The Exiles of Florida. Giddings Joshua Reed

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СКАЧАТЬ sent to General Gaines, exhorting him to vigilance, caution and promptitude. He was on the southern frontier of Georgia, where it was naturally supposed the first blow, in retaliation for the massacre of Blount’s Fort, would fall. His scouts were constantly on the alert, his outposts strengthened, and his troops kept in readiness for action.

      The Seminole Indians had lost some thirty men, who had intermarried with the Exiles, and were in the fort at the time of the massacre. They entertain the opinion that the souls of their murdered friends are never at rest while their blood remains unavenged; nor could it be supposed that the Exiles would feel no desire to visit retributive justice upon the murderers of their friends. Long did this desire continue, in the minds of the surviving Exiles, until, many years subsequently, their vengeance was satiated, their hands were stained, and their garments saturated, in the blood of our troops.

      The surviving Exiles had their principal remaining settlements upon the Suwanee and Withlacoochee rivers, and in the Mickasukie towns. These settlements were on fertile lands, and were now relied upon to furnish provisions for their support during hostilities. Savages are usually impetuous; but the Exiles were more deliberate. Colonel Clinch had returned to Georgia; Sailing-Master Loomis was at Mobile Bay, and no circumstances demanded immediate action. They gathered their crops, obtained arms and ammunition from British and Spanish merchants, and made every preparation for hostilities. During the summer and autumn of 1816, General Gaines reported slight depredations on the frontiers of Georgia, but in February, 1817, he reported that larger bodies of Indians were collecting in some of their villages; and in one of his letters he stated that seven hundred negroes were collected at Suwanee, and were being daily drilled to the use of arms. This number of fighting men would indicate a larger population of Exiles than is warranted by subsequent information.

1817

      During the Spring and Summer, both parties were in a state of preparation – of constant readiness for war. A few predatory excursions to the frontier settlements, marked the action of the Indians and Exiles, while the army, under General Gaines, often sent parties into the Indian country, without any important incident or effect. The first effective blow was struck in November. A boat was ascending the Appalachicola river, with supplies for Fort Scott, under the escort of a Lieutenant and forty men, in company with a number of women and children. Information of this fact was communicated to the Exiles and Indians resident at Mickasukie, and a band of warriors at once hastened to intercept them. They succeeded in drawing them into ambush, a few miles below the mouth of Flint River, and the Lieutenant, and all his men but six, and all the children, and all the women but one, were massacred on the spot. Six soldiers escaped, and one woman was spared and taken to Suwanee as a prisoner. Here she was kept by the Exiles through the winter, and treated with great kindness, residing in their families and sharing their hospitality. She had thus an opportunity of learning their condition, and the state of civilization to which they had attained, as well as their desire to be at peace with mankind, in order to enjoy their own rights and liberties.

1818

      This massacre was regarded by the country as a most barbarous and wanton sacrifice of human life. The newspapers blazoned it forth as an exhibition of savage barbarity. The deep indignation of the people was invoked against the Seminoles, who were represented as alone responsible for the murder of Lieutenant Scott, and his men. Probably nine-tenths of the Editors, thus assailing the Seminoles, were not aware of the atrocious sacrifice of human life at “Blount’s Fort,” in July of the previous year. Even the President of the United States, in his Message (March 25), relating to these hostile movements of the Seminoles, during the previous year, declared “The hostilities of this Tribe were unprovoked,” as though the record of the massacre at “Blount’s Fort” had been erased from the records of the moral Universe. Notwithstanding our army had, in a time of profound peace, invaded the Spanish Territory, marched sixty miles into its interior, opened a cannonade upon “Blount’s Fort,” blown it up, with an unprecedented massacre, in which both Seminole Indians and negroes were slain, and two of their principal men given over to barbarous torture; yet, the President, in his Message, as if to falsify the history of current events, declared that “as almost the whole of this Tribe inhabit the country within the limits of Florida, Spain was bound, by the Treaty of 1795, to restrain them from committing depredations against the United States.” Such were the efforts made to misrepresent facts, in relation to the first Seminole War. With its commencement, the people had nothing to do; they were not consulted, nor were their Representatives in Congress permitted to exercise any influence over the subject. The correspondence between General Gaines and the Secretary of War, in regard to the occupation of the fort by the Exiles, had commenced on the fourteenth of May, 1815. It was continued while Congress was in session, in 1815 and 1816, but no facts in regard to the plan of destroying it, and entering upon a war, for the purpose of murdering or enslaving the Exiles, had been communicated to Congress or the public.

      Orders were now issued to General Gaines, authorizing him to carry the war into Florida, for the purpose of punishing the Seminoles. General Jackson was ordered to take the field, in person, with power to call on the States of Tennessee and Georgia for such militia as he might deem necessary, for the due prosecution of the war; and the most formidable arrangements were made for carrying on hostilities upon a large scale.

      Mr. Monroe had assumed the duties of President in March, 1817. He had appointed Hon. John Quincy Adams Secretary of State, at the commencement of his administration; but the office of Secretary of War was not filled by a permanent appointment, for some months, in consequence of Governor Shelby’s refusal to accept it, on account of his advanced age. It was finally conferred on Hon. John C. Calhoun, who, through his entire official life, was distinguished for his devotion to the institution of Slavery; and this war having been entered upon for the support of that institution, it may well be supposed that he exerted his utmost energies for its vigorous prosecution.

      The fifteenth Congress assembled in December, 1817. Most of the members from the free States had not enjoyed the advantages of having served long in that body. They afterwards showed themselves able men; but the business of legislation requires experience, industry, and a perfect knowledge of the past action of government. This cannot be obtained in one session, nor in one Congress; it can only be gathered by the labors of an active life. It is, therefore, not surprising that Congress granted to the War Department whatever funds the President required to carry on the war.

      It is not our province to applaud, or condemn, public men; but history represents no member of the fifteenth Congress as having proclaimed the cause of this war, or the atrocious massacre which characterized its commencement. On the contrary, those who spoke on the subject, represented it as entirely owing to the Indian murders on the frontiers of Georgia, and to the massacre of Lieutenant Scott and his men. There was great delicacy exhibited, and had been for many years previously, in regard to the agitation of any question touching the institution of Slavery; and the people of the free and slave States appeared to feel that silence on that subject was obligatory upon every citizen who desired a continuance of the Union. These circumstances rendered it easy for the Administration to prosecute the war, with whatever force they deemed necessary for the speedy subjection of Indians and Exiles.

      On entering the field of active service, General Jackson called on the State of Tennessee for two thousand troops. He repaired to Harford, on the Ockmulgee, where a body of volunteers, from Georgia, had already assembled, and organizing them, he requested the aid of the Creek Indians also. They readily volunteered, under the command of their chief, McIntosh, ready to share in the honors and dangers of the approaching campaign. With the Georgia volunteers and Creek Indians, General Jackson marched to Fort Scott, where he was joined by about one thousand regular troops.

      With this force, he moved upon the Mickasukie towns, situated near the Lake of that name, some thirty miles south of the line of Georgia. It was the nearest place at which the Exiles had settled in considerable numbers. There were several small villages in the vicinity of this Lake, inhabited almost entirely by blacks. A large quantity of provisions had been stored there. There were also several Seminole towns between Mickasukie Lake and Tallahasse, on the west.

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