No president, since Washington, has received so decided an expression of the public will. His popularity seemed to be the result of his moderation in politics, his candid temper, and his wise and useful measures. His administration throughout was the era of good feeling.
Seminole War.—Within the southern limits of the United States, but mostly in Florida, lived a tribe, or confederacy of Indians, named Seminoles. They consisted, originally, of fugitives from the northern tribes, resident within the limits of the United States. To these fugitives, additions were made from the Creek Indians, numbers of whom were dissatisfied with the provisions of the treaty of 1814, and negroes, who had absconded from their masters. The resentments enkindled in the breasts of these miserable people, are believed to have been fanned by foreign emissaries, of whom the most noted were two Englishmen, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister. The consequence was, that outrages were committed upon the inhabitants of the states on our southern borders, the progress of which it became necessary to arrest.
General Gaines, the United States' officer in that quarter, made a demand to deliver up the authors of these outrages, but the Indians refused to comply. In consequence of this refusal, the Indians, who were still on the lands ceded to the United States by the Creeks, in 1814, were placed at the disposal of General Gaines, to remove them or not, as he should see fit.
The general availed himself of his discretionary power to take an Indian village called Fowl Town, near the Florida line. In this undertaking, one man and one woman were killed, and two women made prisoners. It was executed by a detachment under Major Twiggs. A few days after, a second detachment, who were on a visit to the town to obtain property, were fired upon, and a skirmish ensued, in which there was a loss of several on both sides. Shortly after, a large party of Seminole Indians formed an ambuscade upon the Appalachicola river, attacked one of the American boats, ascending near the shore, and killed, wounded, and took the greater part of the detachment, consisting of forty men, commanded by Lieutenant R. W. Scott, of the seventh infantry. There were also on board, killed or taken, seven women, the wives of soldiers. Six of the detachment only escaped, four of whom were wounded.[76]
Attack of the Seminoles on Lieutenant Scott's Boats.
This event led to increased hostilities. Fort Scott, in which General Gaines with about six hundred regular soldiers was confined for a time, was openly attacked by a large force of the enemy. General Andrew Jackson was directed, December 26, to take the field. In connection with this, he was authorized, if he deemed the force of General Gaines to be insufficient to carry on the war, "to call on the executives of the neighboring states for such an additional militia force as he might deem requisite." General Jackson varied from the order addressed to him, by sending out a circular to the patriots of West Tennessee, inviting them, to the number of one thousand, to take up arms with him against the Indians. The General's call was promptly responded to, and the thousand volunteers were, in due time, gathered to his standard.
In this affair, General Jackson was widely censured for departing from the letter and spirit of his instructions; although the apology offered, was the delay that would have been caused, had the governor of Tennessee, who was either at Knoxville or in the Cherokee nation, been first called upon. The account of his proceedings, which he sent to the secretary of war, seems to have met with favor by the public authorities at Washington. The troops thus raised, were joined by a number of friendly Creeks under General M'Intosh. Meanwhile, it appears from the instructions of the president to General Gaines, that the war was to be prosecuted in Florida, only in the event of the Indians fleeing into that country, and, in that case, the Spanish authority was to be respected wherever it was maintained. Jackson, however, did not conform to these instructions, and particularly in regard to the interdiction not to attack a Spanish fort, should any Indians take shelter under one, which was also a matter of instruction. He justified his non-compliance, in this case, on the ground that, orders issued to one officer, could not be construed as orders to his successor, without a special reference to the first—that his orders were general and discretionary, and that the circumstances contemplated by the orders to General Gaines, never existed. The Indians were found sheltered within a fort, and not merely under the protection of its guns on the outside.