The Exiles of Florida Part 29

In accordance with this decision, they returned to their new homes, resumed their habits of agriculture, and for a time all was quiet and peaceful; but their example was soon felt among the slaves of Arkansas, and of the surrounding Indian tribes. Nor is it to be supposed that the holders of slaves in any State of the Union, would be willing to admit that so large a body of servants could, by any effort, separate from their masters, for a century and a half maintain their liberty, and after so much effort to reenslave them, be permitted to enjoy liberty in peace.

Hundreds of them had been seized in Florida and enslaved. The laws of slave States presumed every black person to be a slave; and it was evident, that if they could once be subjected to the will of some white man, the laws of Arkansas would enable him to hold them in bondage.[133]

An individual, a slave-dealer, appeared among the Creeks and offered to pay them one hundred dollars for each Exile they would seize and deliver to him; he stipulating to take all risk of t.i.tle.[134]

[Sidenote: 1849.]

This temptation was too great for the integrity of the Creeks, who were smarting under their disappointment, and the defeat of their long cherished schemes, of reenslaving the Exiles. Some two hundred Creek warriors collected together, armed themselves, and, making a sudden descent upon the Exiles, seized such as they could lay their hands upon.

The men and most of the women and children fled; but those who had arms collected, and presenting themselves between their brethren and the Creeks who were pursuing them, prepared to defend themselves and friends.[135] The Creeks, unwilling to encounter the danger which threatened them, ceased from further pursuit, but, turning back, dragged their frightened victims, who had been already captured, to the Creek villages, and delivered them over to the slave-dealer, who paid them the stipulated price.

[Sidenote: 1850.]

The Seminole Agent, learning the outrage, at once repaired to the nearest Judge in Arkansas, and obtained a writ of habeas corpus. The Exiles were brought before him in obedience to the command of the writ, and a hearing was had. The Agent showed the action of General Jessup; the sanction of the capitulation of March, 1837, by the Executive; the opinion of the Attorney General, and action of the President, deciding the Exiles to be free, and in all respects ent.i.tled to their liberty.

But the Judge decided that the Creeks had obtained t.i.tle by virtue of their contract with General Jessup; that neither General Jessup, nor the President, had power to emanc.i.p.ate the Exiles, even in time of war; that the Attorney General had misunderstood the law; that the t.i.tle of the Creek Indians was legal and perfect; and they, having sold them to the claimant, his t.i.tle must be good and perfect.[136]

No sooner was the decision announced, than the manacled victims were hurried from their friends and the scenes of such transcendent crimes and guilt. They were placed on board a steamboat, and carried to New Orleans. There they were sold to different purchasers, taken to different estates, and mingling with the tide of human victims who are septennially murdered upon the cotton and sugar plantations of that State, they now rest in their quiet graves, or perhaps have shared the more unhappy fate of living and suffering tortures incomparably worse than death.

The year 1850 was distinguished by a succession of triumphs on the part of the slave power. While the President and his Cabinet, and members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, were seeking the pa.s.sage of the Fugitive Slave Law; while slaveholders and their northern allies appeared to be aroused in favor of oppression within the States of our Union, their savage coadjutors of the Indian territory were equally active.

There yet remained some hundreds of Exiles in that far-distant territory unsubdued, and enjoying liberty. They had witnessed the duplicity, the treachery of our Government often repeated, toward themselves and their friends--they had, most of them, been born in freedom--they had grown to manhood, had become aged amidst persecutions, dangers and death--they had experienced the constant and repeated violations of our national faith: its perfidy was no longer disguised; if they remained, death or slavery would const.i.tute their only alternative. One, and only one, mode of avoiding such a fate remained--that was, to leave the territory, the jurisdiction of the United States, and flee beyond its power and influence.

Mexico was _free_! No slave clanked his chains under its government.

Could they reach the Rio Grande? Could they place themselves safely on Mexican soil, they might hope yet to be free. A Council was held. Some were connected with Seminoles of influence. Those who were intimately connected with Indian families of influence, and most of the half-breeds, feeling they could safely remain in the Indian territory, preferred to stay with their friends and companions. Of the precise number who thus continued in the Indian Country, we have no certain information;[137] but some three hundred are supposed to have determined on going to Mexico, and perhaps from one to two hundred concluded to remain with their connexions in the Indian Country.

Abraham had reached a mature age; had great experience, and retained influence with his people. Louis Pacheco, of whom we spoke in a former chapter, with his learning, his shrewdness and tact, was still with them, and so were many able and experienced warriors. Wild Cat, the most active and energetic chief of the Seminole Tribe, declared his unalterable purpose to accompany the Exiles; to a.s.sist them in their journey, and defend them, if a.s.sailed. Other Seminoles volunteered to go with them. Their arrangements were speedily made. Such property as they had was collected together, and packed for transportation. They owned a few Western ponies. Their blankets, which const.i.tuted their beds, and some few cooking utensils and agricultural implements, were placed upon their ponies, or carried by the females and children; while the warriors, carrying only their weapons and ammunition, marched, unenc.u.mbered even by any unnecessary article of clothing, prepared for battle at every step of their journey.

After the sun had gone down (Sept. 10), their spies and patrols, who had been sent out for that purpose, returned, and reported that all was quiet; that no slave-hunters were to be seen. As the darkness of night was closing around them, they commenced their journey westwardly. Amid the gloom of the evening, silent and sad they took leave of their western homes, and fled from the jurisdiction of a people who had centuries previously kidnapped their ancestors in their native homes, brought them to this country, enslaved them, and during many generations had persecuted them. Many of their friends and relatives had been murdered for their love of liberty by our Government; others had been doomed to suffer and languish in slavery--a fate far more dreaded than death. At the period of this exodus, their number was probably less than at the close of the Revolution.

When the slaveholding Creeks learned that the Exiles had left, they collected together and sent a war party in pursuit, for the purpose of capturing as many as they could, in order to sell them to the slave-dealers from Louisiana and Arkansas, who were then present among the Creeks, encouraging them to make another piratical descent upon the Exiles for the capture of slaves.

This war party came up with the emigrants on the third day after leaving their homes. But Wild Cat and Abraham, and their experienced warriors, were not to be surprised. They were prepared and ready for the conflict.

With them it was death or victory. They boldly faced their foes. Their wives and children were looking on with emotions not to be described.

With the coolness of desperation, they firmly resolved on dying, or on driving back the slave-catching Creeks from the field of conflict. Their nerves were steady, and their aim fatal. Their enemies soon learned the danger and folly of attempting to capture armed men who were fighting for freedom. They fled, leaving their dead upon the field; which is always regarded by savages as dishonorable defeat.[138]

The Exiles resumed their journey, still maintaining their warlike arrangement. Directing their course south-westerly, they crossed the Rio Grande, and continuing nearly in the same direction, they proceeded into Mexico, until they reached the vicinity of the ancient but now deserted town of Santa Rosa.[139] In that beautiful climate, they found a rich, productive soil. Here they halted, examined the country, and finally determined to locate their new homes in this most romantic portion of Mexico. Here they erected their cabins, planted their gardens, commenced plantations, and resumed their former habits of agricultural life. There they yet remain. Forcibly torn from their native land, oppressed, wronged, and degraded, they became voluntary Exiles from South Carolina and Georgia. More recently exiled from Florida and from the territory of the United States--they are yet _free_! After the struggles and persecutions of a hundred and fifty years, they repose in comparative quiet under a government which repudiates slavery. To the pen of some future historian we consign their subsequent history.

Before taking leave of the reader, we would call his attention to a review of the fate which attended different portions of the Exiles, and to a few further incidents, for some of which we have only newspaper authority; but from all the circ.u.mstances we have no doubt they actually transpired.

Of the Exiles and their descendants, twelve were delivered up at the treaty of Colerain in 1796, and consigned to slavery; two hundred and seventy were ma.s.sacred at Blount's Fort in 1816; thirty were taken prisoners--these all died of wounds or were enslaved. At the different battles in the first Seminole War in 1818, it is believed that at least four hundred were slain, including those who fell at Blount's Fort.

In the Second Seminole War, probably seventy-five were slain in battle, and five hundred were enslaved; and at least seventy-five were seized by the Creek Indians, in 1850, and enslaved. Probably a hundred and fifty connected with the Seminoles now reside in the Western Country, and will soon become amalgamated with the Indians; while three hundred have found their way to Mexico, and are free.[140] Making, in all, thirteen hundred and fifty souls; being some hundreds less than was reported by the Officers of Government, in 1836. This discrepancy is accounted for by the fact, that the Exiles captured by individual enterprise, and by the Georgia and Florida militia, were never officially reported to the War Department, and we have no reliable data on which we can fix an estimate of the number thus piratically enslaved. There are also a few yet in Florida, not included in the above estimate.

[Sidenote: 1852.]

As to their present situation, we can give the reader but little further information. In the summer of 1852, Wild Cat suddenly appeared among his friends, the Seminoles, who yet remained in the Indian Country. His appearance excited surprise among the Creeks. They at that time maintained a guard, composed of mounted men: these were at once put in motion for the purpose of arresting this extraordinary chieftain. But while they were engaged in looking for him, he and a company of Seminoles, attended by a number of Exiles and black persons, previously held in bondage by the Creeks, were rapidly wending their way towards their new settlement.[141]

This visit of Wild Cat to the Western Country occasioned much excitement in that region, as well as astonishment at Washington, and const.i.tuted the occasion of a protracted correspondence between the War Department and our Military Officers and Indian Agents of that country. Wild Cat was denounced as a "pirate"--"_robber_"--"OUTLAW;" and nearly all the opprobrious epithets known to our language were heaped upon him, for thus aiding his fellow men to regain those rights to life and liberty with which the G.o.d of Nature had originally endowed them.

During the year 1852, while our commissioners, appointed to establish the boundary between the United States and Mexico, were engaged in the discharge of their official duties, a small party of armed men was in attendance for their protection. Some eight of these were said to have been engaged in patroling the country, when they fell in with Wild Cat and a portion of this band of Exiles, who were at all times prepared for friends or foes. The whites were made prisoners without bloodshed, and taken to their village. A council was called. Abraham was yet living, and the white men declared that he was regarded as a ruling prince by his people. They were evidently suspicious of the intentions of our men; but upon inquiry and consideration, they became satisfied that no hostile intentions had brought our friends to that country; they were accordingly treated with becoming hospitality, and dismissed. These brief statements appeared in some of the newspapers of that day, which const.i.tutes our only authority for stating them.

[Sidenote: 1853.]

Complaints were subsequently made through the Texan newspapers, that slaves escaped from that region of country and found an asylum in Mexico, on the other side of the Rio Grande; and intimations were thrown out that a party of volunteers, without authority from the United States, were about to visit the settlement, which thus encouraged slaves to seek their freedom. The suggestion was so much in character with the slaveholders of Texas, that it excited attention among those who were aware of the settlement of Exiles in the region indicated. It was believed that those men who were about to visit Wild Cat and Abraham and Louis and their companions, for the purpose of seizing and enslaving men, would find an entertainment for which they were not prepared.

Some few months subsequently, a brief reference was made in the newspapers of Texas to this expedition, giving their readers to understand that it had failed of accomplishing the object intended, and had returned with its numbers _somewhat diminished_ by their conflict with the blacks.

As was naturally expected, after the lapse of some six months, great complaint was heard through the public press of Indian depredations upon the frontier of Texas. Plantations were said to be destroyed; buildings burned; people murdered, and slaves carried away. This foray was said to have been made by Camanche Indians, led on by Wild Cat. He appears yet ready to make war upon all who fight for slavery; and many of the scenes which were enacted in Florida, will most likely be again presented on our south-western frontier, where the same causes exist which formerly existed in Florida, and the same effects will be likely to follow.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

General Call at Talaha.s.se=> General Call at Tallaha.s.se {pg 125}

visited Fort Mellen=> visited Fort Mellon {pg 141}

Any inteference with the negroes=> Any interference with the negroes {pg 147}

Members of familes=> Members of families {pg 174}

prefering to have them=> preferring to have them {pg 195}

arrrangements were privately making=> arrangements were privately making {pg 237}

Acting Commmissioner=> Acting Commissioner {pg 241}

to those gentleman to enable them=> to those gentlemen to enable them {pg 241}

he was in Forida at the time=> he was in Florida at the time {pg 245}

all prisoner captured in war=> all prisoners captured in war {pg 246}

This feelng was=> This feeling was {pg 252}

betrayed, treachererously=> betrayed, treacherously {pg 255}

This Message was=> This message was {pg 263}

that Territoy=> that Territory {pg 282}

outnumbered the a.s.ssailants=> outnumbered the a.s.sailants {pg 289}

disppointment and chagrin=> disappointment and chagrin {pg 289}

died of sicknes=> died of sickness {pg 303}

sense of gat.i.tude=> sense of grat.i.tude {pg 306}

were sacrified=> were sacrificed {pg 315}