Dust is Robin Croskery Howard’s enemy. She is the Objects Conservator at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum at Big Cypress Reservation in south Florida.

We met her as she used a small brush on a piece of 20th century wrapped canvas art. Her work is methodical as she cleans the art in grids. Her touch is light and steady on the objects she painstakingly preserves.

It’s a trip to the museum vault where we see a most incredible treasure. With the most certainty possible, the museum heads believe they are now the caretakers of a sash from the great Seminole warrior Osceola worn in the 1800s. 

In the 1830s Osceola was negotiating with U.S. forces in St. Augustine, Florida.

There was a truce, but they imprisoned him and his people and moved them north. He died at U.S. Army Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

Osceola was a beloved warrior, though many books mistake his title as a Chief, he was not. He led his own group of fighters. Museum Director Gordon “Ollie” Wareham explained when mothers found out their sons were traveling and fighting with Osceola, they would be relieved, knowing their boys would return home.

The sash, made of wool with a lightning design, ended up crumpled up in a tiny envelope, with a little tag, for more than a century. The people who discovered it during an estate sale felt it belonged back with the Seminoles.

Four years ago, Croskery Howard got the crumpled sash.

“So the first thing we did after we got it was to work on flattening it,” said Croskery Howard.

They accomplished this using plexiglass. Other conservators helped to clean it and realign the wool fibers in some of the broken lightning design areas.
They traced the ownership of the sash through the former owners, and the name on the envelope in which it was stored. They looked through paintings, descriptions and inventories too, all to be the most confident to say they believe it is indeed Osceola’s sash.

After the restoration, museum officials laid it out for display. The tassels on the sash are in a curved design around the sash’s main finger-woven design.

“You are seeing a piece of history. This is a part of the story of the Seminole people that live here.” said Croskery Howard.

It tells the story of the unconquered Seminole people. They are called The Unconquered because the U.S. Marines abandoned their directive to remove all Native Americans from the Florida after three wars in one century failed. Hundreds of Seminoles remained, slipping deeper into the Everglades for survival.

Quenton Cypress, the Seminole Tribe Community Engagement Manager for the Heritage and Environment Resources, asked me during a 2019 interview if anyone really believes the soldiers counted the Seminoles they couldn’t find or kill.

During a special installation ceremony during Native American Heritage Month, visiting Māori Tribal members from New Zealand offered their own special blessings in song and ceremonial prayers to honor the warrior, along with a Native American flute performance from Museum Director Gordon “Ollie” Wareham.

“His Legacy, his story, has moved many to appreciate the Seminole and their story and their narrative,” said Wareham.