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Okah Tubbee (William McCary)

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Oddity

The Resume

    (1811-1854)
    Born in Natchez, Mississippi
    Birth name was Warner McCrary
    Escaped black slave; convert to Mormonism
    Posed as a half-breed Indian Chief, the 'lost' son of Choctaw chief Mushulatubbee, to obtain a license as 'a free person of color'
    Toured various frontier and eastern cities as a musician and lecturer before joining the Latter-Day Saints (LDS), settling the Winter Quarter in Nebraska (1845)
    Was expelled from the LDS Church after repeatedly claiming to be a prophet (1847)
    Life events were depicted in the narrative, 'A Sketch of the Life of Okah Tubbee, (Called) William Chubbee, Son of the Head Chief, Mosholeh Tubbee, of the Choctaw Nation of Indians,' published by his wife, Laah Ceil Tubbee (1852)

Why he might be annoying:

    Details as to his subsequent life and death remain unknown (although his death date is usually pegged around 1854).
    He was a traveling 'quack doctor' who conned gullible medicine seekers and sectarian revivalists who attended his 'sideshow' act.
    His family constantly had to relocate due to almost regular malpractice lawsuits which would put them in debt.
    He went by a host of bizarre aliases, including William Chubbee, William Chubbee King, Julius McCary, William McChubby, and War'ne'wis Ke'ho'ke Chubbee.
    He married a Native American woman with Delaware and Mohawk tribal to better pass as 'something-other-than black.'
    After joining the LDS, he took on a second wife while still married, this time the prominent white daughter of a community leader (of course, given the company he was in this was more than acceptable).
    He passed himself off as a warlock-like prophet, claiming to have the power to appear as various Biblical figures, or figures who appear in the Book of Mormon.
    It is still hotly debated as to whether or not his behavior led the LDS Church to officiate the controversial policy pertaining to blacks, two years later (and which would remain on the books until 1978).
    He was expelled from the Winter Quarters on charges of apostasy but only settled a short distance away peeling away followers from the main community to form his own sect of Mormonism.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was a skilled ventriloquist and flutist.
    He was conceived by a slave woman with her master, a white carpenter.
    He escaped his Natchez slave plantation by hopping a riverboat.
    For a period, he made a living selling cigars at the Leeds Foundry waterfront in New Orleans.
    He was reportedly fluent in 14 different languages and proficient in over 50 musical instruments.
    He and his wife managed to outsmart a white-dominated slave-owning society by masquerading as Choctaw shamans.
    He was illiterate his whole life, but risked his free status by publishing a (presumably dictated) broadside in a Detroit newspaper taunting a man who had denounced him as 'a quack.'
    He related in his memoir traveling to Florida, on at least one occasion, to visit the Creek and Seminole Indians, opining that settlers 'would never give up the chase until the Indian was no longer an inhabitant of that soil.'
    He can't take the blame for the passage of the Elders' racist policy - blame guys like Cain and Ham, instead!
    In fact, in the first sermon following McCarey's banishment, one of the Elders called him 'a black man with the blood of Ham in him which lineage was cursed as regards the priesthood.'
    He is known for being a racial 'Trickster' by academia, and even has his own playing card in the Asian American Literary Review's 'Mixed Race in a Box.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 8 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 18 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying