The Exiles of Florida

It appeared necessary to raise the cry of treachery and cruelty against the Indians and Exiles. They had no friend who was acquainted with the facts, that could call attention of the nation to the treachery which had been practiced on them by the order, and with the approval, of the Secretary of War. No man was able to say how many fathers and mothers and children were, by the influence of that officer, consigned to a fate far more cruel than that which awaited the men, under Colonel Harney, at Coloosahatchee.

In his report the Secretary most truly remarked: “If the Indians of Florida had a country to retire to, they would have been driven out of the Territory long ago; but they are hemmed in by the sea, and must defend themselves to the uttermost, or surrender to be transported beyond it.” And he might well have added: When they shall be thus transported, they will have no country – no home. Indeed, the whole report shows that he relied on physical force to effect an extermination of the Indians and their allies; he looked not to justice, nor to the power of truth, for carrying out the designs of the Executive.

Men in power appear to forget that justice sits enthroned above all human greatness; that it is omnipotent, and will execute its appropriate work upon mankind. Thus, while the people of Florida and Georgia had provoked the war, by kidnapping and enslaving colored men and women, to whom they had no more claim than they had to the people of England; while they had sent their petition to General Jackson, asking him to compel the Indians to seize and bring in their negroes, and had protested against the peace negotiated by General Jessup, in 1837; – Mr. Reid, Governor of Florida, in an official Message to the Territorial Legislature, in December, 1839, used language so characteristic of those who supported the Florida War, that we feel it just to him and his coadjutors to give the following extract:

“The efforts of the General and Territorial Governments to quell the Indian disturbances which have prevailed through four long years, have been unavailing, and it would seem that the prophecy of the most sagacious leader of the Indians will be more than fulfilled; the close of the fifth year will still find us struggling in a contest remarkable for magnanimity, forbearance and credulity on the one side, and ferocity and bad faith on the other. We are waging a war with beasts of prey; the tactics that belong to civilized nations are but shackles and fetters in its prosecution; we must fight ‘fire with fire;’ the white man must, in a great measure, adopt the mode of warfare pursued by the red man, and we can only hope for success by continually harrassing and pursuing the enemy. If we drive him from hommock to hommock, from swamp to swamp, and penetrate the recesses where his women and children are; if, in self-defense, we show as little mercy to him as he has shown to us, the anxiety and surprise produced by such operations will not fail, it is believed, to produce prosperous results. It is high time that sickly sentimentality should cease. ‘Lo, the poor Indian!’ is the exclamation of the fanatic, pseudo-philanthropist; ‘Lo, the poor white man!’ is the ejaculation which all will utter who have witnessed the inhuman butchery of women and children, and the massacres that have drenched the Territory in blood.

“In the future prosecution of the war, it is important that a generous confidence should be reposed in the General Government. It may be that mistakes and errors have been committed on all hands; but the peculiar adaptation of the country to the cowardly system of the foe, and its inaptitude to the operations of a regular army; the varying and often contradictory views and opinions of the best informed of our citizens, and the embarrassments which these cases must have produced to the authorities at Washington, furnish to the impartial mind some excuse, at least, for the failures which have hitherto occurred. It is our duty to be less mindful of the past than the future. Convinced that the present incumbent of the Presidential Chair regards with sincere and intense interest the afflictions we endure; relying upon the patriotism, talent and sound judgment of the distinguished Carolinian who presides over the Department of War, and confident in the wisdom of Congress, let us prepare to second, with every nerve, the measures which may be devised for our relief. Feeling as we do the immediate pressure of circumstances, let us exert, to the extremest point, all our powers to rid us of the evil by which we are oppressed. Let us, by a conciliatory course, endeavor to allay any unkindnesses of feeling which may exist between the United States army and the militia of Florida, and by union of sentiment among ourselves, advance the happy period when the Territory shall enjoy what she so much needs – a long season of peace and tranquillity.”

Perhaps no vice is more general among mankind than a desire to represent ourselves, and our country and government, to mankind and to posterity as just and wise, whatever real truth may dictate. Surely, if General Jessup’s official reports be regarded as correct, the people of Florida should have been the last of all who were concerned in that war, to claim the virtue of magnanimity or forbearance, or to charge the Seminoles or Exiles with ferocity or bad faith. The expression that “it is high time that sickly sentimentality should cease,” manifests the ideas which he entertained of strict, equal and impartial justice to all men.

This message was an appropriate introduction to the legislative action which immediately succeeded its publication. It was that legislative body which first gave official sanction to the policy of obtaining blood-hounds from Cuba to aid our troops in the prosecution of this war. Of this atrocious and barbarous policy much has been said and written, and its authorship charged upon various men and officers of Government. At the time of the transaction, it was represented that the blood-hounds were obtained for the purpose of trailing the Indians, and historians have so stated;123 but for various reasons, we are constrained to believe they were obtained for the purpose of trailing negroes. It was well known that these animals were trained to pursue negroes, and only negroes. They would no more follow the track of a white man than they would that of a horse or an ox. It was the peculiar scent of the negro that they had been trained and accustomed to follow. No man concerned in obtaining these animals, could have been ignorant that they had, in all probability, never seen an Indian, or smelt the track of any son of the forest.

Every slaveholder well understood the habits of those ferocious dogs, and the manner of training them, and could not have supposed them capable of being rendered useful in capturing Indians. The people of Florida appear to have been stimulated in the commencement and continuance of this war solely by a desire to obtain slaves, rather than to fight Indians; and while acting as militia or as individuals, they were far more efficient in capturing negroes and claiming those captured by other troops than in facing them on the field of battle. Nor can we resist the conviction, that catching negroes constituted, in the mind of General Jessup, the object for which those animals were to be obtained. Such was evidently his purpose when he wrote Colonel Harney, as quoted in a former chapter, “If you see Powell (Osceola), tell him that I intend to send exploring and surveying parties into every part of the country during the summer; and that I shall send out and take all the negroes who belong to white people, and he must not allow the Indians or Indian negroes to mix with them. Tell him I am sending to Cuba for blood-hounds to trail them, and I intend to hang every one of them who does not come in.”

We cannot close our eyes to the fact, that General Jessup intended the blood-hounds to be used in catching “the negroes belonging to the white people,” as he said. Those white people were mostly slaveholders of Florida; those who proposed in the legislative assembly of that territory the obtaining of the animals, and adopted a resolution authorizing their purchase. They did not wait for the President to act, nor for the “Secretary of War,” whom the Governor of Florida characterized as “that distinguished Carolinian” on whose judgment and patriotism the people of Florida so much relied.124

By resolution, Colonel Fitzpatrick was “authorized to proceed to Havana, and procure a kennel of blood-hounds, noted for tracking and pursuing negroes.” He was fortunate in his mission. He not only obtained the animals, but he accomplished the journey, and reached St. Augustine as early as the sixth of January, 1840, with a reinforcement for the army of the United States of thirty-three blood-hounds well trained to the work of catching negroes. They cost precisely one hundred and fifty-one dollars seventy-two cents, each, when landed in Florida. He also procured five Spaniards who were accustomed to using the animals in capturing negroes; and as the dogs had been trained to the Spanish language, they would have been useless under the control of persons who could only speak the dialect of our own country.

The very general error that existed throughout the country, at the time of this transaction, arose from a misapprehension of the facts. There had been much said in regard to these blood-hounds before they were actually obtained. When the report of the War Department, under the resolution of the House of Representatives of the twenty-eighth of January, 1839, was published, containing the letter of General Jessup addressed to Colonel Harney, which we have quoted, many members of Congress appeared indignant at what they regarded as a stain upon our national honor in obtaining and employing blood-hounds to act in concert with our troops and our Indian allies in this war. Party feelings ran high, and southern members of Congress, who were acting with the Whig party, were willing to seize upon any circumstance that would reflect discreditably upon the then existing Administration.

On the twenty-seventh day of December, 1839, the Hon. Henry A. Wise, a member of the House of Representatives from Virginia, addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, inquiring as to facts relating to the employment of blood-hounds in aid of our troops.125

To this letter Mr. Poinsett, the Secretary of War, replied on the thirtieth of December, as follows:

“WAR DEPARTMENT, December 20, 1839.

“SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the twenty-seventh instant, inquiring into the truth of the assertion made by the public papers, that the Government had determined to use blood-hounds in the war against the Florida Indians; and beg to assure you it will give me great pleasure to give you all the information on this subject in possession of the Department.

“From the time I first entered upon the duties of the War Department, I continued to receive letters from officers commanding in Florida, as well as from the most enlightened citizens in that Territory, urging the employment of blood-hounds as the most efficient means of terminating the atrocities daily perpetrated by the Indians on the settlers in that Territory. To these proposals no answer was given, until in the month of August, 1838, while at the Virginia Springs, there was referred to me, from the Department, a letter, addressed to the Adjutant General by the officer commanding the forces in Florida (General Taylor), to the following effect:

“Head Quarters Army of the South,} Fort Brooke, July 28, 1838. }

“SIR: I have the honor to inclose you a communication this moment received, on the subject of procuring blood-hounds from the Island of Cuba to aid the army in its operations against the hostiles in Florida. I am decidedly in favor of the measure, and beg leave to urge it as the only means of ridding the country of the Indians, who are now broken up into small parties that take shelter in swamps and hommocks, making it impossible for us to follow or overtake them without the aid of such auxiliaries. Should this measure meet the approbation of the Department, and the necessary authority be granted, I will open a correspondence with Mr. Evertson on the subject, through Major Hunt, Assistant Quarter Master at Savannah, and will authorize him, if it can be done on reasonable terms, to employ a few dogs with persons who understand their management.

“I wish it distinctly understood, that my object in employing dogs is only to ascertain where the Indians can be found, not to worry them.

“I have the honor to be, sir,Your obedient servant,Z. TAYLOR,Brev. Brig. Gen. U. S. A. Commanding.

General R. JONES,

Washington, D. C.”

“On this letter I indorsed the following decision, which was communicated to General Taylor: ‘I have always been of opinion that dogs ought to be employed in this warfare to protect the army from surprises and ambuscades, and to track the Indian to his lurking place; but supposed if the General believed them to be necessary, he would not hesitate to take measures to secure them. The cold-blooded and inhuman murders lately perpetrated upon helpless women and children by these ruthless savages, render it expedient that every possible means should be resorted to, in order to protect the people of Florida, and to enable the United States forces to follow and capture or destroy the savage and unrelenting foe. General Taylor is therefore authorized to procure such number of dogs as he may judge necessary: it being expressly understood that they are to be employed to track and discover the Indians, not to worry or destroy them.’

“This is the only action or correspondence, on the part of the Department, that has ever taken place in relation to the matter. The General took no measures to carry into effect his own recommendation, and this Department has never since renewed the subject. I continue, however, to entertain the opinion expressed in the above decision. I do not believe that description of dog, called the blood-hound, necessary to prevent surprise or track the Indian murderer; but still I think that every cabin, every military post, and every detachment, should be attended by dogs. That precaution might have saved Dade’s command from massacre, and by giving timely warning have prevented many of the cruel murders which have been committed by the Indians in middle Florida. The only successful pursuit of Indian murderers that I know of, was, on a late occasion, when the pursuers were aided by the sagacity of their dogs. These savages had approached a cabin of peaceful and industrious settlers so stealthily, that the first notice of their presence was given by a volley from their rifles, thrust between the logs of the house; and the work of death was finished by tomahawking the women, after tearing from them their infant children, and dashing their brains out against the door posts.

“Are these ruthless savages to escape and repeat such scenes of blood, because they can elude our fellow citizens in Florida, and our regular soldiers, and baffle their unaided efforts to overtake or discover them? On a late occasion, three of our estimable citizens were killed in the immediate neighborhood of St. Augustine, and one officer of distinguished merit mortally wounded. It is in evidence, that these murders were committed by two Indians, who, after shooting down the father and beating out the son’s brains with the butts of their rifles, upon hearing the approach of the volunteers, retired a few yards into the woods and secreted themselves, until the troops returned to town with the dead bodies of those who had been thus inhumanly and wantonly butchered.

“It is to be regretted that this corps had not been accompanied with one or two hunters, who, with their dogs, might have tracked the blood-stained footsteps of those Indians; have restored to liberty the captives they were dragging away with them, and have prevented them from ever again repeating such atrocities; nor could the severest casuist object to our fellow citizens in Florida resorting to such measures, in order to protect the lives of their women and children.”

“Very respectfully,Your most obedient servant,J. R. POINSETT.

Hon. HENRY A. WISE,

House of Representatives.”

It is no part of our present duties to comment on the code of morals which the Secretary of War had adopted. He undoubtedly felt, that neither the Indians nor negroes “possessed any rights which white men were bound to respect.” He was not, he could not, have been ignorant of the cold-blooded massacre of nearly three hundred Exiles and Indians at Blount’s Fort, in 1816; nor of the manner in which the present war had been brought on; nor of the objects for which it was prosecuted; nor does it appear possible that he, a large slaveholder of South Carolina, could have expected these blood-hounds would follow the trail of Indians. But we must bear in mind that he had been exceedingly vexed with the indomitable resistance of the Exiles. They appeared perfectly determined not to be enslaved, and that determination had given him much trouble; and he must have foreseen the defeat of his party in the next Presidential contest, should all these facts become known to the public. With these feelings, he was prepared to apply almost any epithets to the Indians, as the friends and allies of a people to whose real character he dared not publicly allude, although they were occasioning the Administration so much trouble.

Having shown that no blood-hounds had been previously employed, he proceeded to argue the propriety of employing them in future, by adopting the policy proposed by the Legislature of Florida, who, as we have already seen, had taken measures to obtain them some twenty days prior to the date of this communication.

The Secretary of War thus exonerated himself and the Federal Executive from the responsibility of employing blood-hounds, on the thirtieth of December; and the animals arrived in Florida, under charge of Colonel Fitzpatrick, just one week subsequently to that date.

One feature was most obvious, in the commencement and prosecution of this war: we allude to the very respectful, almost obsequious obedience of the Executive to the popular feeling in favor of slavery, in every part of the country where that institution existed. This war had been commenced at the instance of the people of Florida. General Jessup attempted to change the articles of capitulation which he had signed, when the people of Florida protested against peace, unless attended by a restoration of slaves; and now, when the popular voice of the nation had paralyzed the Executive arm in regard to obtaining blood-hounds, the people of Florida, in their Legislature, took up the subject and carried the policy into practice, so far as to obtain the animals; but that would be of no use unless they could be employed by the army of the United States. Preparatory to this adoption of the purchase made by the Legislature of Florida, Mr. Poinsett had argued the propriety of their employment, in his letter to Mr. Wise; and twenty-six days afterwards, he wrote General Taylor as follows:

“WAR DEPARTMENT, Jan’y 26, 1840.

“SIR: It is understood by the Department, although not officially informed of the fact, that the authorities of the Territory have imported a pack of blood-hounds from the Island of Cuba. And I think it proper to direct, in the event of those dogs being employed by any officer or officers under your command, that their use be confined altogether to tracking the Indians; and in order to insure this, and to prevent the possibility of their injuring any person whatever, that they be muzzled and held with a leash while following the track of the enemy.

“Very respectfully,Your most obedient servant,J. R. POINSETT.

Brig. Gen’l Z. TAYLOR,

Com’d’g Army of the South, Florida.”

From the commencement of this war, the officers of our army had found it necessary to employ persons who could communicate with the Indians in their own tongue. This was usually done through negroes, who could safely approach both Exiles and Indians; they were, in fact, the only class of persons who could safely go from our posts to those of the enemy. No Indians could do it unless by arrangement made through those negroes; inasmuch as Creeks, Chickasaws and Choctaws were employed to act with our troops in hunting down the Seminoles, who shot those Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws, when opportunity permitted, with just as little ceremony as they did white men.

When those negroes visited the Seminoles, they were supposed to convey to them as accurate intelligence in regard to our troops, as they brought back respecting the enemy’s forces; they were, therefore, supposed to have put their brethren, the Exiles, upon their guard in respect to the blood-hounds. Understanding perfectly the nature and education of those animals, it does not appear very extraordinary to us that the Exiles remained for a time in the interior, where neither blood-hounds nor civilized troops were accustomed to penetrate. This policy of the Exiles rendered useless the whole expenditure of money and honor, made in the purchase of blood-hounds and Spaniards, with a view to their capture.

But the animals had been obtained, and authority given to our officers to employ them. The Spaniards attended them. The dogs were attached to different regiments, and fed liberally on bloody meat; young calves were provided, and driven with each scouting party, to supply food for them. The Spaniards were supplied with a sufficient number of assistants to keep the dogs in their leashes. Thus provided, several parties, composed of regular troops, militia, Indians, Spaniards, dogs and calves, started for the interior. Their marches continued in some instances for days before they found even the track of an enemy; but when they found foot-prints of Indians, and the dogs were looked to with confidence to lead on the warlike host, while some more humble officer, following the canine leaders, Spaniards and Indians, was expected to bear aloft the glorious stars and stripes, as they engaged in deadly conflict with the wily foe; – lo! just at that moment, when all hearts were palpitating; while hope was at its height; when the stern resolve clothed each brow with the dark scowl of battle, the dogs were blithe and frolicsome, but paid no more attention to the tracks of the Indians than to those of the ponies on which they sometimes rode.

This grand experiment for closing the Florida War was now pronounced a dead failure; and the use of dogs, and calves, and Spaniards, was discarded; and the whole affair served no other purpose than to bring odium upon the Administration, and ridicule upon the officers who proposed the employment of blood-hounds to act as allies of the American army.

General Taylor, having had command of the army in Florida nearly two years, and the sickly season having commenced, requested to be relieved from that responsible station. His request was granted, and he left Florida for his plantation in Louisiana. Brevet Brigadier General Armistead, by order of the War Department, assumed the position from which General Taylor retired.

CHAPTER XIX.

HOSTILITIES CONTINUED

Presidential Election of 1840 – The War discussed as one of the issues – Effect on the Election – Publication of Jay’s View – Action of the Executive paralyzed – Spanish Indians – Destruction of Indian Key – Troops inactive – Allies commit new depredations – New Expedient – Its failure – Chiefs invited to Fort King – Exiles refuse to treat – Massacre of Lieutenant Sherwood and party – Melancholy fate of Mrs. Montgomery – White men disguised as Indians – Murder of Cora Tustenuggee – Order of Secretary of War – Letter to General Armistead – Bribery of Indians – Mr. Thompson’s Bill – Discussion of the causes of the War in Congress – Enemy find protection in large swamps – Their renewed depredations – General distress – People of Florida again driven from their homes – Employed in public service – Their Slaves employed – They become interested in continuing the War.

1840

The Presidential election of this year was conducted differently from any that had preceded it. The opponents of Mr. Van Buren arraigned him before the people for his extravagance in the expenditure of the public treasure, and the immense losses which the nation sustained by the default and irresponsibility of officers appointed by him. It constitutes an era in our political history, from which we date the practice of calling directly upon the people to pass judgment of condemnation upon the action of our National Executive. Every honorable means was resorted to for the purpose of exposing the errors of the Administration during the previous four years.