COMMANDER // 1790–1851
High-head Jim
Lifespan
1790 – 1851
Active service 1813 — 1 battle across 1 war; first command at age 23.
Profile
Jim Boy, or High Head Jim, also called Tustennuggee Emathla, was a 19th-century Native American leader of the Creek Confederacy in southeastern North America. He was associated with the Red Sticks political party within the tribe, and has been classed as one of the "prophets" of that era. He was "almost certainly" of mixed Creek–Black ancestry. He fought semi-organized American militia during the First Creek War, mostly notably at the Battle of Burnt Corn in 1813, and saved the lives of his adoptive mother and sisters at Fort Mims. Some 20 years later, during the Andrew Jackson administration, he was recruited by the United States Army to fight the Seminoles in Florida during the Second Seminole War, in exchange for promised money, debt forgiveness, and protection for his family back in Alabama. His wife, children, and slaves were deported while he was still in service; four of his children and three of his slaves were among the estimated 250–325 people killed in the steamboat Monmouth disaster on the Mississippi River in 1837. Following the expulsion and deportation of the Five Civilized Tribes from their ancestral lands east of the Mississippi, Jim Boy and his family settled on the Creek Nation land in what is now eastern Oklahoma. Tustennuggee Emathla, or Tȧstȧnȧgi Imała, is not exactly a name, but a title or rank; it translates roughly to hard-ass warrior.
Source · Wikipedia · Q138670599
Battles (1)
1813
Battle of Burnt CornCreek War · Red Sticks