Osceola

Osceola (1804-January 20, 1838) was a leader of the Seminole Indians in Florida. Osceola led the vastly outnumbered Seminole resistance during the Second Seminole War when United States tried to remove the Seminoles from their lands.

Relics of Osceola

After his death, army doctor Frederick Weedon removed Osceola's head and embalmed it. He also persuaded other Seminoles to allow him to make a death mask and kept a number of objects Osceola had given him.

Related Topics:
Frederick Weedon - Embalmed - Death mask

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Captain Pitcairn Morrison took the mask alongside other objects that had belonged to Osceola and sent it to army officer in Washington. By 1885, it ended up in the anthropology collection of the Smithsonian Institution, where it currently remains.

Related Topics:
Pitcairn Morrison - Smithsonian Institution

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Later, Weedon gave the head to his son-in-law Daniel Whitehurst who, in 1843, sent it to Valentine Mott, a New York physician. Mott placed it in his Surgical and Pathological Museum. It was presumably lost when a fire destroyed the museum in 1866.

Related Topics:
Surgical and Pathological Museum - 1866

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in 1966, Miami businessman Otis W. Shriver claimed he had dug up Osceola's grave and put his bones in a bank vault in order to rebury them at a tourist trap in the Rainbow Springs. Shriver traveled around the state in 1967 to gather support for his project. Archaeologists later proved that Shriver had dug up animal remains - Osceola's body was still in its coffin.

Related Topics:
1966 - Otis W. Shriver - Rainbow Springs

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Some of Osceola's belongings still remain in the possession of the Weedon family, while others have disappeared. The Seminole Nation bought Osceola's bandolier and other personal items from a Sotheby's auction in 1979. There are also forged items and claims of an intact head.

Related Topics:
Bandolier - Sotheby's

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