All the while injustice and injury to the Indians continued. Econchattimico, well known as one of those chiefs to whom special reservations had been given by the treaty of Fort Moultrie, was the owner of twenty slaves valued at $15,000. Observing Negro stealers hovering around his estate, he armed himself and his men. The kidnapers then furthered their designs by circulating the report that the Indians were arming themselves for union with the main body of Seminoles for the general purpose of massacring the white people. Face to face with this charge Econchattimico gave up his arms and threw himself on the protection of the government; and his Negroes were at once taken and sold into bondage.

A similar case was that of John Walker, an Appalachicola chief, who wrote to Thompson under date July 28, 1835: "I am induced to write you in consequence of the depredations making and attempted to be made upon my property, by a company of Negro stealers, some of whom are from Columbus, Ga., and have connected themselves with Brown and Douglass.... I should like your advice how I am to act. I dislike to make or to have any difficulty with the white people. But if they trespass upon my premises and my rights, I must defend myself the best way I can. If they do make this attempt, and I have no doubt they will, they must bear the consequences. But is there no civil law to protect me? Are the free Negroes and the Negroes belonging to this town to be stolen away publicly, and in the face of law and justice, carried off and sold to fill the pockets of these worse than land pirates? Douglass and his company hired a man who has two large trained dogs for the purpose to come down and take Billy. He is from Mobile and follows for a livelihood catching runaway Negroes."

Such were the motives, fears and incidents in the years immediately after the treaty of Payne's Landing. Beginning at the close of 1834 and continuing through April, 1835, Thompson had a series of conferences with the Seminole chiefs. At these meetings Micanopy, influenced by Osceola and other young Seminoles, took a more definite stand than he might otherwise have assumed. Especially did he insist with reference to the treaty that he understood that the chiefs who went West were to examine the country, and for his part he knew that when they returned they would report unfavorably. Thompson then, becoming angry, delivered an ultimatum to the effect that if the treaty was not observed the annuity from the great father in Washington would cease. To this, Osceola, stepping forward, replied that he and his warriors did not care if they never received another dollar from the great father, and drawing his knife, he plunged it in the table and said, "The only treaty I will execute is with this." Henceforward there was deadly enmity between the young Seminole and Thompson. More and more Osceola made his personality felt, constantly asserting to the men of his nation that whoever recommended emigration was an enemy of the Seminoles, and he finally arrived at an understanding with many of them that the treaty would be resisted with their very lives. Thompson, however, on April 23, 1835, had a sort of secret conference with sixteen of the chiefs who seemed favorably disposed toward migration, and he persuaded them to sign a document "freely and fully" assenting to the treaties of Payne's Landing and Fort Gibson. The next day there was a formal meeting at which the agent, backed up by Clinch and his soldiers, upbraided the Indians in a very harsh manner. His words were met by groans, angry gesticulations, and only half-muffled imprecations. Clinch endeavored to appeal to the Indians and to advise them that resistance was both unwise and useless. Thompson, however, with his usual lack of tact, rushed onward in his course, and learning that five chiefs were unalterably opposed to the treaty, he arbitrarily struck their names off the roll of chiefs, an action the highhandedness of which was not lost on the Seminoles. Immediately after the conference moreover he forbade the sale of any more arms and powder to the Indians. To the friendly chiefs the understanding had been given that the nation might have until January 1, 1836, to make preparation for removal, by which time all were to assemble at Fort Brooke, Tampa Bay, for emigration.

About the first of June Osceola was one day on a quiet errand of trading at Fort King. With him was his wife, the daughter of a mulatto slave woman who had run away years before and married an Indian chief. By Southern law this woman followed the condition of her mother, and when the mother's former owner appeared on the scene and claimed the daughter, Thompson, who desired to teach Occeola a lesson, readily agreed that she should be remanded into captivity.[83] Osceola was highly enraged, and this time it was his turn to upbraid the agent. Thompson now had him overpowered and put in irons, in which situation he remained for the better part of two days. In this period of captivity his soul plotted revenge and at length he too planned a "ruse de guerre." Feigning assent to the treaty he told Thompson that if he was released not only would he sign himself but he would also bring his people to sign. The agent was completely deceived by Osceola's tactics. "True to his professions," wrote Thompson on June 3, "he this day appeared with seventy-nine of his people, men, women, and children, including some who had joined him since his conversion, and redeemed his promise. He told me many of his friends were out hunting, whom he could and would bring over on their return. I have now no doubt of his sincerity, and as little, that the greatest difficulty is surmounted."

Osceola now rapidly urged forward preparations for war, which, however, he did not wish actually started until after the crops were gathered. By the fall he was ready, and one day in October when he and some other warriors met Charley Emathla, who had upon him the gold and silver that he had received from the sale of his cattle preparatory to migration, they killed this chief, and Osceola threw the money in every direction, saying that no one was to touch it, as it was the price of the red man's blood. The true drift of events became even more apparent to Thompson and Clinch in November, when five chiefs friendly to migration with five hundred of their people suddenly appeared at Fort Brooke to ask for protection. When in December Thompson sent final word to the Seminoles that they must bring in their horses and cattle, the Indians did not come on the appointed day; on the contrary they sent their women and children to the interior and girded themselves for battle. To Osceola late in the month a runner brought word that some troops under the command of Major Dade were to leave Fort Brooke on the 25th and on the night of the 27th were to be attacked by some Seminoles in the Wahoo Swamp. Osceola himself, with some of his men, was meanwhile lying in the woods near Fort King, waiting for an opportunity to kill Thompson. On the afternoon of the 28th the agent dined not far from the fort at the home of the sutler, a man named Rogers, and after dinner he walked with Lieutenant Smith to the crest of a neighboring hill. Here he was surprised by the Indians, and both he and Smith fell pierced by numerous bullets. The Indians then pressed on to the home of the sutler and killed Rogers, his two clerks, and a little boy. On the same day the command of Major Dade, including seven officers and one hundred and ten men, was almost completely annihilated, only three men escaping. Dade and his horse were killed at the first onset. These two attacks began the actual fighting of the Second Seminole War. That the Negroes were working shoulder to shoulder with the Indians in these encounters may be seen from the report of Captain Belton,[84] who said, "Lieut. Keays, third artillery, had both arms broken from the first shot; was unable to act, and was tomahawked the latter part of the second attack, by a Negro"; and further: "A Negro named Harry controls the Pea Band of about a hundred warriors, forty miles southeast of us, who have done most of the mischief, and keep this post constantly observed." Osceola now joined forces with those Indians who had attacked Dade, and in the early morning of the last day of the year occurred the Battle of Ouithlecoochee, a desperate encounter in which both Osceola and Clinch gave good accounts of themselves. Clinch had two hundred regulars and five or six hundred volunteers. The latter fled early in the contest and looked on from a distance; and Clinch had to work desperately to keep from duplicating the experience of Dade. Osceola himself was conspicuous in a red belt and three long feathers, but although twice wounded he seemed to bear a charmed life. He posted himself behind a tree, from which station he constantly sallied forth to kill or wound an enemy with almost infallible aim.

After these early encounters the fighting became more and more bitter and the contest more prolonged. Early in the war the disbursing agent reported that there were only three thousand Indians, including Negroes, to be considered; but this was clearly an understatement. Within the next year and a half the Indians were hard pressed, and before the end of this period the notorious Thomas S. Jessup had appeared on the scene as commanding major general. This man seems to have determined never to use honorable means of warfare if some ignoble instrument could serve his purpose. In a letter sent to Colonel Harvey from Tampa Bay under date May 25, 1837, he said: "If you see Powell (Osceola), tell him I shall send out and take all the Negroes who belong to the white people. And he must not allow the Indian Negroes to mix with them. Tell him I am sending to Cuba for bloodhounds to trail them; and I intend to hang every one of them who does not come in." And it might be remarked that for his bloodhounds Jessup spent—or said he spent—as much as $5,000, a fact which thoroughly aroused Giddings and other persons from the North, who by no means cared to see such an investment of public funds. By order No. 160, dated August 3, 1837, Jessup invited his soldiers to plunder and rapine, saying, "All Indian property captured from this date will belong to the corps or detachment making it." From St. Augustine, under date October 20, 1837, in a "confidential" communication he said to one of his lieutenants: "Should Powell and his warriors come within the fort, seize him and the whole party. It is important that he, Wild Cat, John Cowagee, and Tustenuggee, be secured. Hold them until you have my orders in relation to them."[85] Two days later he was able to write to the Secretary of War that Osceola was actually taken. Said he: "That chief came into the vicinity of Fort Peyton on the 20th, and sent a messenger to General Hernandez, desiring to see and converse with him. The sickly season being over, and there being no further necessity to temporize, I sent a party of mounted men, and seized the entire body, and now have them securely lodged in the fort." Osceola, Wild Cat, and others thus captured were marched to St. Augustine; but Wild Cat escaped. Osceola was ultimately taken to Fort Moultrie, in the harbor of Charleston, where in January (1838) he died.

Important in this general connection was the fate of the deputation that the influential John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, was persuaded to send from his nation to induce the Seminoles to think more favorably of migration. Micanopy, twelve other chieftains, and a number of warriors accompanied the Cherokee deputation to the headquarters of the United States Army at Fort Mellon, where they were to discuss the matter. These warriors also Jessup seized, and Ross wrote to the Secretary of War a dignified but bitter letter protesting against this "unprecedented violation of that sacred rule which has ever been recognized by every nation, civilized and uncivilized, of treating with all due respect those who had ever presented themselves under a flag of truce before the enemy, for the purpose of proposing the termination of warfare." He had indeed been most basely used as the agent of deception.

This chapter, we trust, has shown something of the real nature of the points at issue in the Seminole Wars. In the course of these contests the rights of Indian and Negro alike were ruthlessly disregarded. There was redress for neither before the courts, and at the end in dealing with them every honorable principle of men and nations was violated. It is interesting that the three representatives of colored peoples who in the course of the nineteenth century it was most difficult to capture—Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Negro, Osceola, the Indian, and Aguinaldo, the Filipino—were all taken through treachery; and on two of the three occasions this treachery was practiced by responsible officers of the United States Army.

Footnote 76: [(return)]
In his official capacity Jackson issued two addresses which have an important place in the history of the Negro soldier. From his headquarters at Mobile, September 21, 1814, he issued an appeal "To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana," offering them an honorable part in the war, and this was later followed by a "Proclamation to the Free People of Color" congratulating them on their achievement. Both addresses are accessible in many books.

Footnote 77: [(return)]
McMaster, IV, 431.