XI FLORIDA
Florida did not become a slave colony even on being taken possession of by the English in 1763, nor on its re-conquest by Spain in 1781.
By the treaty of peace at the end of the war of the Revolution (1783) Great Britain recognized as part of the southern boundary of the United States a line due east from the Mississippi at 31° of latitude; and at the same time, by a separate treaty, she ceded to Spain the then two Floridas. Florida became a refuge for fugitive slaves from Georgia and South Carolina.
"Georgians could never forget that the fugitive slaves were roaming about the Everglades of Florida."(37)
The Seminole Indians welcomed to their wild freedom the escaped negro from the lash of the overseer, and consequently the long and bloody Florida Indian wars were literally a slave hunt. The wild tribes of Indians knew no fugitive-slave law.
In the War of 1812, Spain permitted the English to occupy, for their purposes, some points in Florida. When the war ended they abandoned a fort on the Appalachicola, about fifteen miles above its mouth, with a large amount of arms and ammunition. This fort the fugitive negroes seized and held for about three years as a refuge for escaped slaves, and, consequently, as a menace to slavery. It was during this time called "Negro Fort." At the instigation of slave owners, it was attacked by General Gaines of the United States Army.
"A hot shot penetrated one of the magazines, and the whole fort was blown to pieces, July 27, 1816. There were 300 negro men, women, and children, and 20 Choctaws in the fort; 270 were killed. Only three came out unhurt, and these were killed by the allied Indians."
Thus slavery established and maintained itself, through individual and national crime and blood, until the day when God's retributive justice should come. And we shall see how thoroughly His justice was meted out; how "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," measure of blood for measure of blood, anguish for anguish, came to the dominating white race!
It was not until February, 1821, that notice of the ratification of a treaty, made two years before, was received, by which Spain ceded Florida to the United States in consideration of their paying $5,000,000 in satisfaction of American claims against Spain.
This was not all the Republic paid for Florida. A second Seminole war (1835-43) ensued, the bloodiest and most costly of all our Indian wars, in which the Indians were assisted by fugitive slaves and their descendants, in whom the negro blood was admixed, often with the white blood of former masters, and again with the Indian.(38)
At the end of eight years, after many valuable lives had been lost, and $30,000,000 had been expended, but not until after the great Seminole leader (Osceola (39)) had been, by deliberate treachery and bad faith, captured, and the Indians had been worn out rather than conquered, Florida became an American province, and two years thereafter (1845) a slave State in the Union.
The extinction of the brave Seminole Indians left no race-friend of the poor enslaved negro. Untutored as they were, they knew what freedom was, and, until 1861, they were the only people on the American continent to furnish an asylum and to shed their blood for the wronged African.
Florida, as a slave State, was a factor in establishing a balance of power, politically, between the North and South.
As the war between the United States and Great Britain (1812-15) did not grow out of slavery, nor was it waged to acquire more slave territory, nor did it directly tend to perpetuate slavery where established, we pass it over.
(37) W. G. Summer's Andrew Jackson, ch. iii.
(38) In 1821 at Indian Springs, Florida, a forced treaty was negotiated with the Creek Indians for part of their lands by which the United States agreed to apply $109,000 of the purchase price as compensation to Georgia claimants for escaped slaves, and $141,000 for "the offsprings which the females would have borne to their masters had they remained in bondage."—Rise and Fall of Slavery (Wilson), vol. i, 132,454.
(39) Osceola, or As-Se-He-Ho-Lar (black drink), was the son of Wm. Powell, an English Indian-trader, born in Georgia, 1804, of a daughter of a Seminole chief. His mother took him early to Florida. He rose rapidly to be head war-chief, and married a daughter of a fugitive slave who was treacherously stolen from him, as a slave, while he was on a visit to Fort King. When he demanded of General Thompson, the Indian agent, her release, he was put in irons, but released after six days. A little later, December, 1835, he avenged himself by killing Thompson and four others outside of the fort, thus inaugurating the second Seminole war. He hated the white race, and his ambition was to furnish a safe asylum for fugitive slaves.
Surprises and massacres ensued for two years, Osceola showing great bravery and skill, and not excelling his white adversaries in treachery. He fought Generals Clinch, Gaines, Taylor and Jesup, of the U. S. A. Jesup induced him (Oct. 21, 1837) under a flag of truce to hold a parley near St. Augustine, where Jesup treacherously caused him to be seized, and the U. S. authorities (treating him as England treated Napoleon) immured him in captivity for life, hopelessly, at Fort Moultrie. His free spirit could not endure this, and he died of a broken heart three months later (January 30, 1838), at thirty-four years of age. His body lies buried on Sullivan's Island, afterwards the scene of a larger struggle for human freedom.
The remains of the civilized statesman-champion of perpetual human slavery, Calhoun, and the remains of the savage, untutored Seminole Chief, Oscoeola, the champion of human liberty, lie buried near Charleston, S. C. Let the ages judge each—kindly!