It was painted by Karl Ferdinand Wimar c. 1858…
Karl Ferdinand Wimar was a German-American painter who concentrated on Native Americans in the West…
Wimar primarily painted the themes of Indian life on the Great Plains…
The states that make up the Great Plains are typically considered to be:—
North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana (the eastern part of the state), Wyoming (the eastern part of the state), and Colorado (the eastern part of the state)
Now, I have reason to believe, that this Native American (“half breed”) man is a Seminole, by looking at his headdress…
Some might say, “But the Seminoles were in Florida, not in the West on the Great Plains”
The Seminole people migrated to Indian Territory (which is now part of Oklahoma) during the 1830s…
This migration was the result of the forced relocation known as the "Trail of Tears," which was part of the broader U.S. government policy to remove Native American tribes from their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States to make way for European-American settlement…
Now, there is another portrait by Karl Ferdinand Wimar titled “Chief Billy Bowlegs” c. 1861, located in the Saint Louis Art Museum…
“Charles Ferdinand Wimar portrays the Seminole chief Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) with a group of men, advancing through the dense vegetation of the Florida Everglades”
Who were the Seminoles???
"Whenever a seminole appeared darker than his fellows, it was said that his Yamasse ancestry was showing"
SOURCE;
(The Florida anthropologist by the Florida Anthropological society volume 23; 1970)
"...the Yamassee Indians were negroes, what were known afterwards as the fiercest of the Indians tribes of the South..."
SOURCE;
(Congressional serial set By United States. Government Printing Office, 57th Congress 1st Session. House of Representatives, Document No. 179 Report of the Industrial Commission on Agriculture and Agricultural labor, Washington Government printing Office year 1901 page. 824)
So, dark skinned or black Seminoles descended from Yamasee negroes…
What did Billy Bowlegs look like???
How was he described in firsthand sources???
“Another great chieftain was Micanopah, described as part negro and very dark...Billy Bowlegs his nephew, was also part negro”
SOURCE;
(‘Opportunity’ Volumes 12-13; 1934)
“Billy Bowlegs” was part negro, or a “Half Breed” just like his portrait says…
Holata Micco meaning Alligator Chief; known by whites as Chief Billy Bowlegs, was an important leader of the Seminoles in Florida during the Second Seminole War and was the remaining Seminole's most prominent chief during the Third Seminole War, when he led the Seminoles' last major resistance against the United States government…
With the possibilities of military victory dwindling and facing starvation, he finally agreed to relocate with his people to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in 1858...
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