the Seminole Indians from their hunting grounds in Florida resulted in a
sanguinary Indian war. Micanopy the Seminole Sachem and Osceola were the
Indian leaders. Osceola opened hostilities with a master stroke. On
December 28, he surprised General Wiley Thompson at Fort King. Thompson had
wantonly laid Osceola in chains some time before. Now Osceola scalped his
enemy with his own hands. On the same day, Major Dade, leading a relief
expedition from Tampa Bay, was ambushed and overwhelmed near Wahoo Swamp.
Only four of his men escaped death. Within forty-eight hours, on the last
day of the year, General Clinch, commanding the troops in Florida, won a
bloody fight on the banks of the Big Withlacoochee.
1836
[Sidenote: Withlacoochee]
[Sidenote: Creek Indians subdued]
[Sidenote: Fight in Wahoo's swamp]
Throughout this year the Seminole War in Florida dragged on. Gaines's
command was assailed by the Indians near the old battleground of the
Withlacoochee on February 27. In May, the Creeks aided the Seminoles in
Florida, by attacking the white settlers within their domain. Success made
them bold, and they attacked mail carriers, stages, river barges and
outlying settlements in Georgia and Alabama, until thousands of white
people were fleeing for their lives from the savages. General Scott was now
in chief command in the South, and he prosecuted the war with vigor. The
Creeks were finally subdued, and during the summer several thousand of them
were forcibly removed to their designated homes beyond the Mississippi.
Governor Call of Georgia marched against the Seminoles with some two
thousand men in October. A detachment of five hundred of these had a severe
contest (November 21) with the Indians at Wahoo swamp, near the scene of
Dade's massacre. As in so many other engagements with the Seminoles in
their swampy fastnesses, both sides claimed the victory.
[Sidenote: Diet of Pressburg]
[Sidenote: Magyar demands]
[Sidenote: Kossuth]
[Sidenote: Scechenyi]
[Sidenote: Transylvanian Diet]
[Sidenote: Vesselenyi]
In Europe, early during 1836, the conclusions reached by the long-sitting
Diet of Hungary opened the eyes of the new Emperor of Austria and of
Metternich to the changed spirit within their own dominions. For many years
during the long period when the government did not dare to convoke the
Diet, the Hungarians in their county assemblies had opposed a steady
resistance to the usurpations of the crown. These county assemblies,
rejoicing as they did in the right of free discussion, and the appointment
of local officials, were one of the hardiest relics of home rule existing
anywhere in Europe, comparable only to the democratic government of the
Swiss cantons and to the old English town meetings reconstituted in New
England. By banishing political discussion from the Diet to the county
sessions, Metternich only intensified the provincial spirit of opposition
which he thought to quell. When the Hungarian Diet reassembled at Pressburg
at last, the new spirit showed itself in the demand of the Magyars for the
substitution of their own language, in all public debates, for the older
customary Latin. The government speakers, who attempted to address the
deputies in Latin, were howled down by the Magyars. When the government
forbade the publication of all Magyar speeches, Kossuth, one of the
youngest of the deputies, circulated them in manuscript. After the
dissolution of the Diet, in summer, he was punished for this act of
defiance by a three years' imprisonment. The foremost leader of the
Hungarian Liberals at this time was Count Scechenyi, a Magyar magnate of
note. He it was that opened the Danube to steam navigation by the
destruction of the rocks at Orsova, known as the Iron Grates, and to him,
too, Hungary owes the bridge over the Danube that unites its double capital
of Budapesth and Ofen. Of the Hungarian noblemen he was one of the few who
recognized the injustice of the anomalous institution which restricted
Parliamentary representation to the noblemen, and absolved them at the same
time from taxation. The new liberal spirit thus manifested was turned into
revolutionary channels by Metternich himself. The dissolution of the
Hungarian Diet and the subsequent imprisonment of deputies whose persons
should have been inviolable aroused bad blood among the Magyars. This was
made worse by the peremptory dissolution of the Transylvanian Diet, where
the Magyar element likewise predominated. The leader of the Transylvanian
opposition, Count Vesselenyi, a magnate in Hungary, betook himself to his
own county session and there inveighed against the government. He was
arrested and brought to trial before an Austrian court on charges of high
treason. His plea of privilege was supported by the Hungarian county
sessions as involving one of their oldest established rights. In the face
of this agitation Count Vesselenyi was convicted and sentenced to exile.
Henceforth opposition to the government and hostility to all things
Austrian were synonymous with patriotism in Hungary.
[Sidenote: Poland restive]
The discontent in Hungary and the Slav provinces of Austria was fomented by
a keen sympathy with the misfortunes of Poland groaning under the yoke of
Russia. Notwithstanding Austria's official conference with Russia, Polish
refugees were received with open arms in Galicia, Bohemia and Hungary.
[Sidenote: The great Boer trek]
[Sidenote: Piet Retief]
[Sidenote: Zulu treachery]
[Sidenote: Massacre of Weenen]
In various other parts of the world the spirit of revolution would not be
quelled. More Dutch settlers in South Africa sought relief from British
interference with their customs and the institution of slavery by
emigrating into the virgin veldt lying to the north of their former
settlements. It was in vain that the British authorities of Cape Colony
tried to stop this "great trek." Rather than submit to British domination,
the Boers preferred to renew the inevitable struggle with the wild beasts
and the savages of the African wilderness. While one part of the emigrant
body remained in the Transvaal and Northern Free State, the foretrekkers
passed over the Drakensberg Mountains into Natal, under the leadership of
Piet Retief. The land of Natal was at that time practically unpopulated.
Chaka and his warriors had swept the country clean of its native
inhabitants, so Dingaan considered it within his sphere of influence. The
Boers accordingly made overtures to Dingaan, Chaka's successor, who resided
at his kraal on the White Umvolosi, a hundred miles distant in Zululand,
for the right to trek into this country. This was granted after the Boers
had undertaken to restore some cattle of the Zulus stolen by the Basutos. A
thousand prairie wagons containing Boer families trekked over the
Drakensberg into Natal, and scattered over the unpeopled country along the
banks of the Upper Tugela and Mooi Rivers. Piet Retief, with sixty-five
followers, went to visit Dingaan in his kraal. They were made welcome. A
solemn treaty of peace and friendship was drawn up by one Owens, an English
missionary with the Zulus. During a feast, the Boers, disarmed and wholly
unprepared for an attack, were suddenly seized and massacred to a man. Then
the Zulus, numbering some ten thousand warriors, swept out into the veldt
to attack the Boer settlements. Near Colenso, at a spot called Weenen
(weeping), in remembrance of the tragedy there enacted, the Zulus
overwhelmed the largest of the Boer laagers, and slaughtered all its
inmates--41 men, 56 women, 185 children and 250 Kaffir slaves. In spite of
this and other battles the Boers held their ground.
[Sidenote: South Australia settled]
[Sidenote: British seize Aden]
The Englishmen likewise extended their colonial conquests. The unsettled
Bushland of South Australia was colonized by Captain Hindmarsh and his
followers. They founded the city of Adelaide, named after the consort of
William IV. A wrecked British ship having been plundered by Arabs, the
Sultan of Aden, under a threat of British retaliation, was made to cede
Aden to Great Britain. New claims for territory were preferred by Great
Britain against the Republic of Honduras, in Central America.
[Sidenote: Mexican independence acknowledged]
[Sidenote: Defence of the Alamo]
[Sidenote: Joaquin Miller's lines]
The neighboring republic of Mexico, under the dictatorship of Santa Anna,
at last succeeded in having its independence formally acknowledged by
Spain. On March 6, Santa Anna, having raised a new force of 8,000 men,
marched on Fort Alamo, which had been left in charge of a small garrison of
Americans under Colonel Jim Bowie. All night they fought. Every man fell
at his post but seven, and these were killed while asking quarter. Here
died David Crockett, the famous American frontiersman, whose exploits had
made him so popular in Tennessee, that, though unable to read, he was
thrice elected to Congress. Joaquin Miller, the American poet, based on
this encounter his stirring ballad on "The Defence of the Alamo":
Santa Anna came storming, as a storm might come;
There was rumble of cannon; there was rattle of blade;
There was cavalry, infantry, bugle and drum,--
Full seven thousand, in pomp and parade,
The chivalry, flower of Mexico;
And a gaunt two hundred in the Alamo!
[Sidenote: Battle of San Jacinto]
On April 21 was fought the decisive battle of San Jacinto, in which Santa
Anna with 1500 men was defeated by 800 Texans under Sam Houston. On the
next day General Santa Anna was captured. He was compelled to acknowledge
the independence of Texas, but the people of Mexico refused to ratify his
act. Nonetheless serious hostilities against the Texans were abandoned.
[Sidenote: Peru and Bolivia joined]
The abolition of slavery in Bolivia gave a new impetus to the government of
that republic. President Santa Cruz of Bolivia felt encouraged by this to
attempt to carry out his pet project of the amalgamation of Peru with
Bolivia. A prolonged guerilla war was the result.
[Sidenote: Spanish rule in Cuba and Philippines]
[Sidenote: Civil war in the Peninsula]
[Sidenote: Portuguese slave trade abolished]
The example of these movements in Central and South America encouraged the
revolutionists of Cuba to keep up their struggle against the rule of Spain.
Unfortunately for them, the apparent weakness of the Spanish
constitutional government at Madrid did not extend to the more distant
possessions of Spain. The only result of the rising of Manuel Quesada was
that Cuba was deprived of her representation in the Spanish Cortes. In the
Philippine Islands, Spanish rule was extended to the Island of Sulu. On the
Peninsula, on the other hand, matters went from bad to worse. The Carlist
war continued unabated. On May 5, General Evans, commanding the
constitutional troops and foreign volunteers, won a victory over the
Carlists at Vigo, but within a few months he was himself defeated at San
Sebastian. On Christmas Day, another crushing defeat was inflicted on the
Constitutionalists by the Carlist leader Espertero at Bilboa. In Portugal
the marriage of Princess Maria II. to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
was followed by fresh disorders. Revolution broke out at Lisbon, on August
9, and could be subdued only by the re-establishment of the Constitution of
1832. On November 8 came another popular rising. It was a sign of the times
and of a more liberal turn of affairs at Lisbon that one of the first
measures of the new government was a total abolition of Portuguese slave
trading.
[Sidenote: British reforms]
[Sidenote: Charles Dickens]
[Sidenote: "Pickwick Papers"]
[Sidenote: Marryat]
[Sidenote: Landor]
[Sidenote: Death of Mill]
[Sidenote: Wheatstone]
[Sidenote: Balfe]
Reform of all kinds had become popular in England under the dexterous
resistance of O'Connell, who held the balance in Parliament. The government
was induced to bring in a corporation reform bill for Ireland. An official
register of births, deaths, and marriages was conceded to the dissenters.
Next came the abolition of one of the most barbarous practices of English
and Irish law courts. Up to this time prisoners accused of felony were not
allowed to be defended by counsel. At the instance of Lord Lyndhurst this
was now changed. Another gain for humanity was made by the abolition of the
law which required that persons convicted of murder should be executed on
the next day but one. On the other hand a bill for the abolition of
imprisonment for debt miscarried. The most potent plea against the abuses
of this particular relic of barbarism in England was put forth by Charles
Dickens in his "Pickwick Papers." These serial papers relating the humorous
adventures of Mr. Pickwick and his body servant Sam Weller, when brought in
conflict with the English laws governing breach of marital promise and
debt, had an immense success in England and all English-speaking countries.
Already Dickens had published a series of "Sketches of London," under the
pseudonym of Boz, while working as a Parliamentary reporter for the
"Morning Chronicle." The success of the "Pickwick Papers" was such that he
felt encouraged to emerge from his pseudonym and to devote himself entirely
to literature. Other literary events of the year in England were the
publication of the initial volumes of Lockhart's "Memoirs of the Life of
Sir Walter Scott," of Captain Marryat's "Mr. Midshipman Easy," and "The
Pirate and the Three Cutters," and of Landor's "Pericles and Aspasia." The
first Shakespeare jubilee was celebrated at Stratford-on-Avon in the
spring. A loss to English letters was the death of James Mill, the great
political economist, in his sixty-third year. About this time Wheatstone
constructed his electro-magnetic apparatus by which he could send signals
over nearly four miles of wire. The Irish composer Balfe began his
brilliant career as a composer of English operas with the "Siege of
Rochelle," produced at Drury Lane in London. About the same time
Mendelssohn brought out his "St. Paul" in Duesseldorf.
[Sidenote: Death of La Malibran]
[Sidenote: Her operatic career]
[Sidenote: Alfred de Musset's lines]
Maria Felicita Malibran, the great contralto singer of the early part of
the Nineteenth Century, died on September 23, at Manchester, in her
twenty-eighth year. Taken from Paris to Naples at the age of three, she
made her first appearance as a public singer in her fifth year. Two years
later she studied solfeggio with Panseron. At the age of sixteen she made
her debut as Rosina in "Barbiere di Seville" at London. The success of her
first appearance was so great that she was at once engaged for the season.
Next she appeared in New York, where she was a popular favorite for two
years, singing in Mozart's "Don Giovanni," in "Tancred," "Romeo and
Juliet," and two of her father's operas. Here she married a French
merchant, Malibran. After her separation from him she returned to Paris,
where she was engaged as prima donna at a salary of 50,000 francs.
Thereafter she sang at every season in Paris, London, Milan, Rome and
Naples. For one engagement of forty nights in Naples she received 100,000
francs. Both as a singer and woman she exercised an extraordinary
fascination over her contemporaries. Only a few months before her death she
married the violinist De Beriot. In England she suffered a severe fall
from her horse, which shattered her health. After this she literally sang
herself to death. Her loss was mourned most of all in France, where her
death has been commemorated by Alfred de Musset's beautiful threnody ending
with the lines:
Die, then. Thy death is sweet, thy goal is won;
What is called genius by men here below
Is the great cry for Love; all else is but show;
And since, soon or late, human love is undone,
It is for great hearts and great voices like thine
To die as thou didst--for Love all-divine.
[Sidenote: Meyerbeer's "Huguenots"]
[Sidenote: Gounod]
[Sidenote: Chopin]
[Sidenote: Liszt]
[Sidenote: Georges Sand]
[Sidenote: Death of Ampere]
In France, great strides had been made in music, art and literature.
Giacomo Meyerbeer, whose real name was Jacob Beer, surpassed the success of
his "Robert le Diable" with his greatest opera "Les Huguenots," produced on
February 20, at the Paris Opera House. The success of this masterpiece so
disheartened Rossini that he resolved to write no more operas, and withdrew
to Bologna. Charles Francois Gounod, on the other hand, now began his
musical career by entering the Paris Conservatory. Frederick Chopin, the
Polish composer, at this time was at the height of his vogue as the most
_recherche_ pianist of Paris. He was the favorite of a circle of friends
consisting of Meyerbeer, Bellini, Berlioz, Liszt, Balzac, and Heine. It was
during this year that Liszt introduced Chopin to Madame Dudevant, better
known as Georges Sand, the famous French novelist. Their attachment was the
talk of Paris. Andre Marie Ampere, the noted French mathematician and
physicist, died during this year at sixty-one years of age. He was the
inventor of the electrical unit of measure which bears his name.
[Sidenote: Thiers Prime Minister]
[Sidenote: Algerian reverses]
[Sidenote: Thiers resigns]
[Sidenote: Fiasco of Strasburg]
[Sidenote: Louis Napoleon exiled]
[Sidenote: Amnesty acts]
Politically it was a turbulent year for France. On the question of the
budget the Ministry was defeated in January and had to resign. The new
Ministry called in went to pieces on February 22, when Guizot and De
Broglie retired from the Cabinet. Thiers was placed at the helm. On June
26, another attempt to assassinate the King was made by Louis Alibaud, a
former soldier of the south who had taken part in the revolution of July.
The military expedition to Algeria under Marshal Clauzel and the Duke of
Orleans first met with distinguished success. The French army occupied
Mascera. But later the unfortunate issue of an expedition against the town
of Constantine caused the retirement of Marshal Clauzel as Governor-General
of Algeria. Commander Changarnier at the head of a French battalion was
beaten back step by step by an overwhelming body of Achmet Bey's cavalry of
the desert. The question of French intervention in Spain resulted in the
downfall of the Ministry of Thiers. King Louis Philippe, ever since Lord
Palmerston's chilling reply to his overtures for joint intervention, was
opposed to such a project. "Let us aid the Spaniards from a distance," said
he, "but never let us enter the same boat with them. Once there we should
have to take the helm, and God knows where that would bring us." He
demanded the retirement of the French corps of observation in the Pyrenees.
Thiers was utterly opposed to this: "Nothing can bring the King to
intervention," said he, "and nothing can make me renounce it." On
September 6, the Cabinet resigned, having been in power but six months.
Count Mole was charged with forming a new Ministry. A new cause of
disquietude was given late in October by Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte at
Strasburg. On the last day of that month, Louis Napoleon, with no other
support than that of Persigny and Colonel Vauterey, paraded the streets of
that town and presented himself at the barracks of the 4th regiment of
artillery. He was received with the cry "Vive l'Empereur." An attempt to
win over the soldiers of the other barracks failed. The young prince was
arrested. Ex-Queen Hortense interceded in his behalf. The attempt to regain
the Napoleonic crown had been so manifest a fiasco that Louis Philippe
thought he could afford to be generous. Louis Napoleon was permitted to
take himself off to the United States of America with an annuity of fifteen
thousand francs from the royal purse. His adherents were taken before the
court at Colmar and were all acquitted by the jury. A simultaneous military
mutiny at Vendome was treated with like leniency. After the death of
ex-King Charles X., Prince Polignac and other of his Ministers who had come
to grief after the revolution of 1830 were sent out of the country. A
general amnesty was announced.
[Sidenote: American elections]
[Sidenote: The "Gag Law"]
[Sidenote: Smithson's bequest]
[Sidenote: Jackson's specie circular]
The arrival of Prince Louis Napoleon created little stir in the United
States. The people there were in the midst of a Presidential election.
President Jackson wished Vice-President Van Buren to be his successor. He
therefore recommended that the Democratic nomination should be by national
convention. The National Republicans had by this time generally adopted the
name of Whigs. They supported William H. Harrison and John McLaine of Ohio
with Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. The opposition hoped to throw the
Presidential election into the House, but did not succeed in doing so. A
majority of Van Buren electors were chosen by 761,549 votes against 736,656
divided among the other candidates. Congress met on December 5. Arkansas
and Michigan were admitted as new States of the Union. Before this
Jackson's Administration had won a complete success over his opponents. The
President gave his sanction to a Congressional resolution in favor of the
South, that "all petitions, memorials, and resolutions relating to slavery
shall be laid on the table, and no further action whatever shall be had
thereon." A select committee resolved that "Congress cannot
constitutionally interfere with slavery in the United States and it ought
not to do so." The so-called "Gag Law" was adopted by 117 over 68 votes.
About this same time Congress accepted the bequest of James Smithson, an
Englishman, who left $515,169 to be expended in America "for the general
diffusion of knowledge among men." After the fall of the United States
Bank, a number of State banks were formed, many of which were without
adequate capital. Their notes were used in large quantities for the
purchase of public lands from the United States. Thereupon President
Jackson issued the so-called specie circular, ordering federal agents to
receive no other money but gold and silver. This caused such a demand for
specie that many of these minor banks fell into difficulties. By the close
of the year bank failures had become so numerous that a financial crisis
was at hand.
[Sidenote: Death of Madison]
Ex-President James Madison died this year at the ripe age of eighty-five.
His entire career was such as to make him one of the great line of Southern
Presidents of Virginian stock: Washington, Jefferson and Monroe.
[Sidenote: Seminole War]
[Sidenote: American railroad development]
The military campaign against the Seminoles was far from satisfactory. Many
of the soldiers sent into Georgia and Florida succumbed to disease. They
had to abandon Forts King, Dane and Micanopy, giving up a large tract to
the Indians. The Indians were defeated in battle at New Mannsville, and in
the fall of the year General Call rallied them on the Withlacoochee, but
could not drive them into the Wahoo Swamp. A change in commanders was once
more made, and Jesup succeeded Call. With 8,000 men he entered on a winter
campaign. The Indians were forced from their positions on the
Withlacoochee, and were pursued toward the Everglades, and at the end of
1836 sued for peace. On December 15, the Federal Post-Office and
Patent-Office burned down. Irreparable loss was caused by the destruction
of 7,000 models and 10,000 designs of new inventions. At the close of
Jackson's Administration some three thousand miles of railroad had been
constructed. Eight years previously, when he came into office, no railway
had ever been seen in America.
1837
[Sidenote: American financial crisis]
[Sidenote: Government relief measures]
[Sidenote: Sub-Treasury system]
[Sidenote: Texas independent]