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
General Jackson appears to have spoken as little of the Exiles as duty
would permit, when communicating with the Secretary of War; yet he was
more free to complain of them in his correspondence with the Governor of
Pensacola. In a letter to that officer, dated a few days after the
battle of Suwanee, he says: "_Negroes who have fled from their masters,
citizens of the United States, have raised the tomahawk, and, in the
character of savage warfare, have spared neither age nor sex_. _Helpless
women have been massacred, and the cradle crimsoned with blood._"
We can, at this day, scarcely believe that this eloquent description of
savage barbarity was from the pen of a man whose order for the massacre
of defenseless women and children, at the Fort on Appalachicola, bore
date less than two years before writing this letter; nor can we readily
comprehend the effrontery of him who thus attempted to justify the
invasion of Florida, by reference to acts done by the Exiles long after
the army under his command had entered that territory, and committed the
most atrocious outrages ever perpetrated by civilized men upon an
unoffending people.
After the battle of Suwanee, General Jackson returned to St. Marks,
being unable to follow the Indians and Exiles into the more southern
portions of Florida. While at St. Marks, he ordered a court-martial,
constituting General Gaines president, in order to try Arbuthnot and
Ambrister. The history of their trial and execution is familiar to the
reader. The first and principal charge against Ambrister was, that he
excited the _negroes_ and Indians to commit murder upon the people of
the United States; the second charge was for supplying them with arms.
On these charges he was convicted and executed. It was also alleged,
that he was present at the battle of Suwanee; and some writers say he
commanded the Exiles on that occasion, and had previously taught them
military discipline.
In May, General Jackson issued an Address to his troops, declaring the
war at an end; and wrote the Executive, asking permission to retire to
his home in Nashville, there being no further use for his services in
the field.
The Exiles now returned to their homes. They had full leisure to
contemplate their situation. Many of their best men had fallen. Nearly
the entire population residing upon the Appalachicola River had been
massacred. Their villages at Mickasukie and Suwanee had been burned; and
it is probable that nearly one half of their entire population had been
sacrificed, in this first war waged by the United States for the murder
and recapture of fugitive slaves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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