The Exiles of Florida. Giddings Joshua Reed

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СКАЧАТЬ pursuing the even tenor of their ways, plans were ripening among the slaveholders and military officers of our army for their destruction. A correspondence was opened by the Secretary of War with General Jackson, who commanded the Southwestern Military District of the United States, holding his head-quarters at Nashville, Tennessee. Various letters and communications passed between those officers in regard to this “Negro Fort,” as they called it.

      Power is never more dangerous than when wielded by military men. They usually feel ambitious to display their own prowess, and that of the troops under their command; and no person can read the communications of General Gaines, in regard to the Exiles who had gathered in and around this fort, without feeling conscious that he greatly desired to give to the people of the United States an example of the science and power by which they could destroy human life.26

      At length, on the sixteenth of May, General Jackson wrote General Gaines, saying, “I have little doubt of the fact, that this fort has been established by some villains for the purpose of rapine and plunder, and that it ought to be blown up, regardless of the ground on which it stands; and if your mind shall have formed the same conclusion, destroy it and return the stolen negroes and property to their rightful owners.”27

      Without attempting to criticise this order of General Jackson, we must regard a fort thus situated, at least sixty miles from the border of the United States, as a most singular instrument for the purpose of “rapine,” or plundering our citizens. Nor could General Jackson have entertained any apprehensions from those who occupied the fort. The entire correspondence showed them to be refugees, seeking only to avoid our people; indeed, his very order shows this, for he directs General Gaines to return the “stolen negroes to their rightful owners.” The use of opprobrious epithets is not often resorted to by men in high official stations: yet it is difficult to believe, that General Jackson supposed these negroes to have been stolen; for, neither in the official correspondence on this subject, nor in the papers accompanying it, embracing more than a hundred documentary pages, is there a hint that these negroes were “stolen,” or that they had committed violence upon any person, or upon the property of any person whatever. They had sought their own liberty, and the charge of stealing themselves, was used like the other epithets of “outlaws,” “pirates” and “murderers,” to cast opprobrium upon the character of men who, if judged by their love of liberty or their patriotism, would now occupy a position not less honorable in the history of our country than is assigned to the patriots of 1776.

      Nor is it easy to discover the rule of international law, which authorized the Executive of the United States, or the officers of our army, to dictate to the crown of Spain in what part of his territory he should, or should not, erect fortresses; or the constitutional power which they held for invading the territory of a nation at peace with the United States, destroy a fort, and consign its occupants to slavery. But those were days of official arrogance on the one hand, and popular submission on the other. The Exiles, or their ancestors, had once been slaves. They now were cultivating the richest lands in Florida, and possessed wealth; they were occupying a strong fortress. Many slaves during the recent war had escaped from their masters, in Georgia, and some were supposed to be free subjects of Spain, living in Florida; and if the Exiles were permitted to enjoy their plantations and property in peace, it was evident that the institution in adjoining States would be in danger of a total overthrow. These facts were apparent to General Jackson, as well as to General Gaines and the slaveholders of Georgia.

      General Gaines only awaited permission from his superior to carry out the designs of the slaveholders, who had become alarmed at the dangers to which their “peculiar institution” was subjected. Upon the receipt of the order above quoted, he detailed Lieut. Col. Clinch,28 of the regular troops, with his regiment and five hundred friendly Creek Indians, under McIntosh, their principal chief, to carry out the directions of General Jackson. Colonel Clinch was directed to take with him two pieces of artillery, for the purpose of cannonading the fort if necessary.29

      This commencement of the first Seminole war was, at the time, unknown to the people of the United States. It was undertaken for the purposes stated in General Jackson’s order, to “blow up the fort, and return the negroes to their rightful owners.” Historians have failed to expose the cause of hostilities, or the barbarous foray which plunged the nation into that bloody contest which cost the people millions of treasure and the sacrifice of hundreds of human lives.

      It was July before the arrangements were fully made by Colonel Clinch and his savage allies for descending the river, with suitable artillery and supplies, to accomplish the object of their mission.30 The Creeks, having entered into the treaties of New York and Colerain, by which they bound themselves, twenty years previously, to return those Exiles who fled from Georgia, and having failed to perform those stipulations, now cheerfully united with the American army in this first slave-catching expedition undertaken by the Federal Government.

      Of these movements the Exiles had been informed by their neighbors, the friendly Creeks; for, among the Lower Creeks, were individuals who at all times sympathized with them, and kept them informed of the measures adopted for their destruction. All the families living on the river and in the vicinity of the fort, fled to it for protection. They had no idea of the advantages arising from scientific warfare; they believed their fortification impregnable. Colonel Nichols had erected it for the purpose of affording them protection, and they had no doubt of its efficiency for that purpose.

      Such were the delays attending the journey, in consequence of difficulties in transporting heavy guns and provisions, that the troops did not reach the vicinity of the fort until the twenty-fourth of July. In the meantime, Commodore Patterson, in pursuance of orders from the naval department, had detailed Sailing-Master Loomis, with two gun-boats, to assist in carrying out the order of General Jackson.31

      On the twenty-fourth of July, Colonel Clinch commenced a reconnoisance of the fort. On the twenty-fifth, he cleared away the brush and erected a battery, and placed upon it two long eighteen-pounders, and commenced a cannonade of the fortress. At the time of this investment, there were about three hundred Exiles in the fort, including women and children, besides thirty-four Seminole Indians:32 yet in the official report of Colonel Clinch, he makes no mention of his fire being returned; nor does he say that any of his men were killed or wounded by the occupants of the fort.

      On the twenty-sixth of July, Sailing-Master Loomis, with his command, reached a point on the river some two miles below the fort. Colonel Clinch met him at that place, for consultation, and informed him that his fire had thus far proved ineffectual, and that a nearer approach of artillery by land would be difficult.33

      Judging from the language used in his official dispatch, Sailing-Master Loomis must have entertained some feelings of distrust towards Colonel Clinch, as they evidently separated in bad temper: yet no officer in the service of the United States ever exhibited greater prudence in his preparations, or more firmness in battle, than Colonel Clinch. He was, however, a man of kind and humane feelings, and high notions of honor. It has been supposed by many of his friends, that he shrank from the perpetration of the outrage which he had been detailed to commit.34

      On the morning of the twenty-seventh, Loomis, with his boats, ascended the river and cast anchor opposite the fort, while Colonel Clinch and the Creek Indians took positions so as to cut off retreat by land. The cannonade was resumed, and the land and naval forces of the United States were engaged in throwing shot and shells for the purpose of murdering those friendless Exiles, those women and children, who had committed no other offense than that of having been born of parents who, a century previously, had been held in bondage. СКАЧАТЬ