On the fourteenth of June, General Jessup, writing General Gadsden of South Carolina, says: “All is lost, and principally, I fear, by the influence of the negroes—the people who were the subject of our correspondence. * * * I seized, and sent off to New Orleans, about ninety Indian negroes, and I have about seventeen here. I have captured ninety, the property of citizens; all of whom have been sent to St. Marks and St. Augustine, except four at this place, twelve at Fort Mellon, and six who died.”
General Jessup now saw that both Seminole Indians and negroes had clear conceptions of justice and honor. That his efforts to deliver over negroes to slavery had defeated the entire object of the articles of capitulation of the eighteenth of March. The Indians had fled. The negroes, except those who were imprisoned, had fled. The twenty-six vessels, collected at Tampa Bay to transport them to New Orleans, were yet idle; and, to use his own words, “all was lost!”
Abraham, acting for his brethren while West, in 1833, had caused the article to be inserted in the supplemental treaty, giving the Seminoles a separate country for their settlement.
In forming the articles of capitulation with general Jessup, he again exhibited his capacity for negotiation; obtaining the insertion of an article which, if carried out, would have proved a triumphant vindication of their cause. But from this second manifestation of his powers for negotiation, the Government of the United States found it necessary to recede, in order to maintain its designs of enslaving the Exiles.
CHAPTER XII.
THE RENEWAL AND PROSECUTION OF THE WAR.
Objects of the first and second Seminole War—Action of General Jessup and the Executive in regard to the Capitulation—His alleged arrangement—Resumes hostilities with intent to carry out original design of General Jackson—Establishes a series of forays for the capture of Negroes—Choctaws and Delawares employed—Cherokees refuse—Send a Delegation to make peace—Ross, the Cherokee Chief, addresses a Letter to Wild Cat, Osceola, and others—Difficulty with Creek Warriors—General Order—General Jessup’s policy—Creek Warriors discharged—Capture of King Phillip—His message to Wild Cat—Influence of Cherokees—Wild Cat bears plume, etc., from Osceola to General Jessup, proposing to negotiate—Jessup sends back answer—Wild Cat, Osceola and Exiles come in to Fort Peyton—Are betrayed—Seized as prisoners—Imprisoned at San Augustine—Wild Cat escapes—Thrilling Narrative—Cherokee Delegation induce Micanopy, Cloud and others to visit General Jessup—They too are seized, and one hundred Exiles captured—Extraordinary conduct of General Jessup—Cherokees leave in disgust.
By the articles of capitulation, entered into on the sixth of March (1837), the second Seminole War had been terminated. General Jessup so regarded it, and so declared it. The Exiles and Indians so regarded it, and some eight hundred came in under it and registered their names for emigration, in good faith. The people of Florida regarded it in that light, and remonstrated against it. They declared it a treaty of peace; but complained of its terms, for the reason that it gave up the slaves whom they claimed to own.
Learning this dissatisfaction to exist among the slaveholders of Florida, General Jessup expressed, in his correspondence, an intention of making an arrangement with the chiefs, by which the slaves belonging to the citizens of Florida, captured during the war, should be given up. Why those claimed by the citizens of Florida should be given up, and those escaped from Georgia and Alabama remain free, he has failed to show! Why those who escaped, or, as he expresses it, were captured during the war, should be returned, and those who escaped or had been captured the day previous to the commencement of hostilities, should not be returned, he has not explained; but he soon announced, that he had made an arrangement with the chiefs to deliver up these persons; and at once set the army at work to restore them. This restoration of slaves, of itself, constituted a renewal of the war. It had caused the first Seminole war, in 1816: it had caused this second Seminole war, and General Jessup was himself conscious that such interference with the Exiles would induce a renewal of hostilities. That class of Exiles was numerous; they constituted a portion of the “allies” for whose safety he had solemnly pledged the faith of Government.
It were useless for the friends of the then existing Administration to say, that General Jessup made an arrangement with the Indian chiefs for delivering up these people. The Exiles were the persons interested in their own safety, for which they had fought. No chiefs had authority to sell them, or to deliver them over to interminable bondage. But the reader will inquire, with what particular chiefs was this arrangement made? When, and where was it made? What were its terms? The only answers, so far as we are informed, are to be found in the interrogatories propounded to Osceola and other chiefs, when they were captured, at Fort Peyton, on the twenty-first of October following. General Jessup’s first written interrogatory was, “Are they (the chiefs) prepared to deliver up the negroes taken from the citizens? Why have they not surrendered them already, as promised by Co-Hadjo, at Fort King?” Here he merely claimed a promise from Co-Hadjo, an obscure chief, who was not a party to the capitulation—did not sign it, and so far as we are informed, was not present when it was entered into.
But, to show that no obligation whatever rested on the chiefs in this matter, his next interrogatories were, “Have the chiefs of the Nation held a Council in relation to the subjects of the talk at Fort King? What chiefs attended that Council, and what was their decision?” These questions seem to admit, that Co-Hadjo had merely promised to lay the subject before the chiefs in Council; and here we find the reasons, on the part of General Jessup, for not laying the arrangement before the people: yet, under these circumstances, that officer charges bad faith upon the Indians and Exiles, in renewing the war. The Exiles possessed no means of informing the American people, and other nations, as to these facts, or of maintaining their honor against this charge of having violated their plighted faith.