There are yet remaining in Florida a few descendants of the pioneer Exiles. They are intermarried with the bands of “Billy Bowlegs,” and of “Sam Jones,” sometimes called Aripeka; they are now mostly half-breeds, and are rapidly becoming amalgamated with the Indian race.
Besides these, there are a number of Spanish Refugees, or colored people who fled from Spanish masters and took up their residence with those called “Spanish Indians.” These did not engage in the war until 1840: nor did they then engage in any of the battles with our army; they contented themselves with plundering ships wrecked on their coast, and the foray upon Indian Key. They refused to send delegates to the council summoned by General Worth, to establish terms of pacification. They live independent of the white people, subsisting mostly on fish and the natural products of the soil, holding very little intercourse with either white men or other Indians. Descendants of Exile parents, they have the complexion and appearance of pure Spaniards; but they are rapidly blending with the Indians, and forming a mixed race.
These different bands, remaining in Florida, and aggregating into a distinct people, have on several occasions since 1843, given evidence of implacable hostility to the whites. And at the time of writing this narrative, they are engaged in open war; while the Government of the United States is endeavoring to secure peace in the same manner and upon the same terms on which General Worth obtained it, in 1843. Their future history may, hereafter, occupy the pen of some other historian.
CHAPTER XXII.
HISTORY OF EXILES CONTINUED.
Character of Abraham—His knowledge of the Treaty of Payne’s Landing—Its stipulations—General Jessup’s assurances—Confirmed by other Officers of Government—Disappointment of Exiles on reaching Western Country—They refuse to enter Creek jurisdiction—Creeks disappointed—General Cass’s policy of reuniting Tribes—Agent attempts to pacify Exiles—Hospitality of Cherokees—Discontent of all the Tribes—Seminoles loud in their complaints—Hostilities apprehended—Conduct of Executive—Agents selected to negotiate another Treaty—Treaty stipulations—Attempts to falsify history—Executive action unknown to the people.
1844.
The Exiles were now all located on the Cherokee lands, west of the State of Arkansas. They had been removed from Florida at great expense of blood and treasure; but they were yet free, and the object of the Administration had not been attained. Conscious of the designs of the Creeks, the Seminoles and Exiles refused to trust themselves within Creek jurisdiction. They were tenants at will of the Cherokees, whose hospitality had furnished them with temporary homes until the Government should fulfill its treaty stipulations, in furnishing them a territory to their separate use.
Abraham was, perhaps, the most influential man among the Exiles. He had been a witness and interpreter in making the treaty of Payne’s Landing, and had dictated the important provision in the supplemental treaty; he had exerted his influence in favor of emigration; to him, therefore, his people looked with more confidence than to any other individual. In all his intercourse with our officers, he had been assured of the intention to fulfill those treaties; and when he found the Government hesitating on that point, he became indignant, and so did others of his band. But he could only express his indignation to the Agent appointed to superintend their affairs and supply their wants. These complaints were made known to the Indian Bureau, at Washington; but they were unheeded, and the Exiles and their friends lived on in the vain hope that the Administration would at some day redeem the pledged faith of the nation, and assign them a territory for their separate use, where they could live independent of the Creeks, as they had done for nearly a century past.
Nor is it easy for men at this day to appreciate that feeling which so stubbornly sought their enslavement; we can only account for this unyielding purpose, from the long-established practice of so wielding the power and influence of the nation as best to promote the interests of slavery. It is certain, that it would have cost the United States no more to set off to the Exiles and Seminole Indians a separate territory, on which they could live free and independent, than it would to constrain them to settle on the Creek lands, and subject them to Creek laws, and Creek despotism, and Creek servitude.
General Jackson, in 1816, had ordered Blount’s Fort to be destroyed and the negroes returned to those who owned them. To effect this latter object, in 1822, he proposed to compel the Seminole Indians to return and reunite with the Creeks. If at any time there were other reasons for the frauds committed upon the Exiles and Indians—for the violations of the pledged faith of the nation—it is hoped that some of the officers who acted a prominent part in those scenes of treachery and turpitude, or their biographers, will yet inform the public of their existence.