The Yemasees were remarkably black people, and the Ocklewahaw tribe, who are of a deeper shade than the Seminoles, are descendants of the conquered race. The chief of the Ocklewahaws, Yaha Hadgo, who was killed by General Shelton in the campaign of ’36, was very dark; but generally, the Seminole’s complexion is like that of the Creeks. Under King Payne, grandfather of Micconope, (the present Chief) the Seminoles invaded and achieved the conquest of the territories they lately occupied. He lived to near 100 years of age, and married a Yemasee woman, his slave, by whom he had the late chief Payne, who bore, in the darkness of his complexion, a proof of his Yemasee descent. The Indians were formerly very numerous in Florida, perhaps as much so as in Mexico. They are now reduced to comparatively small bands, in few villages. [Illustration] GENERAL JACKSON’S CONQUEST OF THE INDIANS. An artful impostor, Tecumseh of the Shawnees, a man of most extraordinary abilities and consummate address, conceived the bold design of an union of the red against the white population of America, under a hope that by a general and continued assault along the whole line of our frontiers, the future extension of settlements might be checked, if the present inhabitants could not be driven into the ocean. Assuming the attributes of a prophet, and, among other things, assisted by the fortuitous occurrence of an earthquake, of which he had hazarded a prediction, a confidence began to be reposed in the sacredness of his character and mission. A majority of the Creek nation were enlisted in his cause, and the storm of an exterminating savage war hung over the West. Its first explosion was on Fort Mims, a rude stockade defence, into which the Southern inhabitants of Alabama had lately retreated for security. More than 300 persons, including women and children, fell victims to savage barbarity. “The slaughter was indiscriminate; mercy was extended to none, and the tomahawk often transfixed mother and child at the same stroke. But seventeen of the whole number in the fort, escaped to give intelligence of the dreadful catastrophe.” In the midst of an alarm which such an inhuman outrage was calculated to excite, the eyes of Tennessee were turned on Jackson. Though confined at this period to his house by a fractured arm, his characteristic firmness did not desert him, and he cheerfully yielded to a second call for his services in the cause of his country. Two thousand militia were ordered to assemble at Fayetteville in Tennessee, in addition to five hundred cavalry previously raised under the command of Gen. Coffee. The alarming accounts of the concentration of the forces of the enemy, with a view of deluging the frontier in blood, compelled General Jackson (though individually in a most disabled state of body) to take the field before the ranks of his army had been filled, or his troops organized.