Billy Bowlegs III

Billy Bowlegs III
Cofahepkee
Photo of Billy Bowlegs III in 1911
Born	Billie Fewell c. 1862 near Lake Istokpoga, Florida
Died	1 December 1965(1965-12-01) (aged 102–103) Brighton Reservation, Florida, U.S.
Resting place	Ortona Cemetery, Ortona, Florida
Occupation	Historian Trader
Height	6 ft 2 in (188 cm)

Billy Bowlegs III, Billy Fewell, aka Cofehapkee (c. 1862–1965), was a Seminole historian of mixed Indigenous American and African American descent from Florida.

According to an interview with Bowlegs, he was born along the Arbuckle Creek where it meets Lake Istokpoga.^[1] He was named Billie Fewell at birth, and was also known by his Seminole name, Cofehapkee. He was the son of an Indigenous Seminole father and a Black Seminole mother. His maternal grandmother, an African-American slave woman named Nagey Nancy, was taken captive by Seminole warriors during the Second Seminole War and adopted into the tribe.^[2] He was a member of the Snake Clan.^[3][4] His mother, Old Nancy, was killed in 1889, along with several other members of the Snake Clan, by his uncle, Jim Jumper, in the Jim Jumper massacre.^[5]

Bowlegs lived on the Brighton Seminole Indian Reservation after it was established,^[6] near Lake Okeechobee in present-day Glades County.

As an adult, he renamed himself after Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco), a prominent Seminole chief during the Seminole Wars. A Black Indian, Bowlegs became an elder in the tribe. He learned and taught much about the tribe's history. In the late 1800s, Bowlegs was one of the few Seminoles in Florida who knew how to write and speak English, and he often traded with White Floridians.^[7] Bowlegs would marry a Seminole woman named Lucy, the grandniece of Chief Chipco.^[8]

Bowlegs befriended James Mallory and Minnie Moore Willson, who moved to Florida in the early 1880s. They became advocates for the Seminole. The couple described him in their book, The Seminole of Florida, 1896.^[9] He wanted to improve their understanding of the tribe's culture. The Willsons helped gain approval in 1913 by the Florida state legislature for a 100,000-acre (400 km²) reservation for the Seminole in the Everglades. They testified on the Seminole's behalf to the federal government in hearings in 1917. In the mid-1950s, he performed traditional dances at the Florida Folk Festival in Union County, on the Suwannee River.

Bowlegs was buried in Ortona Cemetery in Ortona, Florida.

A historical marker honors Billie Bowlegs III, also known as Chufi Hajo, near Moore Haven. It is located at the intersection of U.S. 27 and State Road 78. It was erected by the Polk County Historical Commission and the Seminole Tribe.^[10]

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  Historical marker
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  Color photo of Billy, circa 1949, photograph by Joseph Janney Steinmetz
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  Sepiatone photo of Bowlegs in 1913

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Billy Bowlegs III.

• Foreman, Ronald. First citizens and other Florida folks: essays on Florida folklife. Tallahassee: Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs, 1984.
• note: Both the historical marker and the historical marker database record his name as Billie not Billy.