The Exiles of Florida

103

Capt. Sprague, of the Regular service.

104

This statement is taken entirely from the Letters of John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, to the Secretary of War. In these letters, he relates the whole transaction with great force and apparent candor, and, in the name of the Cherokee Nation, boldly arraigns the War Department for this treachery, practiced by a Christian nation towards a people called heathens. These letters may be found at length in Ex. Doc. 327, 2d Sess. XXVth Cong., vol. 8.

105

Vide letter of General Taylor to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Ex. Doc. 225, 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

106

Mr. Sprague says there were three hundred Indian and negro warriors engaged in this battle, and that their loss was ten Indians and one negro killed, and eleven wounded; showing a great disparity between their loss and General Taylor’s.

107

In 1848, General Taylor was the Whig candidate for President of the United States; and so little was the history of this war known to our statesmen or politicians, that it is believed no newspaper, or stump orator, or advocate of his election, ever related or referred to this most gallant act of his life. He had himself, during the war, exhibited no particular sympathy in the work of catching and enslaving negroes; on the contrary, he had expressed his detestation of that policy. Of course the slave power, not willing to make open war upon him, had permitted his name to rest without connecting it with the performance of any brilliant or humane acts. The casuist may say, that he ought not to have served in such a war, and that no gallantry displayed in such a cause ought to reflect credit upon any man. But General Taylor, like other men, should be judged by the times, the customs, the morality of the age in which he lived.

108

Vide Ex. Doc., 2d Sess. XXVth Congress, No. 225.

109

Vide General Jessup’s letter to General Arbuckle, 8 Vol. Ex. Doc., 2d Sess. XXVth Congress.

110

Vide General Jessup’s letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Ex. Doc. 225, above referred to.

111

This is the view which General Jessup gives of the transaction, Ex. Doc., 8th Vol., 3d Sess. XXVth Congress

112

Vide Report of General Jessup to the Secretary of War, Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

113

These facts may all be found in the 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 11th & 12th vols. of Ex. Doc., 2d Sess. XXVth Congress; the letters of Ross and correspondence of General Jessup, and official reports, occupying several hundred pages.

114

Horace Everett, who was many years a Representative in Congress, an ardent Whig, and constant opponent of Jackson and Van Buren. After the report of the Secretary of War in answer to his resolution had been received, Mr. Everett made a speech on the subject, exposing the manner in which the war had been conducted, and intimated that it was more immediately connected with the support of slavery than it ought to be. But while he was careful to say nothing exceptionable to the slave interest, he certainly entitled himself to the honor of being the first member who assailed the war, and the first to hold the Administration responsible for the manner in which it was prosecuted. The speech may be found at length in the Appendix to the Congressional Globe of that session.

115

Vide Letter of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Secretary of War, 9th May, 1838. Ex. Doc. 225, 2d Sess. XXVth Congress.

116

Major Zantzinger, like many other officers, appears to have thought that every negro must have a master, and he called these Exiles the property of the Seminoles, although the Agent for that Tribe had reported a few years previously, that the number of slaves owned by them did not exceed forty.

117

Vide Watson’s Petition and proofs, in support of his claim, presented to Congress – 1st Sess. XXVIth Cong. – now on file in the office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

118

Vide Watson’s Statement of facts in this case, on file with the above papers.

119

Several years after this transaction, the Author happened to meet this war-worn veteran, and as the old hero recounted this incident of his life with warm and glowing eloquence, his eye kindled, his countenance lighted up with pleasure, and he spoke of it with more apparent satisfaction than he ever referred to his most brilliant military achievement.

120

Vide Letter of Major Isaac Clark to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Sept. 18, 1838. Ex. Doc. 225, 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

121

Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, the predecessor of Mr. Giddings, long and ably presided over the committee on Claims. He was a man of untiring industry; and when he found it necessary to report on a slave case, in 1835, he wrote the Register of the Treasury, inquiring if slaves had ever been paid for by the United States as property. The reply stated they had not; and the committee reported adversely to the case, although it was one of the strongest character possible. Francis Larche, living near New Orleans, owned a horse, cart and slave. The day before the battle below that city, in 1814, they were impressed into the service; and while thus held by the United States authorities, on the day of the battle, the horse and slave were killed by cannon shot, and Larche petitioned Congress for compensation for the loss of his slave. Mr. Whittlesey drew up an able report refusing such compensation.

At the commencement of the Twenty-seventh Congress, Mr. Giddings was placed at the head of that committee; but, being obnoxious to the advocates of slavery, he was removed from that position at the commencement of the Twenty-eighth Congress; yet there seemed to be an Impression that his successor should be taken from Ohio, and Hon. Joseph Vance was made Chairman. He was a man at that time somewhat advanced in life, and not accustomed to legal investigations. Cases which required research, were usually consigned to some subordinate member of the committee. It was while he was acting as Chairman, that this case of Watson was first reported upon favorably by the committee on Claims, although it had never before been regarded by that committee as entitled to any encouragement.

122

There is little doubt that the real number of Exiles was unknown to General Jackson, or to General Cass, at the commencement of the war. They appear to have regarded their number far less than it was estimated, during the first Seminole War of 1818.

123

Captain Sprague’s History of the Florida War so represents the subject.

124

Not having the Statutes of Florida before us, we make this statement on the authority of Captain Sprague.

125

We have no copy of Mr. Wise’s letter, and have never seen the letter itself; but we state the fact that he wrote the Secretary of War by authority of that officer, who says in the letter quoted, “I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 27th inst., inquiring,” etc.

126

The Author was at that time a member of the House of Representatives. He had then no conception of the real objects of this war: indeed, it had long been the practice for members to say nothing on the subject of slavery; and it was equally the practice for newspapers to print nothing on that delicate subject, as it was called. Of course the people knew very little concerning it.

127

Captain Sprague, in his history of the Florida War, says, “The truth, when made known to the Indians who remained in Florida, constituted the strongest argument why they should not emigrate. Had they (says that author) been kept in ignorance, better results might have been anticipated; but what they gathered from the honest confessions and silence of their brothers tended to make them venerate with more fidelity and increased love the soil which they had defended with heroic fortitude for five consecutive years.”

128

Captain Sprague, in his history, declares, that it was proven in two instances that white men, disguised as Indians, actually committed depredations and murdered white people.

129

This first speech had been carefully prepared by the Author of this work, and contained little more than a collation of facts from public documents. It was made with the design of testing the application of the gag rules more than for the purpose of exposing the character of the war. Hon. John Q. Adams, Wm. Slade, and the Author, often consulted with each other as to the best means for inducing the House to repeal those obnoxious rules. The Author suggested the plan of alluding to slavery while publicly discoursing matters with which it was incidentally connected. Mr. Adams and Mr. Slade insisted that the Author should try his plan. Aware that appropriations for this war would be called for, he prepared this speech, showing the causes of the war; and when the bill above referred to came before the House, he proceeded to test his plan. He was frequently called to order, and great excitement was produced; but he succeeded in delivering the speech. When he was through, a southern member replied, declaring that the gag-rules may as well be repealed as kept in force, if they permitted such discussions. The position was evidently correct, and those disgraceful rules were repealed by the next Congress.

130

This statement is founded upon the authority of Captain Sprague. It is however certain, that many of the claimants actually received compensation from the public treasury for the loss of their slaves. The power to pay for them was assumed by Executive officers, under the appropriation act of March, 1841, without reference to Congress.

131

Captain Sprague, in his history, enters into a somewhat lengthened apology for this practice of General Worth, by saying, the negroes were the most active and vindictive of the hostile forces; that, from the peculiar situation of the country, ten negroes could keep it in a state of constant alarm; that many of them had intermarried with the Seminoles and become identified with them, had acquired their habits, and would have been useless to their owners had they been delivered to them; that the negro would have remained in service but a few days, when he would have again taken to the swamps and hommocks, when he could elude pursuit, and would have been more vindictive than before.

132

Vide opinions of the Attorney Generals, from 1838 to 1851, page 1944, Senate Doc. 55. It is a singular fact that, in the whole of this elaborate opinion, no allusion is made to the real condition of the Exiles; nor would any person suspect, from reading it, that the Attorney General had any knowledge of the claim which the Creeks preferred. Although he quotes the clause in the articles of capitulation, which expressly and emphatically declares that “Major General Jessup, in behalf of the United States, agrees that the Seminoles and their allies, who come in and emigrate, shall be protected in their lives and property;” yet he appears never to have conceived the idea that such a stipulation could impose any duties upon our Government in favor of negroes; nor does he attempt to define the meaning of this most explicit covenant.

133

Under this law, which is general in all slave States, free colored citizens of nearly every free State of the Union have been seized and enslaved, and are now toiling in chains.

134

Hon. R. W. Johnson, a Representative from Arkansas, spoke of this wretch as having come from Louisiana; but from manuscript letters on file in the War Department, the Author is led to think he came from Florida, and had previously participated in kidnapping Exiles in that Territory.

135

The Author, being unable to obtain a publication of the documents showing these facts, states them upon the best authority he possesses. During the discussions upon what is called the Indian Appropriation Bill for 1852, in the House of Representatives of the United States, the following colloquial debate occurred, and is now cited as a part of the evidence on which these facts are stated. It will be found in the Congressional Globe of 1852, vol. 24, part 3d, pages 1804, 1805:

“Mr. GIDDINGS. I rise for a different purpose than that of expressing my approbation of the amendment which has just been read. I ask the especial attention of gentlemen to some interrogatories which I desire to propound for the purpose of obtaining information; and that the information may go to the country, I will observe, that I desire to have the experience of the able Chairman of the committee on Indian Affairs (Mr. Johnson of Arkansas), to obtain this intelligence. According to reliable information which I received in the summer of 1850, these Creek Indians, to whom attention has been turned, with force and violence, seized from seventy to one hundred free persons of color in the Indian Territory, or at least those claiming to be free, and enslaved, sold and transported them to the State of Louisiana, where they are now in servitude as slaves. I will state that this was done in violation of the treaty entered into in 1845, and in subversion of our solemn faith, entered into with these negroes during the Seminole War, in 1837. The official information upon this subject is in the Indian Department, where it has been received; and from which that we have not been able to obtain any intelligence by resolution, although a resolution for that purpose has been in my desk since the first day of the session. The questions I desire to propound to those gentlemen are – First, Is it a fact that those persons of color were seized and sold into slavery; and, second, by what claim of right or pretended title did these Creek Indians enslave and sell those people?

“Mr. JOHNSON. I have no official knowledge in the matter at all. Then as to the knowledge I have obtained incidentally, I do know that there has been a great contest in relation to a portion of these Creek Indian negroes; I do know that the matter has been looked into here in the Executive Departments; I do know that the matter has never been before the House at all, unless it has strangely escaped my notice; I know it has not been before my committee; I know the Attorney General of the United States has declared his opinion as to the title of these negroes: I think there were seventy of them, though it might have been more or less. So, then, I have no official information on the subject to which the gentleman alludes.

“Some two or three years ago, I know of a contest going on about the title to these negroes, and that it was decided that they belonged to those Indians. They had established themselves in a free town, which they maintained with force and arms. There were heavy disturbances existing there in the Indian nation, amounting at times almost to civil war: I believe before it was done with, it was quite civil war. I know they were taken; but what was done with them, I do not know. They were taken, and carried out of the nation, with the design of holding them as property, when they could not hold them in the nation on account of the disturbance which they created. I know the decision of the Attorney General of the United States, as to the title to these negroes; and that is the whole statement in regard to the matter as far as I can give it.”

136

The Author has written many letters, and made frequent efforts, to obtain a copy of the record of this writ, if any had been kept, and the proceedings, together with the opinion of the Judge thereon, but has not succeeded. The statement, therefore, rests on the verbal reports, current at the time in the Indian Country, and communicated to the Author by individuals who happened to be there at the time.

137

The Author has been unable to obtain official data of the number of Exiles who remained in the Indian Country.

138

The Author has been compelled to rely on verbal reports received from individuals for these facts. He also understood Mr. Johnston, the Representative from Arkansas, in the debate referred to in a former note, to say distinctly, that the Creeks pursued the Exiles, and that a battle was fought, but he was unable to state particulars.

139

Vide Official Report of Major Emory, in regard to the boundary line between the United States and Mexico. He states the location of Wild Cat and the Seminole Indians, but omits all reference to the Exiles.

140

This number has been increased by fresh arrivals from the Indian Country, since 1850.

141

Vide Manuscript Letters now on file in the Indian Bureau at Washington.