The Exiles of Florida: or, The crimes committed by our government against the Maroons, who fled from South Carolina and other slave states, seeking protection under Spanish laws.Giddings, Joshua R. (Joshua Reed)
Philosophy
The Exiles of Florida: or, The crimes committed by our government against the Maroons, who fled from South Carolina and other slave states, seeking protection under Spanish laws.
Giddings, Joshua R. (Joshua Reed)
Maroons; Seminole War, 1st, 1817-1818; Seminole War, 2nd, 1835-1842
In the meantime, the claimant Love, despairing of obtaining the negroes,
refused to enter bail for costs and damages, in case the suit should be
determined against him in the higher court, and the sheriff delivered
them over to Mr. Reynolds on the same day that Collins left the city. On
the next day, Mr. Reynolds wrote the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
saying, "The thirty-one negroes who were arrested, seized from me and
lodged in the jail of this city, were last evening surrendered to me.
The Creek attorney (N. F. Collins, Esq.) nor any authorized agent being
present, and not wishing to detain them at the expense of the
Government, they were immediately embarked and dispatched West, with
twenty-five days' provisions, under the charge of Assistant Conductor
Benjamin, who, to satisfy the Indians, had been left with the negroes at
the period of the service of the process; of which fact I informed the
Department at the time."
These thirty-one prisoners who had been thus detained, were now once
more under way for their western home. Their hearts appeared to beat
more freely as the noble steamer, which bore them on their way to their
friends and future homes, cut loose from her moorings and sped her way
toward her destined port. On board that happy craft, also, were many
smiles and hearty congratulations exchanged among those children of the
forest, who had been borne along on the tide of ever-varying
circumstances. Although helpless and penniless, and apparently
friendless, they had almost miraculously escaped the meshes which our
Government and the slave-dealers had spread for their destruction. In
due time they reached Fort Gibson, and were delivered over to the care
of the proper agent, who conducted them to their friends. And now some
nine hundred Seminoles, and some three to four hundred Exiles, had
reached the Indian Country; they constituted the first party of that
nation who, driven from their homes--their native wilds--had consented
to be taken to a strange land.
They had been assured by General Jessup and all officers who spoke for
the Government, that the treaty of Payne's Landing was to be complied
with. To enforce that treaty had been the order of General Jackson.
General Cass had declared that the _Indians must comply with that
treaty_; while, to our Indian agents, he asserted it to be the policy of
the Government to _unite the Creeks and Seminoles as one people_.
But the Indians and Exiles were constantly assured, that they were to
have a tract of country set off to their separate use; and when they
entered into the articles of capitulation with General Jessup, on the
eighteenth of March, 1837, that officer, on behalf of the United
States, had stipulated to protect the Indians and "their allies" in the
enjoyment of their lives and property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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