By authority of the Secretary of War,
F. C. Ainsworth,
Colonel, U. S. Army, Chief of Office.
Washington, July 25, 1895.
History does not dwell on the cruel treatment the Indians received from the United States authorities during the Seminole Wars, yet pages of our National Library are devoted to the barbarity of the Seminoles. There are two sides to every question, and it is only what the Indian does to the white man that is published, and not what the white man does to the Indian.
The facts show that instead of seeking to injure the people of the United States, the Seminoles were, and have been, only anxious to be free from all contact with our government. In no official correspondence is there any reference made to acts of hostility by the Indians, prior to the massacre at Blount’s Fort.
But Floridians, who had urged the war with the hope of seizing and enslaving the maroons of the interior, now saw their own plantations laid waste, villages abandoned to the enemy, and families suffering for bread. The war had been commenced for an ignoble purpose, to re-enslave fellow-men, and taught that every violation of justice is followed by appropriate penalties.
Few of the people of the United States knew the true cause of the war, nor the real inwardness of the purposes of those in command, as history and official documents show that affairs were in the hands of the Executive rather than in those of Congress. The first war was in itself an act of hostility to the King of Spain; yet nothing was gained by our government except possession of part of the fugitives. Military forces could not pursue the Indians into the fastnesses of the Everglades, and after two years of bloodshed and expenditure of thousands of dollars, peace was in a manner restored, and the army was withdrawn without any treaty being signed.
EFFORTS AT INDIAN REMOVAL.
The Indians had set the American government at defiance. The slaves of Southern States continued to run away, taking refuge with the exiles and Seminoles; the slave-holders of Georgia became more clamorous than ever. The Spanish crown could not protect herself from the invasion of the Americans when in pursuit of runaway negroes. She had seen her own subjects massacred, her forts destroyed or captured, and her rights as a nation insulted by an American army. In 1819, by a combination of force and negotiation, Florida was purchased from Spain for $5,000,000.