Jim Boy

Jim Boy
Jim Boy, chief of the Autsi, Red Sticks prophet (Charles Bird King, c. 1836)
Born	c. 1792 "On the Tallapoosa River," possibly at Autsi
Died	1851 (aged 60–61) Creek Nation, Indian Territory
Other names	Jim Boy High Head Jim High-Headed Jim Gun Boy "Tustennuggee Emathla or Jim Boy, a Creek chief" Tuskegee Sanota Kasita Hadjo
Title	Headman of Hoithlewaule Headman of Clewalla Headman of Thlobthlocco Cussetaw Haujo Cusseta Hadjo Tustennuggee Emathla Tȧstȧnȧgi Imała Justen Nuggee Emathla

Jim Boy, or High Head Jim, (c. 1792–1851) also called Tustennuggee Emathla and Kasita Hadjo, was a 19th-century Native American leader of the Creek Confederacy (Muscogee, Mvskoke) 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; it translates very roughly to warrior of experience and rank. His portrait is plate 6 in volume 11 (P27759) of McKenney and Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America. His many names have complicated his biography; most sources assert that that Jim Boy and High-Head Jim are the same historical character, but in 2006 historian Christopher Waselov wrote "The Creek who rescued McGirth was Jim Boy, possibly the same man known as High-Head Jim, though probably not."