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

The President had already adopted the policy of compelling the Seminoles to unite under one government with the Creeks: and this stipulation for separate lands was introduced into the “additional treaty,” by commissioners who were not fully informed of the President’s views. This compact, entered into at Fort Gibson, erroneously called an “additional treaty,” was known to be void: neither the Seminole chiefs nor the United States commissioners had authority to negotiate any treaty whatever; and this stipulation, for holding separate lands by the Seminoles, appears to have been totally disregarded by the Executive, as will more fully appear hereafter.

Another circumstance had induced the Creeks to remain silent in regard to the Exiles. By the treaty of Indian Spring, they had placed at the President’s disposal $250,000, out of which the slaveholders of Georgia were to be paid for slaves and property lost prior to 1802. The commissioners appointed to make the examination found but $109,000 due the claimants under this stipulation, leaving in the hands of the President $141,000 belonging to the Creeks. This, however, was claimed by the slaveholders, in addition to the amount allowed by the treaty. To obtain this money the slaveholders sent their petition to Congress. The subject was referred to a committee, of which Mr. Gilmer, of Georgia, was Chairman. The committee made a very elaborate report, setting forth that the claimants had an equitable right to this money as an indemnity “for the loss of the offspring which the Exiles would have borne to their masters had they remained in bondage,” and it is among the inexplicable transactions of that day, that the bill passed, giving the money to those claimants without the uttering of a protest, or the statement of an objection, by any Northern representative or senator.

The Creeks now having paid the full amount stipulated in the treaty, and being robbed of the $141,000, to compensate the slaveholders for children who had never been born, were excited to madness. They believed themselves to hold the beneficial interest in the bodies of the Exiles, and determined to obtain possession of them.[71] They immediately sent a delegation to the Seminoles to demand possession of the Exiles as their slaves.

While the Creeks were thus demanding possession of the refugees, the Executive of the United States and his officers were endeavoring to compel them to go West, where the Creeks could, without opposition, lay hands upon them and enslave them.

The six Seminole chiefs holding reservations upon the Appalachicola River owned some slaves, and with those slaves some of the Exiles had intermarried. Each chief, by the terms of the treaty of Camp Moultrie, was permitted to name the men who were to reside with him, and such chief became responsible for the conduct of the persons thus named; while the United States stipulated to “afford the chiefs and their people protection against all persons whatsoever.”

The white settlements had extended to the vicinity of these reservations, and the Exiles and Seminole slaves living on them were more immediately exposed to the rapacity of the whites than were those in the interior of the territory.

1835.

The mania for obtaining slaves by piratical violence, seems to have reached a point almost incredible to the people of the free States. E-con-chattimico was one of the chiefs whose reservation lay on the west side of the river. He had long been highly respected by the whites. He owned some twenty slaves, who were residing with him in a state of partial freedom—paying him an annual stipend of provisions for their time, and holding such property as they could acquire. Connected with these slaves, and with some of the Indians on the Reservation, were about an equal number of Exiles, who had never known slavery, but whose ancestors, in former generations, had toiled in bondage. Unwilling to separate from their intimate friends and connexions, they had, as stated in a former chapter, come here to occupy, with E-con-chattimico and his friends, one of the extensive plantations which had been occupied by their brethren who fell at Blount’s Fort, in 1816. The chief had named them as his friends, and a record of the fact had been deposited in the office of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs; and for their conduct E-con-chattimico was responsible, under the treaty of “Camp Moultrie;” while, by the same instrument, the faith of the nation had been solemnly pledged “to protect them against all persons whatsoever.”

The piratical slave-dealers of Georgia looked upon these people, both Exiles and slaves, with strong desire to possess them. One of these fiends in human shape, named Milton, residing in Columbus, Georgia, professed to have purchased them from a Creek Indian. The claim was presented to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and by him referred to Judge Cameron, of the United States District Court in Florida, for examination.

The chief being a man of influence and respected by the whites, found friends to espouse his cause. The claimant began to doubt his success under such circumstances, and proposed to withdraw his claim; but so flagrant was its fraudulent character, that Judge Cameron felt it his duty to report upon it, showing it to be void.[72] This report was duly transmitted to the proper department at Washington, and the Old Chief, with his people, once more reposed in apparent security.