talk without fear of injury.
When the soldiers arrived at the camp, Osceola could not speak. Although a young 33 years of age, two years of war and lack of adequate food and shelter had taken its toll. Coa Hadjo spoke for Osceola and told the General that the Indians had come for good and sought peace. Hernandez gave a prearranged signal and the soldiers moved in so quickly no shots were fired, and the entire party was captured.
That same day, they were all marched into St. Augustine and imprisoned in Ft. Marion where several other leaders, including King Philip, were already held. Almost the entire city turned out to see the procession and the prize catch, Osceola, dressed in a bright blue calico shirt, red leggings buttoned on the outside, a bright print shawl around his head and another over his shoulders. An Army surgeon reported that he did not look well and one account of an old soldier reports that he was knocked down with a musket butt and bound.
A few weeks later, his family joined him, his two wives, their two children, and a sister. They remained with him for the next two months in Ft. Marion where his health continued to fail. On one level, it was certainly the result of the malaria he had contracted earlier in the year from an abandoned US Army post; most certainly, it was aggravated by a broken and weary heart.
In early November, a party of Cherokee chiefs arrived in St. Augustine, brought by the Army to try to convince the Seminoles to cease fighting. Facing each other, seated on benches in the courtyard of the fort, the leaders of the defeated Cherokee nation faced the leaders of the Seminole nation, but, much to the chagrin of the Army officials, failed to convince them to surrender.
In late November, the fiery young warrior, Coacoochee and 17 others managed to escape from the fort, the only successful escape in the bastion's 300 year history. The old folk song "Osceola's Lament," by Florida's Black Hat Troubadour, the great folk singer Will McLean, tells the story of how Wild Cat, as Coacoochee was called by the whites, pleaded with Osceola to go with him. But Osceola could not, and instead charged Coacoochee to go ahead, return to the forest and continue to fight, which he did for another two years.
In late December, Osceola, and the other Seminoles remaining in the fort, were placed on a ship for Charleston and were imprisoned there in Ft. Moultrie. On January 31, 1838, dressed in his best with ostrich feathers and silver medals, surrounded by family and friends, he died and was buried outside the fort's walls. A white doctor, who was attending Osceola, cut off his head, embalmed it and brought it back to his home in St. Augustine. If one of his sons needed punishment, the doctor would hang it on the child's bedstead at night. Later the doctor gave it to his son-in-law, who in turn presented it to another man, both of whom were doctors. No one knows what became of it, but it is believed to have been destroyed in a fire of the owner's office in New York City in 1866.
But while his head may have been desecrated, legend has it that in the mid-1960's, his body was removed, under cover of darkness by unknown supporters, and is today buried, peacefully, in a secret grave in Florida.
So tomorrow begins the remembrance of Osceola's last days in Florida and his last days on Earth. But his name lives; in this nation that sought to destroy him, there are streets and avenues, towns and counties and townships, lakes and mountains and schools, state parks and forests and mountains that bear his name.
And his name lives in the hearts of all who have seen the morning dew on a palmetto frond, or have heard the cry of the osprey or the late night squawk of the Great Blue Heron, or have seen the golden evening sun slice across a lake and into moss draped live oaks or have felt the cool spring waters that flow so freely from so deep in the earth he loved so much.