Early Life and Education
Osceola was named Billy Powell at birth in 1804 in the Creek village of Talisi, now known as Tallassee, Alabama, around current Elmore County. "The people in the town of Tallassee...were mixed-blood Native American/English/Irish/Scottish, and some were black. Billy was all of these." His mother Polly Coppinger was the daughter of Ann McQueen, whose mother was mixed-race Creek and whose father James McQueen was Scots-Irish. Ann was likely the sister or aunt of Peter McQueen, a prominent Creek leader and warrior.
Many sources, including the Seminole, say that Osceola's father was William Powell, an English trader. While the Creek had intermarried with European Americans as part of their strategic alliances, the Seminole, formed later as a tribe, forbade intermarriage with whites.
Osceola's maternal great-grandfather was James McQueen, who was Scots-Irish and in 1714, the first European to trade with the Creek in Alabama. He stayed in the area as a trader, married into the Creek tribe, and became closely involved with the Creek. He is buried in the Indian cemetery in Franklin, Alabama near a Methodist Missionary Church for the Creek Indians.
Because the Creek are a matrilineal culture, McQueen's children were absorbed into their mother's clan and reared as Creek. They gained their status from their mother's people. His son Peter McQueen became a warrior and leader of the Red Sticks in the Creek War. His daughter Ann McQueen married Jose Coppinger. Their daughter Polly became the mother of Osceola, from her marriage with an English trader, William Powell.
In 1814, after the Creek were defeated by forces of General Andrew Jackson, Osceola and his mother moved from Alabama to Florida, together with other Creeks. In adulthood he was given his name Osceola ( /ˌɒsiːˈoʊlə/ or /ˌoʊseɪˈoʊlə/). This is an anglicised form of the Creek Asi-yahola (pronounced ); the combination of asi, the ceremonial black drink made from the yaupon holly, and yahola, meaning shout or shouter.
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