“THE WIFE AND CHILD OF OSCEOLA.”
G.F. Nicholls, sc.
This picture, painted by a North American Indian artist, has lately been brought to London by Colonel Sherburne, who has applied, through the American representative here for a channel by which to present the painting to the Queen. The picture portrays Pe-o-ka, the wife of Osceola, the principal War Chief of the Seminoles, in Florida, and her Son, on hearing of his treacherous capture under the white flag, his imprisonment, and death in a dungeon, by the American General, after a seven years' war with the Seminole tribe.
As a pendent, we give the following poem from Mrs. Sigourney to Colonel Sherburne. It is founded on an incident during the war with the Seminoles in Florida, and while the last struggle was being made to save their hunting-grounds and homes from the grasp of the white man. While Colonel Sherburne was in the Cherokee nation, completing treaty with that powerful tribe, which had for so many years caused great inquietude on the borders, and which he happily accomplished, he received instructions from the Government to take a delegation of the Cherokee Chiefs (with the assent of the Nation), and proceed to Florida, directly to the camps of the Seminole Chiefs, and endeavour to persuade them to bury the tomahawk, sign a treaty of lasting peace, and remove West. The success of Colonel Sherburne, and the termination of that long and bloody war, is already well known. Osceola, the principal war-chief, with his band, hoisted the white flag,, and, under this emblem of peace, took the trail for St. Augustine, there to close the treaty, but, when near Fort Payton, a few miles from St. Augustine, the chief and his warriors were suddenly surrounded by the American dragoons, dispatched by the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, and, not heeding the white flag, were seized, made prisoners, and marched under guard to St. Augustine, and there cast into the damp dungeon of Castle Marion. Some weeks after, the brave, young, heroic Osceola died of a broken heart, while surrounded by his wife, children, and weeping warriors, in a dismal dungeon. While sick, he gave to his friend, Col. Sherburne, his war plumes, turban, pipe of peace, and some other relics to remember him, also a lock of his hair. The day he died, his head was severed from his body, and placed in a vase of spirits, and now adorns the shelf of an apothecary in St. Augustine, Florida. His body was taken by the surgeons, and the headless skeleton of the chief may now be seen in the closet of a physician of note in Charleston, South Carolina. We may, therefore, well preface the beautiful lines of Mrs. Sigourney with the unanswerable question, Where is Osceola's grave?
Red Eagle of the southern sky, That dar'd the king of day! Who brought thee from thine eyrie proud To grovel in the clay?
High heart and brave! who struck thee down? No blood thy plumes distained, No arrow from the archer's bow Thy heaving bosom pained.
What check'd thy pinions soaring flight? What dimm'd thy piercing eye? Thy pale-fac'd brother knows the tale, But renders no reply.
Why plants he not some cypress tree O'er thy lone resting place? Why breathes he not the dirge for thee, Oh, noblest of thy race!
But lo! a sudden requiem flow'd, In wild unmeasur'd tide— For pitying nature gave the strain That haughty man denied.
A moaning bird from rifled nest Pour'd forth a tuneful lay, And with sed melody detain'd The ear of parting day.
So, where by balmy breezes fann'd The dark palmettos wave, That lonely minstrel pour'd its wail O'er Osceola's grave.
Thus fell Osceola, the Seminole War-Chief of Florida, after battling to defend his country (which had been held by his tribe for two centuries), with only about 1200 warriors, against 10,000 troops and 1200 horse, for seven years. At last, to make sure of the great Chiof, the American General condescended to take him by treachery, in which he succeeded, as appears above, which we take from an American paper.