Wild Cat (Seminole)

[3] Members of the powerful Wind clan, Coacooche's parents were King Philip (or Emathla) and his wife from the Micco Nuppa family.

[7] As a young adult and the son of a micco, Coacoochee joined raiding parties against Florida white settlers and US Army forts.

Wild Cat's father, Emathla or King Philip was captured by American soldiers in September 1837, and imprisoned at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina.

[11] Wild Cat and several other leaders continued to fight the U.S. Army for two more years by using Florida's swamps and heavily forested interior to regroup and plan attacks.

"[12] When Coacoochee arrived in Indian Territory in 1841 with his remaining 200 followers, like other Seminoles he was assigned land in a community long settled by Osage people and recently given to Muscogee Creeks.

Now aged about 25, he met with Major Ethan Allan Hitchcock, now inspecting Fort Gibson, and decided to locate his people in the Cherokee Nation rather than settling on the towns along the North Canadian River within Muscogee territory.

Coacoochee, the Seminoles, and the Kickapoos received a land grants of 70,000 acres in return for patrolling against Lipan Apaches and Comanches and to protect former slaves who had escaped from Texas.

Earning a commission as Colonel in the Mexican army, Wild Cat would live with the Seminole in Alto, Mexico until his death of smallpox in 1857.