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  13 - April - 2021
An MPOD Classic from from 13 April 2016


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2021 Fall Date Project

The MPOD Caretakers want to present meteorite falls on their fall dates. For example, Sikhote Aline on 12 February.

This Project will not dip into the MPOD archives so the Caretakers will appreciate anything you can contribute.

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Osceola   contributed by Mexico Doug   MetBul Link

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View all entries for   Meteorite (6)   Mexico Doug (12)


Copyright (c) Mexico Doug. All rights reserved..
Approximately 17 grams.   L6

TKW 991 grams. Observed fall 24 Jan 2016, Florida, USA.


Doug writes:
George Washington ordered Henry Knox, under advice by Thomas Jefferson, to to negotiate America's first international treaty with Alexander McGillivray, the most powerful Chief of the Creek Indians, and 26 other Creek Chiefs. The Creeks were escorted through the States with heroes' celebrations and displays of friendship, finally entering New York, the first national capital. The event with all its pomp, indelibly and exotically marked the City. McGillivray frequented the President's mansion at 39-41 Broadway and he slept nearby on Broadway at Knox's mansion, as the rest of the Chiefs were accommodated as visiting dignitaries in federal buildings including the Fraunces Tavern which played such an important role in the founding of the United States.

The intent was simple enough: To have a meeting of the Great Chiefs, Indian and Americans, to establish an everlasting peace and mutual respect of land rights for the entire Southwestern United States, speaking of Georgia, of course. It was Knox's and Jefferson's goal to encourage the Indians to merge their culture into in what was viewed as a win-win situation, as was already in progress transforming the Creek ways.

This just might have worked, had the Spanish not meddled with the treaty in efforts to destabilize the United States by offering McGillivray triple the royalties to break the treaty and and become their ally instead, as Texas was disputed territory and the Americans were beginning its settlement. The eternal peace Treaty was history in less than three years!

One unforeseen effect of the 1790 Treaty of New York was that the majority of Indians became politically more and more open to the American ways through acculturation and intermarriage, but there was a minority in the frontier areas, called Red Sticks, that did not. In these fringe areas, Europeans, escaped slaves and mixed tribes of Indians formed new groups, and they survived in part by a combination of trade and raiding of others' settlements. A number of these groups were called "Seminoles", which is a corruption of the Spanish word for them that's best translated by "Ferals".

This Indian split provoked an internal war among them that the British were quick to exploit during the War of 1812. The Redcoats wished to regain their former colonies by destabilizing the United States and acted in concert with Spain. The European powers encouraged and armed the Indians to raid the Americans and the friendly larger populations in the American allied tribes. General Andrew Jackson met the axis of enemies and his American forces prevailed. After the British abandoned their failed efforts, Spain continued to provide sanctuary for escaping slaves and arms to the Seminoles. Jackson briefly invaded Florida in pursuit of hostile Seminoles, overran the Spanish Port at Pensacola, and shot and hung two British privateers that were fomenting unrest and arming the Seminoles.

Spain counted on Britain's complicity ... but John Quincy Adams handled the situation in 1818, and the British decided to drop the issue of the barbarity of the murder of their two citizens, convinced that the Americans had due cause. That moment defined when British and Americans began their 200 year friendly relationship and Spain was left politically impotent.

Adams pushed the American advantage with the Spanish Crown's delegate in Washington, Don Onis, to negotiate resolutions for outstanding disputes with Spain. It happened and he decreed the resulting treaty would be signed on George Washington's birthday, February 22, 1819. The Adams-Onis Treaty included the sale of Florida to the Americans. The King of Spain dragged his feet for nearly two years before ratifying the Treaty, hoping for a change in the political climate. It only got worse. Spain ceremonially delivered the ratified Treaty on February 22, 1821 in Washington, again, on the anniversary of George Washington's 89th birthday. The renegade groups no longer had safe haven.

Like Alexander McGillivray, another 3/4 European blooded, multiracial renegade Billy Powell, Jr., a.k.a. Osceola, followed the matrilineal tradition of his mother's Creek tribe in present-day central Alabama. As a result of the Indian-European-American War, and his European father having abandoned the tribe, Osceola and his mother fled to Florida when he was an adolescent.

Osceola got by as a trader among his activities and also harbored a great animosity towards the Americans and Europeans. It is reputed that one day he arrived at a trading site with one of his two wives and she was thought an escaped slave, and Osceola was held as the situation was investigated. It is unclear whether this account is true of not, but Osceola befriended the US agent of Indian affairs who gave him a gift of a gun as symbolic of his friendship. After this point Osceola became an ferocious adversary. Osceola played along and then hid outside the fort where the agent worked. For several weeks, he counted the hours and days stealthily on a singular mission: To plot the agent's death. Finally, Osceola found a murderous opening and killed and scalped the befriended agent, just as another party of Seminoles massacred and scalped over 100 Americans which Osceola ignored, so he could focus meticulously on his vendetta.

Osceola was not a chief, but by 1830, he earned a place as a leader with his intelligence, prowess and hate which many viewed as understandable. The correct pronunciation of Osceola was closer to Asy-Holar, which translates basically to Coffee-Singer. He assumed this name from the native holly tea that packs 10 times the concentration of caffeine as coffee. I'm sure he didn't sleep much while waiting for his quarries, and he probably was a little jittery!

Osceola was captured infamously under a white flag. This cowardly indiscretion gave him immediate fame and compassion in the public eye. He was sickly when captured and needed urgent medical attention. He received it, but not as fast enough, after being moved by ship from Florida to South Carolina. During his SC detention, he had excellent quarters, care, and streams of curiosity seekers, intellectuals and other assorted visitors wishing him well, enjoying a celebrity status. Osceola was taken out to town, and even professionally painted, but died shortly thereafter on or about January 24, 1838 (178 years later the Osceola meteorite would memorialize this anniversary date), of his ailment, surrounded by his family. The cause was thought then to be quinsy, the same that took George Washington. At that point Osceola's story took root as one of the first American and European legends of the frontier American Indians, as his life was romanticized by various leading politicians, intellectuals and authors. His carved bust was displayed in front of stores claiming to sell the good cigars as well ...

Walt Whitman described Osceola's death in fancy clothing in refined verse; One of the foremost British adventure authors, Thomas Mayne Reid, rallied the Osceola craze across the Atlantic as the tales grew even taller. He wrote in the same sort of genre as the Egyptology craze, with Osceola's exotic image captivating Europeans of the time. Back home the physician that attended Osceola said the Seminole's relics belonged to him, so the good doctor detached Osceola's head and put it in preservation for profit from gawkers. The head was lost in a fire at a museum, in my opinion ... in the spirit of Pancho Villa who suffered an eerily similar fate where his head was lost in the present day Allende strewnfield.

A year after Thomas Jefferson died, in 1827, his grandson Francis Wayles Epps VII moved his family to Tallahassee, Florida, a settlement that has been established as a simple log cabin for the legislature to meet, at the half way point between Pensacola and St. Augustine three years earlier, which were a dangerous 1-2 month journey apart. The elder Jefferson poorly managed his finances and most were used to liquidate debts, and was the only heir to receive anything from Jefferson's will. After living in Monticello during his youth and having summer tutelage from and having Thomas Jefferson as his guardian after losing his mother at the age of three, Epps was not content to stay in the humble estate he received in Virginia, and he found adventure at the Florida frontier.

Francis was mayor of Tallahassee to clean up the lawless town and stayed in office until Florida was admitted as a state in 1845. Disliking politics, but following in his grandfather's example, he spearheaded liberal education in Tallahassee and the Florida Territory. During the Civil War, the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi not to fall was Florida's, but when the surrender was made, Epps personally delivered the town to American forces.

Francis founded and financed the school that has become Florida State University. In the symbol of Florida State University, a football powerhouse, we find Osceola's head, officially known as the Seminole Head. Their mascot is "Chief” Osceola who rides a fine horse named Renegade. The “Chief” carries a burning spear to the 50 yard line of their football home games and skillfully plants the arrowhead into the turf. FSU is an arch rival of the University of Miami. Our mascot is the Ibis, which has a knack for rescuing burning rocks in stormy swamps. The meteorite illustrated is about 17 g, never touched the ground, and there were no further rains since the initial hunters departed. It was discovered on February 22, 2016, George Washington's (284th) and Florida's (197th) birthday anniversary. :-)
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#1

Found at the arrow (green or red) on the map below

 


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Kenneth Regelman
 4/13/2021 4:25:23 PM
Beautiful Specimen. Tried to get to your website but does not link to it .
Mike Murray
 4/13/2021 1:39:10 PM
Nice write-up Doug, thanks for sharing it. Wow, a person would not be able to tell the true color of the inside of that piece going by the picture. It must have substantial secondary crust besides the crust facing in the picture. It's great that you have a piece of that fall. Thanks.
 

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