Seminole Leader. Osceola's early life is largely unknown. It is believed he was born in Alabama to a Creek mother and a British father when he went by the name Billy Powell. He and his mother were among the many Creek displaced after the 1813 Creek War. They fled from Mississippi Territory to Spanish-owned Florida. The blended nation of the Seminole incorporated the refugee Creek, as they did so many other refugees, including runaway slaves, which drew the hostility of powerful American slaveholders. He took the name Osceola as a young man, a name meaning black drink singer. Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1819 following the First Seminole War, during which Osceola came to prominence. He led those who opposed the 1832 Treaty of Payne's Landing, by which some of the Seminole chiefs agreed to submit to removal. In 1835, he orchestrated the assassination of Chief Charley Emathla, who had agreed to removal, and General Wiley Thompson, the Indian agent at Fort King. The Second Seminole War fought from 1835 to 1842, proved Osceola to be a talented tactician and capable leader. He defeated General Duncan Clinch at the Battle of Withlacoochee in December 1835 and managed to lead his followers, including noncombatants, while eluding multiple armies. In October 1837, Osceola and several chiefs went to St. Augustine under a flag of truce to attend a parley with General T.S. Jesup. The group was seized and imprisoned. Jesup's treacherous act was condemned by many in Congress, and he was vilified by the international press. Osceola was imprisoned at Fort Marion, where, in December 1837, about twenty Seminole warriors escaped from their cells. Osceola, suffering from malaria, was too weak to escape. He was then transferred to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, where he succumbed to a combination of illnesses, including quinsy (acute tonsillitis), at about age 34. The doctor in attendance apparently made a death mask and then removed and embalmed Osceola's head. The mask eventually found its way to the Smithsonian's anthropology collection before being moved to the Luce collection of the New York Historical Society. The head allegedly went to the Medical College of New York, where it was apparently destroyed in a fire in 1865. Numerous schools, landmarks, towns, and counties have been named for him, not only in Florida but in New York, Iowa, and Michigan as well.