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

“SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt to-day of your letter of the third instant.

“The enclosed copy of a letter of this date to the United States District Attorney will show you what measures have been adopted in relation to the claims set up to the Seminole negroes. This is all that this Department can do in this matter.

“It is very much to be regretted, that anything has occurred to prevent the speedy emigration of these Indians. I will be greatly obliged to you, should no emigrating agent be at New Orleans, to give all the aid in your power in removing the difficulties which are thrown in their way.”

While the Executive officers at Washington, the Creek Indians, and the slave-dealer Watson, were arranging their contracts and perfecting their plans for enslaving those Exiles, who had been captured with the assistance of the Creek warriors, an important and most spirited contest was progressing in New Orleans.

Before one of the courts of the State of Louisiana, a slave-dealer by the name of Love, claimed title to the bodies, the bones and muscles, the blood and sinews, of some sixty of these persons, held by the United States as prisoners of war. They had been captured by our troops as hostiles; had been held for thirteen months as prisoners of war; had been fed, and clothed, and guarded, at the expense of the people of the United States: but they were now claimed as the property of Love. This absurdity was presented before an enlightened court as a grave question of international law; and a determined effort was put forth before that State tribunal to change the law of nations; to modify the law of Nature and of Nature’s God, so far as to transform men into chattels, and declare these prisoners of war to be the property of their fellow men.

Love demanded the Exiles of General Gaines, who was in actual command of the Western Military District of the United States, and by virtue of his office held control of the Exiles while in his district. Bred to the profession of arms, he had made himself familiar with those principles of natural, of international, law which point out the rights of belligerents, whether they belong to the victorious or the vanquished nation. Being advised that efforts were making to get possession of these Exiles for the purpose of reënslaving them, he indicated to the officer in command at the barracks the propriety of retaining possession of them as he would of other prisoners of war.

On the second of May, the Sheriff of New Orleans appeared at the barracks, and desired to pass the line of sentinels for the purpose of serving his process; but the sentinel, punctilious to his duty, refused to let him enter. The Sheriff then returned his writ with the following indorsement thereon:

“Received May second, 1838, and demanded the within slaves of General Gaines, the defendant, who answered me, that he never had the within described slaves in his possession, or under his control. I found the slaves at the barracks of the United States, but the officers in charge of the same refused to deliver them to me. Returned May eighth, 1838.

FREDERICK BUISSON, Sheriff.”

The Exiles still remained in the barracks under the officers in charge of them; and on the ninth of May, General Gaines sued out a rule to set aside the order of sequestration upon the grounds, “that the negroes were ‘prisoners of war’ of the United States, taken in combat with the Seminole Indians; that the control of the United States over said negroes, and their right to the control of such negroes as prisoners of war, could not be taken away by the sequestration issued.”