by David Harp
Chapter 14
Billy Bowlegs
Mathew Jackson invited Daniel Naidoo on a trip to his grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving when they were eight years old. Matt described the trip to Arcadia as a great adventure including a holiday feast, crazy relatives, and a secret spot to find Indian arrow heads. Depending on your point of view, that was the time Matt either received a supernatural gift or suffered a severe brain injury. Either way, that is when he started talking to a dead Indian.
It was a chilly forty degrees at 5 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning in Wildwood. The house bustled with activity as the Jackson family dressed, packed, and loaded the car. Dan had stayed overnight at the Jackson’s home and Matt’s parents decided it would be easier to let Dan and Matt sleep until the last minute. Matt was the youngest of four children. His older brother Chip was sixteen, his sisters Diana and Lee were fourteen.
Matt’s mother was a Christian, but his father was a Deist who rose to the level of 32nd degree Scottish Rite Noble in the Masonic Lodge. He taught Matt to trust in reason, analysis, and individualism.
It was still dark when the car backed out of the driveway to begin the adventure. Matt and Dan peered quietly out the station wagon’s back window with an unobstructed view of the sky. They gazed in awe at the stars and without uttering a request were served a delicious breakfast of egg salad sandwiches with hot chocolate.
The three-hour drive to Arcadia was even more fun than Matt promised. His parents pretended to be official tour guides pointing out historic landmarks. Matt’s favorite milestone was Dade Battlefield. The manicured green meadows surrounded by tranquil forests stood in stark contrast to the site’s tragic history. This was the location where a band of Seminole Indians ambushed Major Francis L. Dade’s column of soldiers, killing all but three.
After endless choruses of a thousand bottles of beer on the wall, squabbling, and repeated calls for potty breaks, Matt’s parents were relieved when they reached Arcadia. The long gravel driveway sounded like popcorn under the tires as the car moved slowly past trees plump with oranges to a shady parking spot behind the massive grey house.
There was no other house in Florida like it. The elder Jacksons’ home was a remarkable salute to concrete, built to withstand the most powerful storm. With the help of a few able-bodied men, Matt’s Grandfather Osa Jackson designed and built the entire house from the ground up.
Every handmade concrete block weighed over fifty pounds. As a foreman with the Seaboard Railroad, Osa was able to obtain numerous sections of track. He drove the steel rails down through the block walls deep into the earth to fortify the structure. Matt’s father joked, “Someday when they try to tear this old house down, somebody’s gunna get one hell of a surprise.”
Grandma Jackson led the welcoming party to the back porch. Grandpa Osa brought up the rear behind a myriad of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
There was Matt’s Great Uncle Al Masters. He was a pudgy, distinguished looking man who wore thick glasses on his large bulbous balding head. He took great delight in amazing the children with his science demonstrations.
Matt claimed his Aunt Henrietta was the best cook in Florida. The house was filled with the wonderful fragrance of fresh baked pumpkin pie and the sound of people laughing. Aunt Henrietta’s husband was a tailor from Palermo, Sicily. He was a sweet man, but Matt’s brother Chip teased Dan by saying he was a member of the Sicilian mafia.
The Presbyterian Church of Arcadia held a covered dish luncheon on the banks of the Peace River on Friday after Thanksgiving. Dan was invited to join the family in what they described as a feast of food and fellowship. A prominent cattle rancher offered his land each year for the celebration. He owned over a hundred-thousand acres that remained uninhabited since the Seminole Indians were forced off the land at the end of the Third Seminole War. The property was wild and undisturbed but one area had been cleared for the annual buffet.
The trip required a long drive down a dusty trail. Mr. Jackson called it a dirt road but he was being generous. The excursion offered an endless panorama of boring saw palmetto bushes. Dan’s backside was getting sore and he started to wish he hadn’t come when it appeared in the distance.
“It” was a forest oasis along the banks of the Peace River. The contrast couldn’t have been more intense between the miles of rattlesnake-infested scrub and the lush green hills of ancient oak trees along the river.
After the car was parked and the food unloaded, Matt scurried into the woods with Dan following close behind. He made a beeline for a clearing where several arrowheads were found the previous year. Heavy rains the past week turned the normally docile river into a dangerous bubbling cauldron. Matt led the way through the dense jungle. They emerged on the banks of the river near a large oak tree which had fallen on its’ side and was hanging over the water.
The wide limbs beckoned like an irresistible siren calling the boys to venture out for a better view. Matt was the first to scurry to a position twenty feet from the shore. His foot slipped as he looked back.
Dan saw him fall and heard a loud thud from his head hitting the limb on the way down. He was certain Matt would drown when his body disappeared beneath the surface.
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The next thing Matt remembered was being surrounded by a thick white fog. It wasn’t hot or cold. It wasn’t windy or still. There were no sensations of pain or pleasure, no odors or sensations of any kind, pure thought. He knew it must be a dream, but didn’t remember going to sleep.
A stranger was standing in front of him. Matt wasn’t afraid partly because the man looked like the ghost of Christmas Present, a jolly soul dressed in bright robes with a big feathered hat.
“Who are you?” Matt asked without uttering a word. He didn’t understand it, but by some means was communicating without actually speaking.
“Your people call me Billy Bowlegs. You may call me Chief.”
“Like an Indian?” Matt asked, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“Yes,” the man replied.
Matt sat still as the Indian approached and put his hand on his shoulder. Matt realized this wasn’t physical reality, but he knew intuitively it was genuine on a much deeper level.
“You may think of me as a guardian angel or better still, ‘spirit guide.’ I will help you two more times after today, but first I will tell you a true story.”
The chief looked at Matt carefully as if picking a melon in the market, “You have been chosen to make a difference.”
“A difference in what?” Matt asked.
“You’ve heard of the Dade Massacre?” The Chief asked.
“I’ve been to the battlefield!” Matt eagerly responded, wanting to show off his knowledge. “That’s where a band of Indians massacred a troop of American soldiers, but what’s that got to do with me?”
The Chief shook his head slowly in resignation. Then he sat down to begin his story.
“I am a descendant of the Creek nation, but some of my ancestors lived in this place eleven thousand years before the white man. They numbered over one hundred tribes. Then the Europeans brought disease and war. Most of our people were dead in less than two hundred years.”
“In 1816, the First Seminole War began when General Andrew Jackson invaded North Florida on behalf of the United States.” The Chief paused for a moment, his face turned away from Matt.
“The general was a relative of yours.” He turned back toward Matt. “Do you know how the United States ended that war?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer.
“The British were trading partners with the Seminoles, so the U.S. soldiers pretended to be British by flying a British flag. The two most important Seminole Chiefs were captured when they came to trade.”
Matt sat up straight, “You mean the soldiers cheated?”
The Chief paused and took a slow breath. “The white soldiers were very good at deception.” He looked directly into Matt’s eyes, but didn’t say a word. Ma
tt watched it unfold, the sad history between the ancient Americans and the newly arrived Europeans.
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Many Indians were forced from their lands to areas farther south. The Treaty of Moultrie Creek created a four-million-acre reservation for the Indians. It wasn’t a fair solution, but it was an honest attempt by the Europeans to find a way to coexist with the ancient inhabitants.
Predictably, some Indians refused to stay on the reservation. Most didn’t understand or accept the European concept of property rights. The Europeans didn’t abide by the treaty either. Some settlers encroached on the remaining Indian land. To make the situation worse, escaped slaves joined the Indians, so slave-hunters raided Seminole villages searching for them.
The treaty had failed within five years. The U.S. Congress decided to relocate all Seminoles from the Florida peninsula to a settlement west of the Mississippi, forcibly if necessary.
Some Indians refused to leave even though they were far outnumbered by the soldiers. The only way of life they had ever known was being taken from them.
On December 28, 1835, a band of warriors joined forces with escaped slaves to attack Major Francis L. Dade’s column of one hundred and ten soldiers. It became known as the Dade Massacre. The Indians thought they had won a great victory, but when Chief Osceola arrived under a flag of truce, he was captured and sent to South Carolina to die in prison. A few Indians who moved further south managed to escape. It didn’t matter where they went, the white settlers were close behind.
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The Chief spoke with deep sadness. “I led two hundred brave warriors to their death in the Third Seminole War.”
“You must hate white people,” Matt whimpered.
“No,” the chief said. His tone was not filled with hate or anger, but with compassion.
“I don’t understand.”
The Chief looked at Matt, “Weren’t you taught to love your neighbor as yourself?”
Matt nodded yes.
“And I was taught that we are all children of the same Great Spirit. We are brothers and sisters. The moment we forget our oneness, we can justify anything. We can take another man’s property, even make him a slave.”
“Can you forgive us?” Matt asked meekly.
“There is nothing to forgive,” the Chief replied. “We’ve all failed at some point to recognize our oneness and have paid the price through spawned retribution, lost cooperation or overlooked opportunities. We are members of the same family. Our refusal to recognize that bears its own punishment.”
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For a brief moment Matt imagined humanity as members of the same loving family. Then he remembered how often he fought with his brother and sisters.