"RUMORS" & "FACTS" ABOUT BILLY
BOWLEGS
June 1999
RUMOR:
Actually there were 3 different
noted individuals who went by the name Billy
Bowlegs.
______
The
Billy Bowlegs associated with the Seminoles: He was a Seminole by the
name of Holata Micco born around 1810 and died 1864. He never was a pirate.
Billy
Bowlegs (Holata Micco)
(circa 1810--circa 1864)
Seminole leader
John McClees (1821-1887)
Photograph, 1858
The available evidence indicates that Billy Bowlegs was part of a ruling
Seminole family and that his emergence as a primary leader of his people during the second
Seminole War (1835-1842) was due in large part to his birth. But Bowlegs also earned his
rank, and it was thanks to his skill in negotiation and delay tactics that his people were
able to withstand for many years, efforts to force their removal from Florida to the
Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
Ultimately the pressure for removal became too great. After leading his people
in the Third Seminole War (1855-1858), Bowlegs finally agreed to take them to the Indian
Territory. Shortly after the Civil War broke out in 1861, he turned to protecting his new
home from Confederate attempts to control it, and spent his last years serving as captain
in the Union Army's First Indian Regiment.
______
The second was William Augustus
Bowles. Bowles was
stationed in Pensacola with the British army. He was later taken in by the Creek Indians
and given a privateering commission by the British. He was on board the HMS Fox when
she ran aground on St Georges Island.
______
The third was William Rogers. He was one of Lafittes men.
Many books have been written about this pirate. He was rumored to have been
married to a Choctaw Indian. He is buried in Mary Esther, Florida near an air base.
Around 1910 treasure hunters smashed into his grave and found 2 pots of gold buried
in his grave and located an unusual looking tree in the cemetery, which when hit with an
axe, poured out silver dollars. He was with the privateer Jean Lafitte in New Orleans and
helped Prophet Sam Jones fight the Seminole wars in Florida. When Sam Jones took his tribe
deeper into the Everglades and never surrendered to the U.S. government or made a treaty
with them, Billy took several hundred thousand dollars and went with his family group to
Oklahoma.
He eventually came back to Florida as a pirate and did well - was married to an
Indian woman and lived a simple fisherman's life while a pirate "on the
weekends". When he died, everyone searched feverishly for his treasure. Ferris
LaVerne Coffman did not salvage the Mysterio but he said he thought he located it.
FACT:
June 4th - 12th, 1999: Sprint Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival
Fort Walton Beach, FL. Pirate invasion, fireworks, torch light parade, lots
more. Pre-invasion (June 4th) Capt. Bowlegs & pirates enter the City Landing by boats
and has a brief encounter with the city militia assisted by the Walton Guard, (a black
powder rifle brigade). Under a flag of truce Bowlegs will attempt to negotiate the
surrender of the city with the city mayor. The city will pull some dastardly trick and
Capt. Bowleys and his men will retreat. There is always some fireworks during this and is
well attended by the public. Invasion of the city (June 5th) The city always loses and
RUMOR:
Was there a pirate called Billy Bowlegs? Supposedly he wrecked with treasure
on or near St. George's Island. I know there was a Seminole Indian Warrior from that
area's history. Looking for the Pirate. Anyone heard of him?
Billy Bowlegs Rodgers was born in England to a wealthy family. Not the
Indian Bowlegs. He was the black sheep of the family and ran away from home to
become a pirate. A British gunboat finally caught up with him in the northern Gulf
of Mexico and Rodgers set fire to his ship, the Mysterio. He and his men escaped
with gold and silver from six ships that he attacked in the Gulf and Caribbean but he
abandoned the heavy stuff in the sinking ship.
This ship was located by Bud Worth of Ft. Lauderdale and salvaged by him and
F.L. Coffman in 1956. Studies I did some time ago indicates that Bowlegs tried to
make a run between St. George and St. Vincent when his ship was sunk by the
British. I understand that he went back home to the Pensacola area. His wife
was ill or died and he gave up the search for the treasure. Supposedly there are
some brick remains of some structure on St. Vincent (eastern point) where the remains of
his campsite still remains. I know that in recent years a gentleman (who knew
nothing of the Bowlegs story) told me of one of his shrimp-boat captains snagging
something heavy in that very area. When the winch got it to the surface they found
it too heavy to get in. It was an anchor with a wooden cross-piece. You figure it out.
FACT:
The grave of
"Captain" Billy Bowlegs...
FACT:
RECOLLECTIONS
OF A REBEL REEFER (the original link):
There are certain events in a child's life which make an impression that time
itself cannot efface. One of these is so vivid that, after a lapse of sixty-five years, I
can shut my eyes and again see a crowd of men and women standing on the river-bank wildly
gesticulating and vowing that they would be revenged upon a band of Seminole Indians who
were being transported from Florida to the Indian Territory.
Their chief, the fatuously cruel "Billy Bowlegs," was with them, and
so violent were the people on shore in their threats that the captain of the steamboat did
not dare to approach the shore. He was wise, as many in that excitable crowd, myself among
the number, had had relatives cruelly tortured and murdered by these same Indians in the
Seminole War. My uncle, Bedford Morgan, was one of their victims, having been scalped and
his body so horribly mutilated that it was only recognized by the fact that his faithful
dog stood guard over it...
FACT:
Anyone with knowledge or comments about this famous Local Pirate, please
send them to me via the contact page...
Thanks, Carl Bergmann
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