From the following account we can imagine under what difficulties young
men went on hunting-excursions a century since in Florida:
"The Spanish Governor's son, living in St. Augustine, together with two
other young men, arranged a trip on the coast for the purpose of hunting
and fishing. Being provided with a convenient bark, ammunition,
fishing-tackle, etc., they set sail, directing their course south,
toward the point of Florida, putting in to shore and sailing up rivers,
as a conveniency or the prospect of game invited them. The pleasing
rural and diversified scenes of the Florida coast imperceptibly allured
them far to the south beyond the fortified post. Unfortunate youths!
regardless of the advice of their parents and friends, they entered a
harbor at evening, with a view of chasing the roebuck, and hunting up
the sturdy bear, or solacing themselves with delicious fruits, and
reposing under aromatic shades, when, alas! cruel and unexpected
event--in the beatific moments of their slumbers they are surrounded,
arrested, and carried off by a band of predatory Creek Indians, who are
proud to capture so rich a prize. They are hurried into bondage, being
conducted, by devious paths through dreary swamps and boundless
savannahs, to the Nation."
It was at this time the Indians were at furious war with the
Spaniards--scarcely any bounds set to their cruelties on either side; in
short, the youths were condemned to be burnt. An attempt was made to
rescue them, by some English traders, from their unrelenting
persecutors, who petitioned the Indians in their behalf, offering a
great ransom for their release, acquainting them, at the same time, that
they were young men of high rank, and one of them the governor's son.
Upon this the head-men or chiefs of the whole Nation were convened, and,
after solemn and mature deliberation, they returned the traders their
final answer and determination, which was as follows:
"Brothers and Friends:--We have been considering upon this business
concerning the captives, and that under the eye and fear of the Great
Spirit. You know that these people are our cruel enemies; they save no
lives of us red men who fall in their power. You say that the youth is
the son of the Spanish Governor. We believe it--we are sorry he has
fallen into our hands, but he is our enemy. The two young men are
equally our enemies--we are sorry to see them here, but we know no
difference in their flesh and blood; they are equally our enemies. If we
save one, we must save all three; but we cannot do it. The red men
require their blood to appease the spirits of their slain relatives;
they have intrusted us with the guardianship of our laws and rights--we
cannot betray them. However, we have a sacred prescription relative to
this affair, which allows us to extend mercy to a certain degree: a
third is saved by lot. The Great Spirit allows us to put it to that
decision; he is no respecter of persons."
The lots are cast. The governor's son was taken and burnt.
Hunters now go on excursions down the Florida coast as a pleasant
pastime, with no fear from human foes, and no inconvenience, save a few
musquitoes and sand-flies, which furnish a feast of merriment for their
friends when they relate their adventures after returning. There is a
decided difference between coming here in 1774 and 1874.
Matanzas is situated eighteen miles below St. Augustine, at the mouth of
the Bloody Matanzas River. In the vicinity a boarding-house has recently
been erected, for the accommodation of visitors. The echoes from busy
life are so faint and far away, and so long in reaching us here, that we
feel as though we were in another state of existence--the outside world
only affecting us like a spent wave, as it dies away on the shore. The
fishing-boats steal slowly by with nets and lines; the fishermen are
silent, although their lives are not sad; but they snare the voiceless
dwellers of the deep, which have peculiar habits to be studied, and
baited for with cautious movements, before they can be captured. There
is no crowding, no jostling, no dust--all is peace, and the pure air is
life. An occasional schooner approaches from New York; it comes like a
good angel on a mission of mercy, laden with stores for the sustenance
of citizens and strangers.
Fort Matanzas, although cracked and seamed from turret to foundation,
is ever redolent of past memories. It is about twenty feet in height,
and formerly had brass cannon mounted on the ramparts, designed to
command Matanzas Bar. During the Spanish rule of 1800, to the time of
its cession to the United States, it was occupied by a company of
soldiers, who guarded the entrance to St. Augustine; also for the
punishment of officers or soldiers who had been drunk, or wandering from
the path of duty in any way. Its last commander was Captain Christobal
Bravo, whose son, bearing the same name, is now a worthy citizen of St.
Augustine, and can relate incidents which occurred during the time his
father was stationed there. This fortress, inferring from facts
furnished by the old French records, is, no doubt, the one commenced by
the two hundred who escaped the night previous to the fatal massacre by
Melendez. It never had a portcullis, or sally-port, but was entered by
an escalade from the outside, after which the ladder was drawn up and
dropped down inside, where were casemates for the soldiers' quarters and
rations, also an ordnance department, and lock-up for delinquents to
cool off from their potions and meditate upon the uncertainties of all
earthly pleasures--particularly that of taking a glass too much! It is
partly concealed by vines and foliage--reminding us that Nature, when
not interrupted, comes to close the yawning gaps of busy-fingered Time,
planting a twining ivy, a hardy cactus, or a climbing rose, covered with
blooms and verdure--thus teaching us the lesson of resignation, which
clothes our misfortunes in the garments of grace, producing the flowers
of fragrance, although the jagged edges of rough, rugged paths surround
us. Here we have a fine view of the sea, where the sun rises fresh every
morning as the day after its creation; and we can imagine Aurora
scattering flowers before his chariot as the fleecy clouds, decked with
the purity of the day-dawn, burst upon our delighted vision.
NEW SMYRNA.--Dr. Turnbull obtained a grant from the English Government
for settling a Greek colony in Florida, which had been ceded to them by
Spain in 1763. He sailed to Peloponnesus, and obtained permission from
the Governor of Modon, for a consideration, to convey to Florida a large
number of Greek families. In 1767 he sailed with one small vessel from
Modon; putting in at the islands of Corsica and Minorca, he recruited
his numbers to fifteen hundred. He agreed to give them a free passage,
furnish them in good provisions and clothing; at the end of three years'
service to give each family fifty acres of land, and in six months after
their arrival, if they were discontented, to send them back. Many of the
old people died during the voyage of four months. Sixty thousand acres
were granted them by the Governor of Florida. As it was then winter,
they built huts of palmetto to shelter them, and the following spring
commenced planting their gardens. This settlement was about sixty miles
south of St. Augustine--they named it New Smyrna, for a Grecian city
from which they came, in Peloponnesus, where they all contended Homer
was born, but, unlike its namesake--being ten times destroyed, always
rose from her ruins--it has never been rebuilt since the indigo
speculation proved a failure. The first year they engaged in the culture
of indigo, when the crop amounted to nearly forty thousand dollars, but
the price declining so rapidly, it was soon abandoned. Turnbull did not
treat them kindly; he appointed drivers from the Italians, reducing them
to the lowest slavery, when they were assigned tasks and drew weekly
rations. When the clothes they had brought with them were worn out, they
were furnished with a suit of osnaburgs, giving the men shoes, but the
women none, although many of them were accustomed to affluence in their
own country. This servitude continued for nine years. The cruelties
exercised over them were equal to those of the Spaniards of St. Domingo.
For the most trifling offense they were cruelly beaten, negroes being
chosen mediums for this torture. If they ran away, they were brought
back, the one who returned them receiving a reward. At the termination
of nine years, only six hundred remained of the fifteen hundred brought
over. Finally three of them escaped, and, after swimming the Matanzas
River, arrived in St. Augustine, when they made known their business to
Colonel Yonge, the Attorney-general of the Province, who gave them
protection. A change of governors had taken place, Grant being
superseded by Tonyn. Grant was supposed to have been connected with
Turnbull in the speculation. Tonyn interfered in their behalf, setting
them at liberty. Mr. Pallicier was chosen their leader when they
marched out of bondage, like the children of Israel, from what to them
had been an Egypt. The governor treated them kindly on their arrival in
St. Augustine, giving them lands in the north part of the city, where
they built houses and cultivated gardens, which are occupied by their
children to this day.
Not far from this we find the Halifax River country, near which is
Daytonia and other settlements, said to be remarkable for the selectness
of its settlers, no rough adventurers having drifted in there. Below New
Smyrna is the famous Colonel Douglass Dummit plantation, from which, a
half century since, he raised and manufactured two hundred barrels of
sugar in one season, which he sent to the city of Boston, Mass., and
sold for eleven cents per pound. It was only rich planters, then, who
could afford to buy seed and pay three or four thousand dollars for an
engine to make sugar. An acre of cane here has been made to produce
three thousand pounds of sugar in one year.
INDIAN KEY MASSACRE.--Adjectives expressive of the horrible were
exhausted in Florida during the Indian war. Some of the contemporaries
of the Indian Key murder are still surviving in St. Augustine, and to
hear them relate its terrors produces a chilliness which to us is quite
overpowering.
_August 15, 1840._--The steamer Santee arrived on Wednesday--Captain
Poinsett commanding--bringing the family of Dr. Perine. They were living
on Indian Key, a small spot not over seven acres in extent, situated
near Matacomba Key, about thirty miles from the mainland, on the
Southern Atlantic coast. When the attack was made by the savages, seven
of its inhabitants were murdered, the island plundered, and its
buildings burned. About three o'clock on the morning of the 7th instant
a Mr. Glass, in the employ of Mr. Houseman, happening to be up, saw
boats approaching, after which, on closer inspection, it was discovered
they were Indians. They immediately commenced firing on the residences
of Mr. Houseman and Dr. Perine, the former of whom, with his family, and
that of Charles Howe and family, succeeded in escaping to boats and
crossing over to Teable Key. The family of Dr. Perine passed through a
trap-door into their bathing-room, from whence they got into the
turtle-crawl, and by great effort removed the logs, and secreted
themselves among the rocks. The bathing-house above them was set on fire
by these fiends, when with the greatest efforts only they were kept from
being roasted alive by putting mud on their heads and cheeks. Mr. Motte
and wife, and Mrs. Johnson, a lady seventy years of age, fled into an
out-house, from whence Mrs. Motte was dragged by an Indian, and while in
the act of calling on her husband, "John, save me!" was killed. Mr.
Motte shared the same fate, and was scalped. The old lady, as she was
dragged forth, suddenly broke his hold, and escaped under the house. Her
granddaughter, a child of Mrs. Motte, aged eleven years, was then killed
with a club--the infant strangled and thrown into the water. This was
seen by Mrs. Johnson from her hiding-place; but the Indians fired this
building, when she was again obliged to flee, escaping to Maloney's
wharf, where she secreted herself until she was finally rescued. Joseph
Sturdy, a boy twelve years of age, concealed himself in the cistern
under the residence of Mr. Houseman, and was scalded to death by the
burning building heating the water. The remains of an adult skeleton
were found among the ruins of Dr. Perine's house, supposed to be the
doctor--also a child, thought to have been a slave of Mr. Houseman. The
perpetrators of this deed were Spanish Indians, headed by Chekika, the
same who made the attack on the Caloosahatchee. They obtained a great
amount of plunder from the houses and stores, and whilst engaged in
obtaining these articles Mrs. Perine, with her two daughters and little
son, reached a boat partially loaded, and put off to the schooner
Medium, lying at some distance. On Mr. Houseman reaching Teable Key,
Midshipman Murray, U. S. N., started with his only available force of
five men and two swivels, hoping to cut off the boats, and thus prevent
the escape of the Indians. On the second fire of his guns they recoiled
overboard, when the Indians commenced firing on his boat from a
six-pounder belonging to Mr. Houseman, charged with musket-balls,
driving back the officer. Dispatches were sent to Key Biscayne, but the
Indians had retreated, after holding possession of the island twelve
hours, carrying off large quantities of powder and other things, besides
laying a little settlement in ashes.
This act was regarded as among the boldest feats of the war--that a
force of seventeen canoes, with five Indians in each, should make a
voyage thirty miles from the mainland, plunder, murder, and retire in
perfect safety! Dr. Perine was a man of learning, a botanist, whose
observations and notes on Florida will be a great loss. We see daily in
our streets armed men in the employ of the Government, we hear of
company after company being formed, and why are not operations commenced
against the enemy?
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