INTERLUDE
‘DAT SEMINOLE TREATY DINNER.’
The author begs the indulgence of the reader in giving the following dialect story of that historic Treaty Dinner, when our gallant American General Worth made peace terms with the Indians in 1842.
The treaty was signed at Fort King, now the present site of Ocala, Florida, and as one listens to the story of that eventful day, a story complete in its setting as told by our old Bandanna Mammy, the heart throbs and the pulse grows quicker—so vivid is the recital.
As the tale is related a most picturesque scene comes before the mind, the garrison with its stack of arms, dusky warriors mingling with American soldiery, glittering sunshine and singing birds, tables spread under the great live oaks, joy on every countenance—the end of the Seven Years’ War. Because this old ante-bellum slave is a bright link, forging as it were, those olden days of warfare with the present, a few words of her individuality must interest.
Martha Jane, for so she was christened full ninety-five years ago when, a little shining black pickaninny, her birth was announced to the mistress of the old Carter plantation, is the true type of the old time loyal, quaintly courteous Bandanna Mammy of ante-bellum days. Leaving Richmond about 1839, she was brought to Florida with a shipload of slaves. Since that time her life has been a rugged and an eventful one—a servant for the wealthy, nursing the sick, sold again and again, hired out, and, since freedom, working for her daily bread.
This white haired relic of Old Virginia is worthy a place in the pages of history. She is old, decrepit and poor, the muscles of her once powerful arms are shrunken and her hands gnarled with the labor of years, but she has a memory as keen as when almost 80 years ago she watched the “stars fall” from the upper windows of the Old Swan Hotel in Richmond. She has kept pace with many points in history, particularly of the wars of the country.
As the old dame—a study in ebony—rocks back and forth in the creaking split-bottom chair, memory runs back to the imperial days of Virginia when the cavalier was supreme, and she the pampered nurse girl of the little mistress. She says, “Oh, dem was dream days. I hab nebber seed any days like ’em since. De mounfulest day I ebber seed was when dey took me from my mistress, for the sky was a drippin’ tears and de wind was a groanin’.”
“No, honey, dey ain’t stories ’bout dem Seminole war days, dey is de Lord’s blessed truf, what ole Marthy see wif dese same ole eyes.
“Oh, dem wuz high times! I reckelmember dat Krismas day jest like hit wuz yisterday; the sun wuz a shinin’ an’ de birds a singin’ (you see, de mokin’ birds didn’t sing while dat cruel war wuz a goin’ on) an’ ebbery body wuz a laughin’ an’ a talkin’ an’ de white ladies wuz a coquettin’ wif de sojers an’ dem Indians wuz as thick as hops an a laughin’ an’ a jabberin’ too.
