Part 8 (1/2)
About the first of June Osceola was one day on a quiet errand of trading at Fort King. With him was his wife, the daughter of a mulatto slave woman who had run away years before and married an Indian chief. By Southern law this woman followed the condition of her mother, and when the mother's former owner appeared on the scene and claimed the daughter, Thompson, who desired to teach Occeola a lesson, readily agreed that she should be remanded into captivity.[1] Osceola was highly enraged, and this time it was his turn to upbraid the agent. Thompson now had him overpowered and put in irons, in which situation he remained for the better part of two days. In this period of captivity his soul plotted revenge and at length he too planned a ”_ruse de guerre_.”
Feigning a.s.sent to the treaty he told Thompson that if he was released not only would he sign himself but he would also bring his people to sign. The agent was completely deceived by Osceola's tactics. ”True to his professions,” wrote Thompson on June 3, ”he this day appeared with seventy-nine of his people, men, women, and children, including some who had joined him since his conversion, and redeemed his promise. He told me many of his friends were out hunting, whom he could and would bring over on their return. I have now no doubt of his sincerity, and as little, that the greatest difficulty is surmounted.”
[Footnote 1: This highly important incident, which was really the spark that started the war, is absolutely ignored even by such well informed writers as Drake and Sprague. Drake simply gives the impression that the quarrel between Osceola and Thompson was over the old matter of emigration, saying (413), ”Remonstrance soon grew into altercation, which ended in a _ruse de guerre_, by which Osceola was made prisoner by the agent, and put in irons, in which situation he was kept one night and part of two days.” The story is told by McMaster, however. Also note M.M. Cohen as quoted in _Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine_, Vol. II, p.
419 (July, 1837).]
Osceola now rapidly urged forward preparations for war, which, however, he did not wish actually started until after the crops were gathered.
By the fall he was ready, and one day in October when he and some other warriors met Charley Emathla, who had upon him the gold and silver that he had received from the sale of his cattle preparatory to migration, they killed this chief, and Osceola threw the money in every direction, saying that no one was to touch it, as it was the price of the red man's blood. The true drift of events became even more apparent to Thompson and Clinch in November, when five chiefs friendly to migration with five hundred of their people suddenly appeared at Fort Brooke to ask for protection. When in December Thompson sent final word to the Seminoles that they must bring in their horses and cattle, the Indians did not come on the appointed day; on the contrary they sent their women and children to the interior and girded themselves for battle. To Osceola late in the month a runner brought word that some troops under the command of Major Dade were to leave Fort Brooke on the 25th and on the night of the 27th were to be attacked by some Seminoles in the Wahoo Swamp. Osceola himself, with some of his men, was meanwhile lying in the woods near Fort King, waiting for an opportunity to kill Thompson. On the afternoon of the 28th the agent dined not far from the fort at the home of the sutler, a man named Rogers, and after dinner he walked with Lieutenant Smith to the crest of a neighboring hill. Here he was surprised by the Indians, and both he and Smith fell pierced by numerous bullets. The Indians then pressed on to the home of the sutler and killed Rogers, his two clerks, and a little boy. On the same day the command of Major Dade, including seven officers and one hundred and ten men, was almost completely annihilated, only three men escaping. Dade and his horse were killed at the first onset. These two attacks began the actual fighting of the Second Seminole War. That the Negroes were working shoulder to shoulder with the Indians in these encounters may be seen from the report of Captain Belton,[1] who said, ”Lieut. Keays, third artillery, had both arms broken from the first shot; was unable to act, and was tomahawked the latter part of the second attack, by a Negro”; and further: ”A Negro named Harry controls the Pea Band of about a hundred warriors, forty miles southeast of us, who have done most of the mischief, and keep this post constantly observed.” Osceola now joined forces with those Indians who had attacked Dade, and in the early morning of the last day of the year occurred the Battle of Ouithlecoochee, a desperate encounter in which both Osceola and Clinch gave good accounts of themselves. Clinch had two hundred regulars and five or six hundred volunteers. The latter fled early in the contest and looked on from a distance; and Clinch had to work desperately to keep from duplicating the experience of Dade. Osceola himself was conspicuous in a red belt and three long feathers, but although twice wounded he seemed to bear a charmed life. He posted himself behind a tree, from which station he constantly sallied forth to kill or wound an enemy with almost infallible aim.
[Footnote 1: Accessible in Drake, 416-418.]
After these early encounters the fighting became more and more bitter and the contest more prolonged. Early in the war the disbursing agent reported that there were only three thousand Indians, including Negroes, to be considered; but this was clearly an understatement. Within the next year and a half the Indians were hard pressed, and before the end of this period the notorious Thomas S. Jessup had appeared on the scene as commanding major general. This man seems to have determined never to use honorable means of warfare if some ign.o.ble instrument could serve his purpose. In a letter sent to Colonel Harvey from Tampa Bay under date May 25, 1837, he said: ”If you see Powell (Osceola), tell him I shall send out and take all the Negroes who belong to the white people.
And he must not allow the Indian Negroes to mix with them. Tell him I am sending to Cuba for bloodhounds to trail them; and I intend to hang every one of them who does not come in.” And it might be remarked that for his bloodhounds Jessup spent--or said he spent--as much as $5,000, a fact which thoroughly aroused Giddings and other persons from the North, who by no means cared to see such an investment of public funds. By order No. 160, dated August 3, 1837, Jessup invited his soldiers to plunder and rapine, saying, ”All Indian property captured from this date will belong to the corps or detachment making it.” From St. Augustine, under date October 20, 1837, in a ”confidential” communication he said to one of his lieutenants: ”Should Powell and his warriors come within the fort, seize him and the whole party. It is important that he, Wild Cat, John Cowagee, and Tustenuggee, be secured. Hold them until you have my orders in relation to them.”[1] Two days later he was able to write to the Secretary of War that Osceola was actually taken. Said he: ”That chief came into the vicinity of Fort Peyton on the 20th, and sent a messenger to General Hernandez, desiring to see and converse with him.
The sickly season being over, and there being no further necessity to temporize, I sent a party of mounted men, and seized the entire body, and now have them securely lodged in the fort.” Osceola, Wild Cat, and others thus captured were marched to St. Augustine; but Wild Cat escaped. Osceola was ultimately taken to Fort Moultrie, in the harbor of Charleston, where in January (1838) he died.
[Footnote 1: This correspondence, and much more bearing on the point, may be found in House Doc.u.ment 327 of the Second Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress.]
Important in this general connection was the fate of the deputation that the influential John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, was persuaded to send from his nation to induce the Seminoles to think more favorably of migration. Micanopy, twelve other chieftains, and a number of warriors accompanied the Cherokee deputation to the headquarters of the United States Army at Fort Mellon, where they were to discuss the matter. These warriors also Jessup seized, and Ross wrote to the Secretary of War a dignified but bitter letter protesting against this ”unprecedented violation of that sacred rule which has ever been recognized by every nation, civilized and uncivilized, of treating with all due respect those who had ever presented themselves under a flag of truce before the enemy, for the purpose of proposing the termination of warfare.” He had indeed been most basely used as the agent of deception.
This chapter, we trust, has shown something of the real nature of the points at issue in the Seminole Wars. In the course of these contests the rights of Indian and Negro alike were ruthlessly disregarded. There was redress for neither before the courts, and at the end in dealing with them every honorable principle of men and nations was violated. It is interesting that the three representatives of colored peoples who in the course of the nineteenth century it was most difficult to capture--Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Negro, Osceola, the Indian, and Aguinaldo, the Filipino--were all taken through treachery; and on two of the three occasions this treachery was practiced by responsible officers of the United States Army.
CHAPTER VI
EARLY APPROACH TO THE NEGRO PROBLEM
1. The Ultimate Problem and the Missouri Compromise
In a previous chapter[1] we have already indicated the rise of the Negro Problem in the last decade of the eighteenth and the first two decades of the nineteenth century. And what was the Negro Problem? It was certainly not merely a question of slavery; in the last a.n.a.lysis this inst.i.tution was hardly more than an incident. Slavery has ceased to exist, but even to-day the Problem is with us. The question was rather what was to be the final place in the American body politic of the Negro population that was so rapidly increasing in the country. In the answering of this question supreme importance attached to the Negro himself; but the problem soon transcended the race. Ultimately it was the destiny of the United States rather than of the Negro that was to be considered, and all the ideals on which the country was based came to the testing. If one studied those ideals he soon realized that they were based on Teutonic or at least English foundations. By 1820, however, the young American republic was already beginning to be the hope of all of the oppressed people of Europe, and Greeks and Italians as well as Germans and Swedes were turning their faces toward the Promised Land.
The whole background of Latin culture was different from the Teutonic, and yet the people of Southern as well as of Northern Europe somehow became a part of the life of the United States. In this life was it also possible for the children of Africa to have a permanent and an honorable place? With their special tradition and gifts, with their shortcomings, above all with their distinctive color, could they, too, become genuine American citizens? Some said No, but in taking this position they denied not only the ideals on which the country was founded but also the possibilities of human nature itself. In any case the answer to the first question at once suggested another, What shall we do with the Negro? About this there was very great difference of opinion, it not always being supposed that the Negro himself had anything whatever to say about the matter. Some said send the Negro away, get rid of him by any means whatsoever; others said if he must stay, keep him in slavery; still others said not to keep him permanently in slavery, but emanc.i.p.ate him only gradually; and already there were beginning to be persons who felt that the Negro should be emanc.i.p.ated everywhere immediately, and that after this great event had taken place he and the nation together should work out his salvation on the broadest possible plane.
[Footnote 1: IV, Section 3.]
Into the agitation was suddenly thrust the application of Missouri for entrance into the Union as a slave state. The struggle that followed for two years was primarily a political one, but in the course of the discussion the evils of slavery were fully considered. Meanwhile, in 1819, Alabama and Maine also applied for admission. Alabama was allowed to enter without much discussion, as she made equal the number of slave and free states. Maine, however, brought forth more talk. The Southern congressmen would have been perfectly willing to admit this as a free state if Missouri had been admitted as a slave state; but the North felt that this would have been to concede altogether too much, as Missouri from the first gave promise of being unusually important. At length, largely through the influence of Henry Clay, there was adopted a compromise whose main provisions were (1) that Maine was to be admitted as a free state; (2) that in Missouri there was to be no prohibition of slavery; but (3) that slavery was to be prohibited in any other states that might be formed out of the Louisiana Purchase north of the line of 36 30'.
By this agreement the strife was allayed for some years; but it is now evident that the Missouri Compromise was only a postponement of the ultimate contest and that the social questions involved were hardly touched. Certainly the significance of the first clear drawing of the line between the sections was not lost upon thoughtful men. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1820: ”This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any _practicable_ way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle that would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emanc.i.p.ation and _expatriation_ could be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be.”[1] For the time being, however, the South was concerned mainly about immediate dangers; nor was this section placed more at ease by Denmark Vesey's attempted insurrection in 1822.[2] A representative South Carolinian,[3] writing after this event, said, ”We regard our Negroes as the _Jacobins_ of the country, against whom we should always be upon our guard, and who, although we fear no permanent effects from any insurrectionary movements on their part, should be watched with an eye of steady and unremitted observation.” Meanwhile from a ratio of 43.72 to 56.28 in 1790 the total Negro population in South Carolina had by 1820 come to outnumber the white 52.77 to 47.23, and the tendency was increasingly in favor of the Negro. The South, the whole country in fact, was more and more being forced to consider not only slavery but the ultimate reaches of the problem.
[Footnote 1: _Writings_, XV, 249.]
[Footnote 2: See Chapter VII, Section 1.]
[Footnote 3: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 61.]
Whatever one might think of the conclusion--and in this case the speaker was pleading for colonization--no statement of the problem as it impressed men about 1820 or 1830 was clearer than that of Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, at Albany in 1829.[1] The question, said he, was by no means local. Slavery was once legalized in New England; and New England built slave-s.h.i.+ps and manned these with New England seamen.
In 1820 the slave population in the country amounted to 1,500,000. The number doubled every twenty years, and it was easy to see how it would progress from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000; to 6,000,000; to 12,000,000; to 24,000,000. ”Twenty-four millions of slaves! What a drawback from our strength; what a tax on our resources; what a hindrance to our growth; what a stain on our character; and what an impediment to the fulfillment of our destiny! Could our worst enemies or the worst enemies of republics, wish us a severer judgment?” How could one know that wakeful and sagacious enemies without would not discover the vulnerable point and use it for the country's overthrow? Or was there not danger that among a people goaded from age to age there might at length arise some second Toussaint L'Ouverture, who, reckless of consequences, would array a force and cause a movement throughout the zone of bondage, leaving behind him plantations waste and mansions desolate? Who could believe that such a tremendous physical force would remain forever spell-bound and quiescent? After all, however, slavery was doomed; public opinion had already p.r.o.nounced upon it, and the moral energy of the nation would sooner or later effect its overthrow. ”But,” continued Nott, ”the solemn question here arises--in what condition will this momentous change place us? The freed men of other countries have long since disappeared, having been amalgamated in the general ma.s.s. Here there can be no amalgamation.
Our manumitted bondmen have remained already to the third and fourth, as they will to the thousandth generation--a distinct, a degraded, and a wretched race.” After this sweeping statement, which has certainly not been justified by time, Nott proceeded to argue the expediency of his organization. Gerrit Smith, who later drifted away from colonization, said frankly on the same occasion that the ultimate solution was either amalgamation or colonization, and that of the two courses he preferred to choose the latter. Others felt as he did. We shall now accordingly proceed to consider at somewhat greater length the two solutions that about 1820 had the clearest advocates--Colonization and Slavery.
[Footnote 1: See ”African Colonization. Proceedings of the Formation of the New York State Colonization Society.” Albany, 1829.]