Osceola - The Great Seminole Chief

Osceola was chief of the Seminoles during the Indian Wars of the 1830s. Treacherously imprisoned by the U.S. Army under a flag of truce, the 35-year-old warrior died of tuberculosis at Fort Moultrie within months. Osceola's valor and the circumstances of his last days made him a folk hero and an example of the United States' misguided policy toward the native population. Osceola's features reflect his mixed blood; his paternal grandfather was a Scotsman who married a Creek woman. In this later copy, Curtis idealized Osceola's features, giving them a distinctly European cast. His breastplates and beaded belt, contrasted with the cotton shawl and headwrap, underscore the uneasy mixture of Osceola's American Indian and European ancestry.