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

Soon as he could ascertain all the facts, General Arbuckle made report to the War Department relative to their situation, and the claims which they made to protection under the articles of capitulation, together with the rights which the Creeks set up to reënslave them.

This state of circumstances appears to have been unexpected by the Executive. Indeed, he appears from the commencement to have under-rated the difficulties which beset the enslavement of a people who were determined upon the enjoyment of freedom; he seems to have expected the negroes, when once placed within Creek jurisdiction, would have yielded without further effort. But he was now placed in a position which constrained him either to repudiate the pledged faith of the nation, or to protect the Exiles in their persons and property, according to the solemn covenants which General Jessup had entered into with them.

Yet the President was disposed to make farther efforts to avoid the responsibility of deciding the question before him. General Jessup had entered into the articles of capitulation, and the President appeared to think he was competent to give construction to them; he therefore referred the subject to that officer, stating the circumstances, and demanding of him the substance of his undertaking in regard to the articles of capitulation with the Exiles.

General Jessup appears to have now felt a desire to do justice to that friendless and persecuted people. Without waiting to answer the President, he at once wrote General Arbuckle, saying, “The case of the Seminole negroes is now before the President. By my proclamation and the convention made with them, when they separated from the Indians and surrendered, they are free. The question is, whether they shall be separated from the Seminoles and removed to another country; or be allowed to occupy, as they did in Florida, separate villages in the Seminole Country, west of Arkansas? The latter is what I promised them. I hope, General, you will prevent any interference with them at Fort Gibson, until the President determines whether they shall remain in the Seminole Country, or be allowed to remove to some other.”

General Arbuckle, faithful to the honor of his Government, continued to protect the Exiles. He fed them from the public stores, not doubting that the Executive would redeem the pledge of the nation given by General Jessup, its authorized agent. But the President (Mr. Polk) himself a slaveholder, with his prejudices and sympathies in favor of the institution, did not understand the articles of capitulation according to the construction put upon them by General Jessup; he appears, therefore, to have called on the General for a more explicit report of facts. In reply to this call, he reported, saying, “At a meeting with the three Indian chiefs, and the negro chiefs, Auguste and Carollo, I stipulated to recommend to the President to grant the Indians a small tract of country in the south-eastern part of the Peninsula; but it was distinctly understood that the negroes were to be separated from them at once, and sent West, whether the Indians were permitted to remain in Florida or not. With the negroes, it was stipulated that they should be sent West, as a part of the Seminole nation, and be settled in a separate village, under the PROTECTION OF THE UNITED STATES.” In another letter, addressed to the Secretary of War, he says: “A very small portion of the Seminole negroes who went to the West, were brought in and surrendered by their owners, under the capitulation of Fort Dade. Over these negroes the Indians have all the rights of masters; but all the other negroes, making more than nine-tenths of the whole number, either separated from the Indians and surrendered to me, or were captured by the troops under my command. I, as commander of the army, and in the capacity of representative of my country, solemnly pledged the national faith that they should not be separated, nor any of them sold to white men or others, but be allowed to settle and remain in separate villages, UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE UNITED STATES.”

But even with these explicit statements before him, the President appears to have been unable to form an opinion; and he referred the matter to the Attorney General, Hon. John Y. Mason, of Virginia, who had been bred a slaveholder, and fully sympathized with the slave power. He, having examined the whole subject, delivered a very elaborate opinion, embracing seven documentary pages;[132] but concluding with the opinion, that although the Exiles were entitled to their freedom, the Executive could not interfere in any manner to protect them, as stipulated by General Jessup, but must leave them to retire to their Towns in the Indian Territory, where they had a right to remain.

1848.

We should be unfaithful to our pledged purpose, were we to omit certain important facts connected with this opinion of the Attorney General. Nathan Clifford, of Maine, was appointed Attorney General of the United States in 1846, soon after the report of General Arbuckle concerning the situation of the Exiles reached Washington. The subject was before the President more than two years. This delay we cannot account for, unless it were to save Mr. Clifford (being a Northern man) from the responsibility of deciding this question, involving important interests of the slaveholding portion of our Union. In 1848 Mr. Clifford was appointed Minister to Mexico, and Hon. Isaac Toucey, of Connecticut, was appointed Attorney General. But he, too, was from a free State, and it would throw upon him great responsibility were he constrained to act upon this subject. Were he to decide in favor of the Exiles, it might ruin his popularity at the South; and if against them, it would have an equally fatal effect at the North.

Under these circumstances, recourse was had to an expedient. Before Mr. Toucey entered upon the discharge of his official duties, Mr. Mason, himself a slaveholder, was appointed to discharge the duties ad interim. He entered the office, wrote out the opinion referred to, and then resigned the office and emoluments to Mr. Toucey; having decided no other question, nor discharged any other duty, than this exercise of official influence for the enslavement of the Exiles.

The President affirmed the principles decided by the Attorney General, and the Exiles were informed that they had the right to remain in their villages, free from all interference, or interruption from the Creeks. They had no other lands, no other country, no other homes. Many of their families were connected by marriage with the Seminoles. They and the Seminole Indians had, through several generations, been acquainted with each other; they had stood beside each other on many a battle field. Seminoles and Exiles had fallen beside each other, and were buried in the same grave; they had often sat in council together, and the Exiles were unwilling to separate from their friends. Wild Cat and Abraham and Louis, and many leading men and warriors of the Exiles and Seminoles, having deliberated upon the subject, united in the opinion, that the Exiles should return to their villages and reside upon the lands to which they were entitled.