Cry from the Swamp

by Arnie Powell, J. Allen Fielder (Editor)

From author Arnie Powell comes a timely, well-researched, historical-fiction narrative of the famed Seminole war chief, Osceola, whose life is depicted in an intimate close-up that is as faithful to the historical literature as is possible. It is a story of the Second Seminole War, which was a genocidal war in early America, and a story of love and loss set against the backdrop of that war. The antagonist, as in real life, is Andrew Jackson -- a past President that everyone loves to hate. Jackson was crass and crude, and was also the first populist president. The lives and fates of Jackson and Osceola were intertwined from the defeat of the Creek Nation in 1813, through the Second Seminole War, until the latter died while imprisoned at Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan Island, across from Charleston, SC. After his death, Osceola was decapitated by an Army surgeon and his headless body was buried outside the fort. A simple gravestone at the entrance to the fort Osceola; Patriot and Warrior; January 31, 1838.

There are many ironies in the story -- for instance, Osceola was only one-eighth Native American; Jackson's own letters describe the Seminole War as a "Negro War;" this was the only American war in which a treaty of peace was never signed, Osceola was captured under a flag of truce, etc. The action ranges from the swamps of Florida to the halls of Congress and the Parliaments of Europe. Millions of people readily recognize Osceola's name, but few know any details of his history or heroics. There are counties, cities, national forests, golf courses, and much more named in his honor. Hundreds of books and articles have been published, including coloring books. Even country music has embraced Osceola, as in Anderson's "Seminole Wind." As a real bonus, the reader and viewer will gain a deeper understanding of the soul of a president whose face is plastered on every twenty dollar bill.

Dallas Arnold Powell, Sr. (1944-2013) – “Arnie” to his friends – was a native Floridian, graduate of the University of South Florida, earned his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Nebraska at the age of twenty-six, and as a tenured professor taught courses in statistics and theoretical psychology as a Professor at Columbus College, Georgia (now Columbus State University). He was a respected, published author in his field, culminating in co-writing his seminal work, Theory of personality and individual Factors, systems, and processes (1983) at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. A few years later he left academia and, besides some fishing columns in a local paper in Destin, Florida, never published again.

If his psychology theory represented his life’s work, this book represents his dream which is finally fulfilled. He first wrote the manuscript for this novel on a manual typewriter in the late 1980s, after much painstaking research before the Internet.

This work is published posthumously by the author's only son, Dallas A. Powell, jr., who edited the manuscript and researched it to confirm historical accuracy.

470 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 30, 2022