HOSTILITIES CONTINUED.
Presidential Election of 1840--The War discussed as one of the
issues--Effect on the Election--Publication of Jay's View--Action
of the Executive paralyzed--Spanish Indians--Destruction of Indian
Key--Troops inactive--Allies commit new depredations--New
Expedient--Its failure--Chiefs invited to Fort King--Exiles refuse
to treat--Massacre of Lieutenant Sherwood and party--Melancholy
fate of Mrs. Montgomery--White men disguised as Indians--Murder of
Cora Tustenuggee--Order of Secretary of War--Letter to General
Armistead--Bribery of Indians--Mr. Thompson's Bill--Discussion of
the causes of the War in Congress--Enemy find protection in large
swamps--Their renewed depredations--General distress--People of
Florida again driven from their homes--Employed in public
service--Their Slaves employed--They become interested in
continuing the War.
[Sidenote: 1840.]
The Presidential election of this year was conducted differently from
any that had preceded it. The opponents of Mr. Van Buren arraigned him
before the people for his extravagance in the expenditure of the public
treasure, and the immense losses which the nation sustained by the
default and irresponsibility of officers appointed by him. It
constitutes an era in our political history, from which we date the
practice of calling directly upon the people to pass judgment of
condemnation upon the action of our National Executive. Every honorable
means was resorted to for the purpose of exposing the errors of the
Administration during the previous four years.
Among the subjects made prominent before the country, was that of the
extravagant expenditures in prosecuting the "Florida War." Speeches were
made in Congress exposing the various practices by which the people's
money was squandered in that unfortunate conflict; the policy of
attempting to compel the Indians to emigrate, and the cruelty practiced
towards them, were commented on with severity. These speeches were
printed in pamphlet form, and sent to the people in vast numbers: but
the real cause of the war, the deep depravity of that policy which
sought the enslavement of the Exiles, was not mentioned; nor does it
appear that any member of Congress was conscious, even, that such a
people as the Exiles was living in Florida.[126] But, nevertheless, it
is quite certain that this war proved one of the principal causes of Mr.
Van Buren's defeat; and, during the pendency of the election, these
complaints paralyzed the action of the Executive.
Another cause operated to call public attention to the war. Hon. William
Jay, of New York, published a small book upon the action of our
Government in regard to slavery. It was a work of much merit, and,
coming from the pen of one so intimately associated with the best
interests of the country, it exerted an influence upon the public mind.
It had been published some two or three years; but at the time of which
we are writing, it attracted attention in most of the free States, and
gave public men to understand that their official acts were to be made
known to coming generations.
The intimate relation which this war bore to slavery, rendered every
movement in regard to it dangerous to the Executive character, and
caused our army to be almost inactive for several months; but the
allies, driven to desperation, prepared to wreak their vengeance on
every white person who should venture within their reach. A small band,
composed of Spanish negroes and Indians, among whom were said to be some
maroons from Cuba, resided far down in the Peninsula of Florida. They
were called Spanish Indians, and had remained neutral up to the period
of which we are speaking; but finding their brethren driven from their
own possessions, and compelled to encroach upon the territory so long
occupied by themselves, they took up arms against the United States.
Every vessel that happened to be wrecked upon their coast was plundered,
and the crews massacred.
On the morning of the seventh of August, a number of these people, said
to have been led on by Spanish maroons, crossed over to a small island
called "Indian Key," situated at some twenty miles distant from the main
land, and attacked the dwellings, burned the storehouses, and destroyed
most of the property belonging to the inhabitants. There were but four
or five families resident on the island. Of these, Dr. Perrine, a man of
some distinction, was murdered in his own house; but, by his valor, he
enabled the other members of his family to escape, amid the darkness of
night. The allies obtained much plunder, but found no powder, which was
said to have been the principal object of the foray.
During the summer and autumn, our troops in Florida were inactive. The
season was sickly, and the officers and men lay supinely in their
encampments. The enemy felt secure in their strong-holds--sallying forth
in occasional forays, murdering the people, and plundering the
settlements with impunity. The Administration appeared astonished at the
audacity with which a few Indians and negroes hurled defiance at our
army and the nation. The expedient of employing savages to assist in the
war had failed; the more questionable policy of employing blood-hounds,
had not only failed, but was supposed by many to reflect discredit upon
the army and nation. Nearly five thousand troops were kept in Florida,
maintained at vast expense; but they could neither conquer the Indians,
nor even protect the white people. Under these circumstances, the
Executive saw but one resource; of that he availed himself. By his
direction, twelve Seminole and Mickasukie Indians, who had emigrated
West, were induced by sufficient pecuniary considerations to leave their
families in the Western Country and return to Florida, for the purpose
of persuading the Indians and Exiles to emigrate. Thus, after four years
of war and constant expenditure of blood and treasure, the President
discovered that moral power is greater and stronger than physical
violence.
But this discovery came too late. He could no longer do justice to those
fathers and mothers and children who had been slain, nor to those who
had been enslaved; who had been taken far into the interior, sold and
transferred from hand to hand like brutes. They had passed from
Executive control. The crime now stained our national escutcheon, and no
effort could wash it out. The very means which he adopted to close the
war, operated to prolong it. These Seminoles and Mickasukies informed
their brethren of their own condition, of the manner in which they were
treated, and the violations of faith on the part of our Government in
not giving them a territory for their separate use, as stipulated in the
treaty, and constantly represented to them by our officers; that they
were without a home and without a country, residing on Cherokee lands,
under Cherokee protection, to prevent the Creeks from enslaving their
friends, the Exiles. Many officers at the time doubted their desire to
induce the emigration of their brethren.[127]
They, however, obtained an interview between the Commanding General and
two Seminole chiefs at Fort King. The chiefs were attended by some forty
warriors, who remained in that vicinity four or five days, receiving
food and articles of clothing from the United States; but they suddenly
disappeared, and it was believed they originally came with hostile,
rather than pacific, intentions. When it was found they had left
clandestinely, the troops attempted to follow them, but were unable to
find any traces of their flight.
While these things were transpiring, the army lay idle in their
quarters; neither the Executive, nor the Secretary of War, nor the
Commanding General, knowing what to do.
The Exiles learned from the Seminoles and Mickasukies, who visited them
from the West, that many of their brethren who surrendered under the
articles of capitulation, had been reënslaved, in violation of our
plighted faith; and they refused to hold further intercourse with the
agents of our Government. To them there appeared but one
alternative--victory or death; and they greatly preferred the latter to
slavery. Taking their families far into the interior, they hastened to
renew the war with vigor and energy.
A party of some thirty Indians and Exiles were lurking about Micanopy,
when, on the twenty-eighth of December, Lieutenant Sherwood, Lieutenant
Hopson, Sergeant Major Carrol, and ten privates of the 7th Infantry,
left Micanopy for the purpose of escorting Mrs. Montgomery, wife of a
Lieutenant of that regiment, through the forest to Watkahoota, eight
miles distant. The lady was on horseback, while others of the party rode
in a wagon drawn by mules, and some marched on foot. The enemy having
observed their movements, preceded them to a hommock, about four miles
from Micanopy, where they secreted themselves, and awaited the approach
of Mrs. Montgomery and party. When they were fairly within the hommock,
through which the road passed, they were fired upon, and two privates
fell dead. The war-whoop was raised, and the little party found
themselves confronted by savages. Lieutenant Sherwood is said to have
rallied his escort with promptness. Mrs. Montgomery, attempting to get
into the wagon, was shot dead. Sherwood very discreetly retreated to the
open forest, and dispatched Lieutenant Hopson to Micanopy for a
reinforcement. Knowing the impossibility of retreating from Indians, and
conscious that they gave no quarter, he bravely determined to defend
himself or die on the field. But his assailants numbered three times as
many warriors as he had. They out-flanked and surrounded his ill-fated
party, all of whom with himself fell victims to that policy which had
brought this war, with all its crimes, upon our nation.
We cannot withhold our sympathy from those patriotic men who enter the
public service expecting to act in an honorable sphere in favor of just
measures; but who are often made the instruments of injustice, and their
lives sacrificed to the spirit and policy of oppression. Our officers
and soldiers, serving in this Florida War, were duly conscious of the
dishonorable employment in which they were engaged; that they were daily
subjected to dangers and death for the purpose of enabling the people of
Florida to seize men and women, and sell them into interminable bondage.
Officers and men who would cheerfully meet danger and death upon the
field of honorable warfare in defense of freedom, were compelled to meet
death in all its various and revolting forms in Florida to uphold
oppression, to sustain an institution which they abhorred; nor can we
wonder that the consciousness of these facts should have created a
feeling of hostility between our regular troops and the slaveholders of
Florida, who were constantly charging them with inefficiency and want of
energy in the capture of negroes. This feeling ran so high that the
white men of Florida were charged with disguising themselves as Indians,
and actually committing murders and robberies upon mail carriers and
express riders, in order to continue hostilities and keep up the
war.[128] This feeling greatly increased the embarrassment of the
Executive.
A chief named "Cora Tustenuggee," after due consultation with the
interpreters sent to induce him to emigrate, concluded to surrender, and
go West. He collected his band, numbering about one hundred in all.
Among them were some half breeds, descendants of the pioneer Exiles.
They had intermarried with Indians of this band, and were treated as
Indians. While on their way to one of our posts, near Palaklikaha Lake,
they were fired upon by a party at dragoons who were said to have been
conscious of the intentions of the Indians. This supposed violation of
faith was greatly aggravated by the subsequent wanton murder of the
chief, after he and his band had quietly submitted as prisoners. These
people were immediately sent to Tampa Bay, and then embarked for the
Western Country, where they joined their brethren, still resident on the
Cherokee lands, and under Cherokee protection.
The Presidential election being past, the Executive felt more
untrammeled; and Mr. Poinsett, Secretary of War, resisting the
instruction which he might have drawn from four years of unfortunate
experience, appears to have determined to leave this Florida War in as
unpromising condition as he found it. He sent instructions to the
Commanding General to renew the war with whatever force he could bring
into the field.
It is a somewhat singular fact, that when the Secretary understood, and
the country was fully informed, that he would leave the Department on
the fourth of March, he wrote the commanding officer on the eighteenth
of February, thirteen days prior to his own political dissolution,
saying, "The Department entertains the well-grounded hope that you will
be able to bring the war to a close upon the terms required by the
treaty of Payne's Landing, and by the _interests and feelings of the
people of Florida_."
The reader must be aware that the _feelings and interests_ of the people
of Florida _required_ the capture and enslavement of the Exiles; for
which the Secretary of War had so long labored, and which appeared to be
his ruling passion--"strong in the hour of his political death."
To effect this object, recourse was had to the bribery of certain
chiefs. Money was now offered certain influential men of the Seminoles
and Exiles to induce them to exert their influence with their friends to
emigrate. It was reported that slaves who had but a few years since left
their masters, and intermarried with the Seminoles, dare not surrender,
knowing that slavery awaited such act. Without them, their relatives and
connexions would not remove. It was therefore proposed that Congress
should make an appropriation for the purpose of purchasing such Exiles;
yet the bill making it was general in its provisions, granting a hundred
thousand dollars to be expended by the Secretary of War for the
subsistence and _benefit_ of certain chiefs and warriors of the Seminole
Indians who wished to emigrate. The subsistence of such emigrants was
provided for in other bills; but the _benefits_ for which this money was
to be expended was to purchase the pretended interest of certain white
men to individual Exiles whom they claimed as property.
By thus disguising the real intention and object of the bill, it was
evidently expected it would pass without scrutiny, under the rules which
prohibited the discussion of all questions involving the subject of
slavery. The better to carry out this design, Hon. Waddy Thompson of
South Carolina, a Whig member of the House of Representatives, but fully
sympathizing with the Executive in his policy of conducting the war in
the manner "_required by the interests and feelings of the people of
Florida_," was regarded as the proper agent to introduce the bill and
superintend its passage.
[Sidenote: 1841.]
The information found in the public documents had awakened previous
investigation; and when this bill came up for action (Feb. 9), the
policy of this war, with the causes which led to its commencement, were
exposed. Every effort was made by slaveholding members to prevent the
public discussion of this subject. They insisted that the gag-rules, as
they were called, prohibiting the discussion of slavery, forbid this
exposure; but the presiding officer (Mr. Clifford of Maine) adhering to
the parliamentary law, decided that an examination of the causes which
led to the war was legitimate, and the discussion proceeded.
This discussion was published and widely circulated among the people;
and is supposed to have given to the public the first information
touching the real causes of the war.[129]
The bill passed by a large majority; and the report of the Secretary of
War the next year, showing the expenditures of his department, exhibited
the manner in which the money appropriated and entrusted to his care was
expended. Another bill, however, making an appropriation of more than a
million of dollars for suppressing Indian hostilities in Florida was
passed, giving to the War Department all the powers desired for bribery,
and tempting Indian chiefs to emigrate to the Western Country.
By reference to the map of Florida, it will be perceived that the great
swamps, extensive everglades, hommocks, ponds and lakes, which spread
over that Territory, must present great difficulties in the progress of
troops embodied in military force; while a small party, following the
footsteps of their leader, would pass over, around or through them with
facility. The Great Okefenoka Swamp, lying on the south line of Georgia
and the northern portion of Florida, afforded a retreat for small
parties of Indians and Exiles, from which they sallied forth and
committed depredations upon the people of southern Georgia, murdering
families, burning buildings and devastating plantations. The swamps
bordering on the Withlacoochee, the Great Wahoo Swamp, and other
fastnesses on the western portion of the Peninsula, gave shelter to
other bands, who, in like manner, wreaked their vengeance upon the
inhabitants of that portion of the Territory. So also the Big Cypress
Swamp, lying farther south, afforded shelter for others, who laid waste
the settlements along the St. John's River, and in the vicinity of the
Atlantic Coast. From these, and numerous other strong-holds, the Indians
and their allies came forth in small bands, spreading devastation and
death throughout the Territory and the southern portion of Georgia.
The people of Florida who had sought this war, and protested against
peace except on such terms as would secure them in the exercise of that
oppression which they deemed so necessary to their happiness, now felt
the full force of that appropriate penalty which some philosophers
believe attaches to every violation of the law of righteousness. Some
died by the hands of the very individuals whom they had oppressed, and
whom they again sought to enslave; others were again driven from their
homes, unable even to obtain food; their wives and children receiving
rations from the public stores, and subsisting by the charity of the
United States.
But this condition of things superinduced another most extraordinary
feature of this war. Our officers, and the Executive, naturally feeling
some degree of sympathy for a people thus driven from their homes, on
whom the evils of war fell with so much force, extended to them every
aid in their power. Some were employed in the Commissary's Department;
some as contractors for transporting provisions; and others as
attendants upon the army in all the various departments of service, so
numerous in a time of war. Even the slaves who remained in the service
of their masters were employed by the officers as guides, interpreters
and employees at high wages. In this manner they earned for their owners
far more than they could by labor upon plantations. This system was
carried so far, that the war actually afforded to many greater profits
than they could acquire in any other way; and consequently it became a
matter of interest with such men to prolong hostilities, and they were
said to exert all their influence to effect that object.