It would be easy, all supposed, to accomplish the popular will, to dispossess the savage, hunt him, drive him out. Still there was a treaty. The world had an eye, and there was a thinking minority not to be despised who opposed this clamorous desire. The treaty could not be broken under the light of day; how then, was this obstructive covenant to be got rid of?
Call the head men together, cajole them out of it; the chiefs are human, they are poor, some of them drunkards—bribes will go far, fire-water still farther; make a new treaty with a double construction—the ignorant savages will not understand it; obtain their signatures—the thing is done!
Crafty commissioner! yours is the very plan, and you the man to execute it.
It was done. On the 9th of May, 1832, on the banks of the Oclawaha, the chiefs of the Seminole nation in full council assembled bartered away the land of their fathers!
Such was the report given to the world.
It was not true.
It was not a full council of chiefs; it was an assembly of traitors bribed and suborned, of weak men flattered and intimidated. No wonder the nation refused to accede to this surreptitious covenant; no wonder they heeded not its terms; but had to be summoned to still another council, for a freer and fuller signification of their consent.
It soon became evident that the great body of the Seminole nation repudiated the treaty. Many of the chiefs denied having signed it. The head chief, Onopa, denied it. Some confessed the act, but declared they had been drawn into it by the influence and advice of others. It was only the more powerful leaders of clans—as the brothers Omatla, Black Clay, and Big Warrior—who openly acknowledged the signing.
These last became objects of jealousy throughout the tribes; they were regarded as traitors, and justly so. Their lives were in danger; even their own retainers disapproved of what they had done.
To understand the position, it is necessary to say a word of the political status of the Seminoles. Their government was purely republican—a thorough democracy. Perhaps in no other community in the world did there exist so perfect a condition of freedom; I might add happiness, for the latter is but the natural offspring of the former. Their state has been compared to that of the clans of Highland Scotland. The parallel is true only in one respect. Like the Gael, the Seminoles were without any common organisation. They lived in “tribes” far apart, each politically independent of the other; and although in friendly relationship, there was no power of coercion between them. There was a “head chief”—king he could not be called—for “Mico,” his Indian title, has not that signification. The proud spirit of the Seminole had never sold itself to so absurd a condition; they had not yet surrendered up the natural rights of man. It is only after the state of nature has been perverted and abased, that the “kingly” element becomes strong among a people.