The Exiles of Florida Part 32

[92] Vide these articles at length, Ex. Doc. 225, 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

[93] General Jessup at all times practiced upon this principle. When "Louis," the guide who planned the defeat and ma.s.sacre of Major Dade, became a prisoner and Wild Cat claimed to have captured him, General Jessup disregarded the claim of Pacheco, the owner, and sent the negro West; and, in other instances, he kept those known to have been slaves as guides, and, at a proper time, sent them to the Western Country, as freemen. He even bribed negroes to act as guides to his army by promising them liberty, and carried out such arrangement.

[94] Vide this Memorial at length, Ex. Doc. 225, 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

[95] All these communications may be found at length in the Fifth Vol.

Ex. Doc., 3d Session XXVth Congress. But these arrangements made with the chiefs are supposed to have rested entirely in parole. No copy of any such agreement has been found by the Author, who is fully of opinion that it does not exist in any authentic form.

[96] Vide Ex. Doc. 225, 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

[97] These Letters may be found in Ex. Doc. 225, 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

[98] This Correspondence may be found in the 8th vol. Ex. Doc., 2d Sess.

XXVth Cong., No. 285.

[99] Of this declaration he had subsequent cause to repent, and most eloquently he expressed his mortification, in a letter to the Secretary of War. Vide his Letter or Jan. 2, 1839, in the Doc.u.ment last quoted.

[100] These facts may all be found officially recorded in Ex. Doc. 78, 2d Sess. XXVth Congress, and Ex. Doc. 225, 3d Sess. XXVth Congress.

[101] The Interrogatories were embraced in a paper, of which the following is a copy:

"MEMORANDA OF SPECIFIC QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED TO OSCEOLA.

"Ascertain the object of the Indians in coming in at this time.

Also their expectations. _Are they prepared to deliver up the negroes taken from the citizens, at once?_ Why have they not surrendered them already, as promised by Co-Hadjo at Fort King?

Have the chiefs of the nation held a Council in relation to the talk at Fort King? What chiefs attended that Council, and what was their determination? Have the chiefs sent a messenger with the decision of the Council? Have the princ.i.p.al chiefs Micanopy, Jumper, Cloud and Alligator sent a messenger? and if so, what is their message? Why have not those chiefs come themselves?

"(Signed) THOS. S. JESSUP, _Major General Commanding_.

"SAN AUGUSTINE, _August 21st, 1837_."

[102] From the first and second interrogatories, the reader will see that General Jessup was fully conscious, that the attempt to deliver over those negroes to slavery who were claimed by the citizens of Florida, had been the sole cause for renewing the war. He dictated the first and most important interrogatory propounded to Osceola--"_Are you prepared at once to deliver up the negroes taken from the citizens?_"

But the second shows an important fact which had, so for as we have information, been kept from the public: The words, "Why have they not already surrendered them, as promised by _Co-Hadjo at Fort King_?" This shows that the arrangement reported by him to have been made with the chiefs, was made with Co-Hadjo only. It will be recollected, that after the articles of capitulation, in March, when the people of Florida began to demand their negroes, General Jessup said he would endeavor to make an arrangement with the chiefs for delivering up those negroes who had been _captured during the war_. After the protest of the people of Florida had been addressed to the Secretary of War, against the peace, unless they were to get their negroes, and the public meeting held at San Augustine, which expressed the same views, he reported that _he had made such arrangement with the chiefs_; but with how many, or with which particular _chiefs_, was unknown until this interrogatory disclosed the fact, that it was made with one obscure chief only. And whether he were intoxicated, or sober, at the time he attempted to act without any authority, to consign hundreds of his fellow-beings to slavery, without their knowledge or consent, does not appear. But every reader at once propounds the question, _What were the terms of that arrangement?_ If it existed, it should have been reported verbatim to the War Department, and made known to the public.

[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 ent.i.tled himself to the honor of being the first member who a.s.sailed 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 Pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tioned 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 ent.i.tled to any encouragement.

[122] There is little doubt that the real number of Exiles was unknown to General Jackson, or to General Ca.s.s, 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, const.i.tuted the strongest argument why they should not emigrate. Had they (says that author) been kept in ignorance, better results might have been antic.i.p.ated; 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 fort.i.tude 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 doc.u.ments. 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.