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

With the Exiles, there was no alternative other than war or slavery; and they greatly preferred death upon the battle field, to chains and the scourge. We may well suppose they would fight with some degree of desperation, under such circumstances; and the battle of Suwanee gave evidence of their devotion to freedom. They met the disciplined troops, who constituted General Jackson’s army, with firmness and gallantry.[45] At the commencement, their fire was so fatal that the right wing of the American army faltered, and ceasing to advance, gave signs of falling back. But the left wing, opposed to the Indians, made a successful charge; the Indians gave way, and the reserve was suddenly brought into action to sustain the right wing, when a general charge was ordered, and the Exiles were compelled to fall back.[46]

General Jackson, in his official report of this battle, refers to the desperation with which the negroes fought, and says they left many dead upon the field, but does not mention their number. He entered the town and set fire to the buildings, and burned all the villages in the vicinity. He also captured some three hundred Indian women and children, while those belonging to the Exiles had been carefully removed beyond the reach of the American army. This superior caution and provident care appears to mark the character of the Exiles in all their conduct; while the Indians appear to have practised none of these precautions.

But the allied forces, defeated, and their warriors scattered in various directions, were pursued by McIntosh and his Creek warriors, who had accompanied General Jackson, until fearing the Seminoles might rally in force against them, they returned and again united with the American army.

This battle substantially closed the war of 1818. It had been commenced for the destruction of the Exiles; they had shared in its dangers, and by their energy and boldness, had given intensity to its conflicts. From the time they united in the expedition for the destruction of Lieutenant Scott and his party, in November, 1817, until the close of the battle of Suwanee, they had been active participants in every skirmish, and had uniformly displayed great firmness; bearing testimony to the truth of those historians who have awarded to the African race the merit of great physical courage.

General Jackson appears to have spoken as little of the Exiles as duty would permit, when communicating with the Secretary of War; yet he was more free to complain of them in his correspondence with the Governor of Pensacola. In a letter to that officer, dated a few days after the battle of Suwanee, he says: “Negroes who have fled from their masters, citizens of the United States, have raised the tomahawk, and, in the character of savage warfare, have spared neither age nor sex. Helpless women have been massacred, and the cradle crimsoned with blood.”

We can, at this day, scarcely believe that this eloquent description of savage barbarity was from the pen of a man whose order for the massacre of defenseless women and children, at the Fort on Appalachicola, bore date less than two years before writing this letter; nor can we readily comprehend the effrontery of him who thus attempted to justify the invasion of Florida, by reference to acts done by the Exiles long after the army under his command had entered that territory, and committed the most atrocious outrages ever perpetrated by civilized men upon an unoffending people.

After the battle of Suwanee, General Jackson returned to St. Marks, being unable to follow the Indians and Exiles into the more southern portions of Florida. While at St. Marks, he ordered a court-martial, constituting General Gaines president, in order to try Arbuthnot and Ambrister. The history of their trial and execution is familiar to the reader. The first and principal charge against Ambrister was, that he excited the negroes and Indians to commit murder upon the people of the United States; the second charge was for supplying them with arms. On these charges he was convicted and executed. It was also alleged, that he was present at the battle of Suwanee; and some writers say he commanded the Exiles on that occasion, and had previously taught them military discipline.

In May, General Jackson issued an Address to his troops, declaring the war at an end; and wrote the Executive, asking permission to retire to his home in Nashville, there being no further use for his services in the field.

The Exiles now returned to their homes. They had full leisure to contemplate their situation. Many of their best men had fallen. Nearly the entire population residing upon the Appalachicola River had been massacred. Their villages at Mickasukie and Suwanee had been burned; and it is probable that nearly one half of their entire population had been sacrificed, in this first war waged by the United States for the murder and recapture of fugitive slaves.

The invasion of Florida by General Jackson was condemned by many public men, and was approved by others with equal ability. Even the then Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, in his correspondence with Don Onis, the Spanish Minister, defended the invasion with great ability. But in the discussions of this subject, we find no allusion to the massacre at “Blount’s Fort;”[47] that appears to have been regarded as a subject of too delicate a nature for public scrutiny. In the alcoves of our National Library, we find many volumes of documents touching this war, embracing some thousands of pages, in which there is the strongest censure expressed against the Seminoles for provoking the war, and condemnation for the barbarous manner in which they conducted it; but we search them in vain to find any condemnation, by American statesmen, of the object for which the war was commenced, or the unprovoked and worse than savage massacre which marked its beginning.