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

To this communication the Secretary of War replied: “In the present stage of our relations with the Indians residing within the States and Territories east of the Mississippi, including the Seminoles, it is useless to recur to the principles and motives which induced the Government to determine their removal to the West. The acts of the Executive, and the laws of Congress, evince a determination to carry out the measure, and it is to be regarded as the settled policy of the country. In pursuance of this policy, the treaty of Payne’s Landing was made with the Seminoles; and the character of the officer employed on the part of the Government is a guarantee of the perfectly fair manner in which that negotiation was conducted and concluded. Whether the Government ought not to have waited until the Seminoles were pressed upon by the white population, and their lands become necessary to the agricultural wants of the community, is not a question for the Executive now to consider. The treaty has been ratified, and is the law of the land; and the constitutional duty of the President requires that he should cause it to be executed. I cannot, therefore, authorize any arrangement with the Seminoles by which they will be permitted to remain, or assign them any portion of the Territory of Florida as their future residence.”

“The Department indulged the hope, that, with the extensive means placed at your disposal, the war by a vigorous effort might be brought to a close this campaign. If, however, you are of opinion that, from the nature of the country and the character of the enemy, such a result is impracticable, and that it is advisable to make a temporary arrangement with the Seminoles, by which the safety of the settlements and posts will be secured throughout the summer, you are at liberty to do so.”

General Jessup had previously represented the subjection of the Seminoles as an object easily to be accomplished. He had so represented in his letter to Mr. Blair, in 1836, which occasioned the withdrawal of General Scott, and his own appointment to the command of the army in Florida. He had himself been in command more than a year, and the War Department was doubtless somewhat astonished at his recommendation now to adopt the policy which the Indians and Exiles had from the first been ready to accept. He was probably somewhat mortified at seeing his proposition so coldly received, and the whole responsibility of carrying it out placed upon himself, upon condition that he was satisfied nothing better could be accomplished. He had done all in his power to effect the objects so much cherished by the Administration. But the Secretary of War still urged the carrying out of the treaty of Payne’s Landing, not according to its letter and spirit, but according to the unnatural and unexpected construction which General Jackson placed upon it, after complaints were made against the Seminoles by the people of Florida. It is also evident that no intention of executing it according to the supplemental treaty entered into by the Seminole Delegates while at the West, was entertained by the Administration. No measures had been taken for establishing the boundaries between the Seminoles and the Creeks; nor do we hear of any intention to fulfill that stipulation. On the contrary, it had been constantly asserted by the Secretary of War, that the Seminoles and Creeks were to be united as one people.

The Commanding General, in the opinion of many statesmen, had compromited the honor of the service, and violated the plighted faith of the nation by treacherously seizing Indians and Exiles who had approached the army under the white flag, which had so long been regarded as a sacred emblem of peace by all civilized nations; yet, notwithstanding these circumstances, his propositions were in spirit rejected, although in language he had been authorized to negotiate a temporary peace upon the basis he had proposed.

It is believed that the substance of this answer had become to some extent known, or suspected by the Indians, for General Jessup admits he received the decision of the Secretary of War on the seventeenth; and on the nineteenth, he directed the chiefs to meet him in Council on the twentieth, at twelve o’clock. For some cause, the Indians and their allies appear to have been indisposed to do this, and he directed Colonel Twiggs to seize them, and hold them prisoners; and he reported to the War Department that, by this movement, “five hundred and thirteen Indians, and one hundred and sixty-five negroes, were secured.”[112]

Of this transaction we can only speak from the account given of it by General Jessup. From his report, certain important facts are clearly understood. For instance, he announces to the Indians and Exiles a proposition to treat with them, upon the basis of permitting them to remain in the country. That, for the purpose of entering into such a negotiation, they collected near Fort Jupiter; and that, without any attempt to negotiate, and while they were in his camp, they were unexpectedly seized against their will; and that Passac Micco, and fourteen others, escaped capture. Nor does General Jessup pretend that one of those six hundred and seventy-eight persons voluntarily surrendered. It is certain, that however honorable the intentions of General Jessup were, the Indians and the Exiles were deceived, and, as they believed, treacherously dealt with.

The official register of colored persons seized at Fort Jupiter, represents one hundred and fifty-one as properly belonging to the Seminoles, or as “Seminole negroes,” the term usually applied to the Exiles by General Jessup and his officers; and fourteen are represented as the slaves of citizens of Florida. These people were soon hurried off to Tampa Bay, where they were confined within the pickets, under a strong guard. Fort Brooke now presented to the eye of a stranger all the external appearances of a first class “slave factory” upon the African coast. The Exiles who had been betrayed at Fort Peyton and other places, and not delivered over to slave-hunters, were also here; and the number had so greatly increased, that many had to be sent to New Orleans for safe keeping.

When the Exiles seized at Fort Jupiter arrived at Tampa Bay, they found, among those already there, many old acquaintances, friends and relatives, who had been taken at other places. Families, in some instances long separated, were once more united; husbands, whose wives and children had been seized and long imprisoned at Tampa Bay, now rejoined their families, and were in some degree compensated for the mortification of having been made prisoners by treachery.

But fathers and husbands, whose children and wives were captured by the Creeks near Withlacoochee and other places during the previous year, now looked around for their families in vain. On making inquiry, they were informed their friends had been taken to Fort Pike, which had now become a general depot for the imprisonment of Exiles.

The Indians who had been captured by this “coup d’etat,” were sent to Charleston, South Carolina, for safe keeping; and the negroes reported upon the registry as “slaves of citizens of Florida,” were without ceremony delivered over to those who claimed to be their masters.