The Exiles of Florida / or, The crimes committed by our government against the Maroons, who fled from South Carolina and other slave states, seeking protection under Spanish laws.

by Joshua R. Giddings

A party of some thirty Indians and Exiles were lurking about Micanopy, when, on the twenty-eighth of December, Lieutenant Sherwood, Lieutenant Hopson, Sergeant Major Carrol, and ten privates of the 7th Infantry, left Micanopy for the purpose of escorting Mrs. Montgomery, wife of a Lieutenant of that regiment, through the forest to Watkahoota, eight miles distant. The lady was on horseback, while others of the party rode in a wagon drawn by mules, and some marched on foot. The enemy having observed their movements, preceded them to a hommock, about four miles from Micanopy, where they secreted themselves, and awaited the approach of Mrs. Montgomery and party. When they were fairly within the hommock, through which the road passed, they were fired upon, and two privates fell dead. The war-whoop was raised, and the little party found themselves confronted by savages. Lieutenant Sherwood is said to have rallied his escort with promptness. Mrs. Montgomery, attempting to get into the wagon, was shot dead. Sherwood very discreetly retreated to the open forest, and dispatched Lieutenant Hopson to Micanopy for a reinforcement. Knowing the impossibility of retreating from Indians, and conscious that they gave no quarter, he bravely determined to defend himself or die on the field. But his assailants numbered three times as many warriors as he had. They out-flanked and surrounded his ill-fated party, all of whom with himself fell victims to that policy which had brought this war, with all its crimes, upon our nation.

We cannot withhold our sympathy from those patriotic men who enter the public service expecting to act in an honorable sphere in favor of just measures; but who are often made the instruments of injustice, and their lives sacrificed to the spirit and policy of oppression. Our officers and soldiers, serving in this Florida War, were duly conscious of the dishonorable employment in which they were engaged; that they were daily subjected to dangers and death for the purpose of enabling the people of Florida to seize men and women, and sell them into interminable bondage. Officers and men who would cheerfully meet danger and death upon the field of honorable warfare in defense of freedom, were compelled to meet death in all its various and revolting forms in Florida to uphold oppression, to sustain an institution which they abhorred; nor can we wonder that the consciousness of these facts should have created a feeling of hostility between our regular troops and the slaveholders of Florida, who were constantly charging them with inefficiency and want of energy in the capture of negroes. This feeling ran so high that the white men of Florida were charged with disguising themselves as Indians, and actually committing murders and robberies upon mail carriers and express riders, in order to continue hostilities and keep up the war.[128] This feeling greatly increased the embarrassment of the Executive.

A chief named “Cora Tustenuggee,” after due consultation with the interpreters sent to induce him to emigrate, concluded to surrender, and go West. He collected his band, numbering about one hundred in all. Among them were some half breeds, descendants of the pioneer Exiles. They had intermarried with Indians of this band, and were treated as Indians. While on their way to one of our posts, near Palaklikaha Lake, they were fired upon by a party at dragoons who were said to have been conscious of the intentions of the Indians. This supposed violation of faith was greatly aggravated by the subsequent wanton murder of the chief, after he and his band had quietly submitted as prisoners. These people were immediately sent to Tampa Bay, and then embarked for the Western Country, where they joined their brethren, still resident on the Cherokee lands, and under Cherokee protection.

The Presidential election being past, the Executive felt more untrammeled; and Mr. Poinsett, Secretary of War, resisting the instruction which he might have drawn from four years of unfortunate experience, appears to have determined to leave this Florida War in as unpromising condition as he found it. He sent instructions to the Commanding General to renew the war with whatever force he could bring into the field.

It is a somewhat singular fact, that when the Secretary understood, and the country was fully informed, that he would leave the Department on the fourth of March, he wrote the commanding officer on the eighteenth of February, thirteen days prior to his own political dissolution, saying, “The Department entertains the well-grounded hope that you will be able to bring the war to a close upon the terms required by the treaty of Payne’s Landing, and by the interests and feelings of the people of Florida.”

The reader must be aware that the feelings and interests of the people of Florida required the capture and enslavement of the Exiles; for which the Secretary of War had so long labored, and which appeared to be his ruling passion—“strong in the hour of his political death.”

To effect this object, recourse was had to the bribery of certain chiefs. Money was now offered certain influential men of the Seminoles and Exiles to induce them to exert their influence with their friends to emigrate. It was reported that slaves who had but a few years since left their masters, and intermarried with the Seminoles, dare not surrender, knowing that slavery awaited such act. Without them, their relatives and connexions would not remove. It was therefore proposed that Congress should make an appropriation for the purpose of purchasing such Exiles; yet the bill making it was general in its provisions, granting a hundred thousand dollars to be expended by the Secretary of War for the subsistence and benefit of certain chiefs and warriors of the Seminole Indians who wished to emigrate. The subsistence of such emigrants was provided for in other bills; but the benefits for which this money was to be expended was to purchase the pretended interest of certain white men to individual Exiles whom they claimed as property.

By thus disguising the real intention and object of the bill, it was evidently expected it would pass without scrutiny, under the rules which prohibited the discussion of all questions involving the subject of slavery. The better to carry out this design, Hon. Waddy Thompson of South Carolina, a Whig member of the House of Representatives, but fully sympathizing with the Executive in his policy of conducting the war in the manner “required by the interests and feelings of the people of Florida,” was regarded as the proper agent to introduce the bill and superintend its passage.

1841.

The information found in the public documents had awakened previous investigation; and when this bill came up for action (Feb. 9), the policy of this war, with the causes which led to its commencement, were exposed. Every effort was made by slaveholding members to prevent the public discussion of this subject. They insisted that the gag-rules, as they were called, prohibiting the discussion of slavery, forbid this exposure; but the presiding officer (Mr. Clifford of Maine) adhering to the parliamentary law, decided that an examination of the causes which led to the war was legitimate, and the discussion proceeded.