This is a draft. It is published so it can be read and corrected, not because it is finished.
Chipco
Echo Emathla Chopco, generally known as Chipco, a chief of the Tallahassee band of the Red Stick Upper Creeks. He is the best-documented Seminole leader of the Peace River and Kissimmee interior in the nineteenth century.
Life
Born in Alabama between about 1800 and 1805, he fled to Florida after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814 and, after his father’s death in 1818, settled in the Peace River country near what is now Bartow. He fought in the engagement of 28 December 1835 that opened the Second Seminole War. Through both that war and the Third, he and his band evaded deportation. He died near Lake Pierce on 16 October 1881, reported as around a hundred years old.[stone-chipco]
The Bartow Informant recorded at his death that when Billy Bowlegs and his companions were deported in 1858, “Chipco and his band managed to elude their pursuers, and have since lived here and there in the Kissimmee country.”[stone-chipco]
Where his camps were — and were not
His documented villages and camps are at Thonotosassa, near Fort Gardiner on the Kissimmee (1850), an island in Lake Hamilton (1855), an island in Lake Marion near Haines City (1856), Tiger Creek at Lake Hatchineha (about 1866), and Catfish Lake and Lake Pierce (about 1872 to 1881).[stone-chipco][hmdb-chipco]
Every one of these is in what is now Polk County. None is in Highlands County. The Daughters of the American Revolution marker to him stands near Winter Haven, in Polk County. He belongs to this region’s history, not to this county’s, and should not be claimed otherwise.
How his band lived
They traded hides, furs, bird plumes, jerked venison and beadwork at Tampa, and were still making regular trading visits there in 1879 and 1880 — a generation after the wars. A visitor in April 1880 described a camp of eighteen people who cultivated twenty acres, raised corn, potatoes, sugar cane and hogs, and lived in palmetto houses.[stone-chipco]
A caution on the source
The fullest account of Chipco available online is by the local historian Spessard Stone, who lists his own sources — including Mahon’s History of the Second Seminole War, Covington’s The Billy Bowlegs War, Canter Brown’s Florida’s Peace River Frontier, and the Casey Papers. That is far better practice than most web local history, but the underlying works have not been consulted here.
References
- stone-chipco — Spessard Stone. Chipco: Tallahassee Chief. 30 August 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~flhardee/chipco.html
- hmdb-chipco — The Historical Marker Database. Chief Chipco historical marker, Winter Haven, Polk County. 30 August 2026. https://www.hmdb.org
Related
- Report: Seminole occupation and the Seminole Wars in what became Highlands County
- Finding: Catfish Lake Seminoles ranged northward and westward with no documented camps, cow pens, or trails toward Lake Istokpoga
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- Spessard Stone, Chipco: Tallahassee Chief (2026)
- The Historical Marker Database, Chief Chipco historical marker, Winter Haven, Polk County (2026)
Something here wrong, or incomplete? The Society would rather know. Tell a volunteer.
Have a question about this record?