The Exiles of Florida. Giddings Joshua Reed

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СКАЧАТЬ the approach of General Jackson with coolness and firmness. They had evidently calculated the result with perfect accuracy. Their women and children were removed to places of safety, and their herds of cattle were driven beyond the reach of the invading army; and some of their Indian allies followed the example thus set them by the Exiles; yet others were not equally careful in calculating future events.

      Neither Indians nor negroes had made these towns their general rendezvous; nor did they expect a decisive battle to occur at that point; yet they prepared to meet General Jackson, and his army, in a becoming manner. Most of their forces were collected prior to the arrival of our troops. In making the requisite dispositions for battle, the Indians were formed in one body, and the negroes in another – each being under their respective chiefs.

      General Jackson encountered the allied forces at some little distance from the Mickasukie towns, April first. The battle was of short duration. The Indians soon fled. The Exiles fought with greater obstinacy. Their fire was so fatal that a reinforcement was ordered to that part of the field, and the Exiles were driven from their position, leaving twelve of their number dead upon the field.

      In his official report of this battle, General Jackson insisted that British officers had drilled the negroes, and British traders had furnished them ammunition. He also reported that he burned more than three hundred dwellings, and obtained a supply of provisions and cattle for his army.

      The Exiles, generally, retreated to Suwanee, and the Indians continued to hang around the American army, watching its movements. General Jackson, however, directed his course towards St. Marks, a Spanish fort, situated on the river of that name, some fifty miles southwest of Mickasukie Lake.

      The American army reached St. Marks on the seventh of April, and remained there several days. One of the American vessels lying in Appalachicola Bay, hoisted British colors, in order to decoy some Indians who were looking at them from the shore. Two of the “Red Stick” band ventured on board; they were said to be chiefs, and in alliance with the Seminoles. General Jackson ordered them to be hanged, without trial or ceremony, justifying the act by charging them with having participated in the massacre of Lieutenant Scott and his party, during the previous autumn, apparently unconscious that, by his own orders, two hundred and seventy people, including innocent children and women, had been most wantonly and barbarously murdered at the fort on Appalachicola, and that Lieutenant Scott and thirty men were murdered in retaliation for that act, according to savage warfare. He appears to have felt it due to offended justice, that these men should die for being suspected of participating in that act of retaliation. In all these cases, the most assiduous efforts were exerted to misrepresent the real state of facts.

      The time occupied in the approach and capture of Fort St. Marks, gave to the Exiles and Indians full opportunity to concentrate their forces at Suwanee. It constituted the most populous settlement of the Exiles, after the destruction of that upon the Appalachicola. It was regarded as their stronghold. Surrounded by swamps, it was approached only through narrow defiles, which rendered it difficult for an army to reach it. Here many of the Exiles had been born and reared to manhood. Here were their homes, their firesides. Here their chief, Nero, resided; and here they concentrated their whole force. They had removed their women and children, their provisions and cattle, to places of safety, and coolly awaited the approach of General Jackson’s army.44

      Scouting parties were, however, sent out to harrass his advance guard, and delay his approach, and render it more difficult; but, notwithstanding these obstacles, the army steadily advanced, and on the nineteenth of April reached the “Old Town” of “Suwanee,” and found the allied forces in order of battle, prepared to contest the field. The Indians were again formed on the right, and the Exiles constituted the left wing, bringing them in conflict with the right wing of General Jackson’s forces.

      With the Exiles, there was no alternative other than war or slavery; and they greatly preferred death upon the battle field, to chains and the scourge. We may well suppose they would fight with some degree of desperation, under such circumstances; and the battle of Suwanee gave evidence of their devotion to freedom. They met the disciplined troops, who constituted General Jackson’s army, with firmness and gallantry.45 At the commencement, their fire was so fatal that the right wing of the American army faltered, and ceasing to advance, gave signs of falling back. But the left wing, opposed to the Indians, made a successful charge; the Indians gave way, and the reserve was suddenly brought into action to sustain the right wing, when a general charge was ordered, and the Exiles were compelled to fall back.46

      General Jackson, in his official report of this battle, refers to the desperation with which the negroes fought, and says they left many dead upon the field, but does not mention their number. He entered the town and set fire to the buildings, and burned all the villages in the vicinity. He also captured some three hundred Indian women and children, while those belonging to the Exiles had been carefully removed beyond the reach of the American army. This superior caution and provident care appears to mark the character of the Exiles in all their conduct; while the Indians appear to have practised none of these precautions.

      But the allied forces, defeated, and their warriors scattered in various directions, were pursued by McIntosh and his Creek warriors, who had accompanied General Jackson, until fearing the Seminoles might rally in force against them, they returned and again united with the American army.

      This battle substantially closed the war of 1818. It had been commenced for the destruction of the Exiles; they had shared in its dangers, and by their energy and boldness, had given intensity to its conflicts. From the time they united in the expedition for the destruction of Lieutenant Scott and his party, in November, 1817, until the close of the battle of Suwanee, they had been active participants in every skirmish, and had uniformly displayed great firmness; bearing testimony to the truth of those historians who have awarded to the African race the merit of great physical courage.

      General Jackson appears to have spoken as little of the Exiles as duty would permit, when communicating with the Secretary of War; yet he was more free to complain of them in his correspondence with the Governor of Pensacola. In a letter to that officer, dated a few days after the battle of Suwanee, he says: “Negroes who have fled from their masters, citizens of the United States, have raised the tomahawk, and, in the character of savage warfare, have spared neither age nor sex. Helpless women have been massacred, and the cradle crimsoned with blood.”

      We can, at this day, scarcely believe that this eloquent description of savage barbarity was from the pen of a man whose order for the massacre of defenseless women and children, at the Fort on Appalachicola, bore date less than two years before writing this letter; nor can we readily comprehend the effrontery of him who thus attempted to justify the invasion of Florida, by reference to acts done by the Exiles long after the army under his command had entered that territory, and committed the most atrocious outrages ever perpetrated by civilized men upon an unoffending people.

      After the battle of Suwanee, General Jackson returned to St. Marks, being unable to follow the Indians and Exiles into the more southern portions of Florida. While at St. Marks, he ordered a court-martial, constituting General Gaines president, in order to try Arbuthnot and Ambrister. The history of their trial and execution is familiar to the reader. The first and principal charge against Ambrister was, that he excited the negroes and Indians to commit murder upon the people of the United States; the second charge was for supplying them with arms. On these charges he was convicted and executed. It was also alleged, that he was present at the battle of Suwanee; and some writers say he commanded the Exiles on that occasion, and had previously taught them military discipline.

      In May, General Jackson issued an Address to his troops, declaring the war at an end; and wrote the Executive, asking permission to retire to his home in Nashville, there being no further use for his services in the field.

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