A consistent theme in the history of slavery is the fear - the fear that the people you are doing wrong are going to learn enough to realize the wrongs being done to them and make you pay for it. It's the manifestations of this fear that are interesting.
In the Stono Rebellion of 1739, the rebellious slaves marched under a banner that read "Liberty", while chanting the same word in unison. After the slave rebellion was crushed, the slave owners responding by outlawing anyone from teaching the slaves to read. Hence, they responded to the fear.
Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831 was joined by several free blacks. Therefore the response after Nat Turner was hanged was to outlaw teaching free blacks and mulattoes to read and write. They also passed a gag rule in Congress against any discussion of slavery.
But the biggest fear of all was that the slaves would gain allies.
Their most natural allies were also the most numorous, and hence, the most dangerous to the aristocracy of the slave-owning class. Those potential allies were poor whites. This fear led to the New York Slave Insurrection of 1741. A fire on March 18 got out of control and burnt down everything within Fort George.
At first the lieutenant governor announced that the cause of the fire was due to a plumber who, while repairing a gutter on his majesty's house, had used a pan of live coals to keep his soldering iron hot, and the wind had blown some of the coals up underneath the shingles. But this logical, and probably true, explanation of the cause was soon pushed aside. An epidemic of fear gripped the city during the following six months.
[...]
It was the testimony of Mary Burton that had brought about the arrest of Caesar and Prince. She then accused her master, John Hughson, as the one who had received the stolen linen and harbored the criminals. And when the lieutenant governor offered a hundred pounds reward to anyone who could reveal the person or persons "lately concern'd in Setting fire to any dwelling," Mary at once stepped forth and named the Hughsons, Peggy, Caesar, Prince, and eventually dozens of others, both slaves and whites, as conspirators in a great plot to burn down New York. Hughson, she said, was to be king, Caesar the governor, the slaves were to be free and wealthy, killing most of the white men and "taking the women unto themselves."
[...]
The many Negroes named by Mary, Sarah, and Peggy were rapidly dealt with. Hardly a day passed without an execution. Those who failed to admit their guilt, or to give incriminating information about others, were considered vile and stubborn and burned at the stake. But to those who confessed and informed, the court showed mercy, and hanged them instead.
In a case that dwarfed the Salem Witch Trials of 80 years earlier, 13 negroes were burned at the stake, 18 were hanged, and 154 were jailed. Four poor whites were hanged and 20 more were jailed. The bodies of two of the whites were gibbeted and left to rot for several of the hot summer months as a warning to other poor whites not to side with blacks against the aristocracy. [my note: it kind of gives you a whole new view on our founding fathers, don't it?]
It wasn't until after Bacon's Rebellion a generation later that laws to reform indentured servitude were introduced in the hopes of driving a racist wedge between poor whites and blacks, and thus alleviating the fear.
But there was one other fear that the aristocracy needed to deal with. It wasn't as dangerous as poor whites siding with blacks, but it was dangerous nonetheless. Unlike the fear that gripped New York just a generation before the Revolution, this fear actually became a reality, and because of that your high school history books never mentioned this chapter of American history.
To tell this story properly we must go back to the Florida panhandle of 1815.
The Negro Fort
"[C]ertain Negroes and outlaws have taken possession of a Fort on the Appalachicola River in the territory of Florida,"
-General Edmund Gaines on May 14, 1815.
Fort Blount was built by the British on the Appalachicola River during the War of 1812. Once the war ended the British were obligated to leave Florida, which they did along with most of their indian allies who had no interest in forts.
However, fugitive slaves took an entirely different attitude. Slaves took over the fort and the large amount of weapons and ammunition left behind by the British (Britain had outlawed slavery in 1807). By June there were 330 black warriors, some coming from as far away as Tennessee and Mississippi, and 30 Seminole Indians stationed at or near the fort along with four pieces of artillery, six light cannon, and a large stock of British ammunition and arms. By 1816, around 1,000 black refugees were cultivating crops and pastures for 45 miles up and down the river.
"The force of the Negroes was daily increasing, and they felt themselves so strong and secure that they commenced several plantations on the fertile banks of the Apalachicola."
-- Commodore Daniel Patterson
The Fear wasn't that the black slaves would establish a thriving community. That could always be crushed with enough military force. The problem was that the Seminole Indians were working right alongside the blacks. The country of America in 1815 was no military powerhouse, and if the slaves and indians began working together it could create all sorts of problems.
This fort had to be destroyed and quickly.
General Jackson was incensed. As commander of the Southeast, he issued an ultimatum to the Spanish governor: destroy the fort, seize the lawless "banditti" who manned it, and return all U.S. Negroes who had been "enticed from the service of their masters." If not, Spain must face the consequences for harboring brigands: U.S. forces would invade Spanish territory and destroy the fort themselves.
Spain was in no condition to take on yet another enemy right then. They had only recently rid themselves of occupation by Napoleon's army, and almost all of their colonies in Latin America used the opportunity to go into open revolt (of which almost all of them would eventually succeed in the coming decade). Spain simply stepped aside.
Taking a page from history, he enlisted the aid of Creek warriors, offering Coweta Creek chief William McIntosh $50 a head for each American-owned slave he could capture in Florida. The practice of sending Creeks against the Seminole maroons dated back to the Treaty of New York in 1790, with roots in the colonial-era slave trade. For the Black Seminoles, this policy would have lingering, and terrifying, consequences.
"I have little doubt of the fact, that this fort has been established by some villains for rapine and plunder, and that it ought to be blown up, regardless of the land on which it stands; and if your mind shall have formed the same conclusion, destroy it and return the stolen Negroes and property to their rightful owners."
- General Jackson's orders to General Edmund Pendleton Gaines
Black Seminoles is an interesting topic that American history has largely tried to forget, but is absolutely necessary for my story today.
Cimarron
Black Seminoles were decedents of runaway slaves from South Carolina and Georgia.
Originally Spain had tried to enlist the indigenous natives to help defend Florida from the expansionist English, but european diseases practically wiped out the local tribes. Spain then encouraged runaway slaves to migrate to Florida and join their militias, getting freedom in exchange for service. Thousands took up the offer, but many others didn't find military service to their liking, and went to live in the Florida swamps instead.
Both the Seminole indians and the runaway slaves (black Loyalists) sided with the British during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. This brought the two groups together and they both discovered they were natural allies. This also led to inter-marriage. The word "Seminole" is derived from a spanish word, cimarron, which means "runaway", denoting the tribes breakaway status with the Creeks. Cimarron is also the source of the English word "maroon", used to describe the runaway slave communities of Florida.
The seminoles would fake being slave owners in order to protect the maroons, and get tribute from the maroons for doing it. The maroons could live free and prosper. Both gained much needed allies.
"We found these negroes in possession of large fields of the finest land, producing large crops of corn, beans, melons, pumpkins, and other esculent vegetables. [I] saw, while riding along the borders of the ponds, fine rice growing; and in the village large corn-cribs were filled, while the houses were larger and more comfortable than those of the Indians themselves."
- Lieutenant George McCall regarding Black Seminoles in 1826
The end of Negro Fort
Lt. Colonel Clinch
General Gaines dispatched Lt. Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch to deal with the Negro Fort. On June 17, 1816, Clinch's gunboats reached the fort, while the force of Creek indians approached from behind. The defenders of the fort fired their artillery in defiance. The gunboats responded, and with just the ninth round, they penetrated the magazine of the fort and detonated 700 kegs of gunpowder.
250 of the fort's defenders died instantly.
"The explosion was awful, and the scene horrible beyond description. You cannot conceive, nor I describe the horrors of the scene. In an instant lifeless bodies were stretched upon the plain, buried in sand and rubbish, or suspended from the tops of the surrounding pines. Here lay an innocent babe, there a helpless mother; on the one side a sturdy warrior, on the other a bleeding squaw. Piles of bodies, large heaps of sand, broken guns, accoutrements, etc, covered the site of the fort. The brave soldier was disarmed of his resentment and checked his victorious career, to drop a tear on the distressing scene."
- Lt. Colonel Clinch in the Army and Navy Chronicle
The black leader of the Negro Fort, known only as Garson, was found and shot on the spot. The Choctaw chief who led the Seminole indians was killed and scalped by the Creeks. All remaining negroes were rounded up and sent back to Georgia slaveowners.
Jackson's plan was a complete success. He had slaughtered black men, women, and children just as he had intended. This was to be the key incident that led to the First Seminole War the following year. Breaking up the maroon communities was one of Jackson's major objectives in the subsequent First Seminole War.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
Some of you may wonder why the Creeks were helping Jackson, a man who made his name by killing Creek indians.
The reasons were a combination of economics and political appeasement. The Creek were part of the Five Civilized Tribes, and those tribes were slave owners. In fact, catching runaway slaves and returning them to their white slave owners for the reward was a big industry among the "civilized" tribes, especially the Chickasaws. Sometimes they didn't return them. Of the five tribes, only the Seminoles didn't have slave codes. Only the Seminoles allowed their slaves to carry guns and own property. This caused resentment among slave owners in the Cherokee and Creek tribes. Black Seminoles socialized with their enslaved counterparts and gave them ideas that were unwelcome to the slave owners.
As if to prove these "civilized" tribes were just like their white counterparts, on November 15, 1842, the Cherokee Slave Revolt happened. 25 blacks slaves made a run for the Mexican border (where slavery was illegal), but they unfortunately failed when the Creeks joined the Cherokee posse. Afterwards, in an action so similar to their white slave owning counterparts, the indians nations expelled all free blacks from their territories.
But enough for this tangent. General Jackson is about to start a war and seize a huge piece of Florida land from Spain by force.
First Seminole War
Jackson's objectives in the 1817-1818 war was to destroy Seminole villages and seize the Florida panhandle from the Spanish. The largest fight of the entire war happened when Jackson attacked and destroyed a Black Seminole village at Suwannee River. However, he failed to destroy their military force and was harrassed by the black warriors through most of the campaign.
Despite instructions by Congress not to engage the Spanish, Jackson captured Pensacola and the 175-man garrison in May of 1818, thus ending the war. America eventually gave back West Florida, but the message had been sent to Spain. Within three years Spain had sold Florida to America.
Before President Adams could even act, Jackson's Creek allies led a brutal slave raid deep into Florida, capturing 300 maroons, plundering their plantations, and setting fire to their homes. Almost all of them were sold into slavery. Many of the rest of the Black Seminoles fled the inevitable terror by leaving Florida altogether and going to the Bahamas. Meanwhile the slave raids continued. The white slavers cared little in distinguishing between a black born free and a recent runaway.
However, some maroons stayed. Two of them were Abraham and John Horse.
Abraham
John Horse
Second Seminole War
Jackson becoming president was a nightmare come true. One of his first actions was to implement the Indian Removal Act, which led directly to the infamous Trail of Tears. The Seminoles were to be the last tribe to be moved. Abraham sent a delegation to Oklahoma to look at the land. He discovered that the Seminole land was actually part of Creek country. Jackson had planned to incorporate the Seminoles into their hated rival, slave-code tribe, the Creeks.
Negotiations did not go well.
"Slaves belonging to the Indians have a controlling influence over them and are utterly opposed to any change of residence. No treaty can be enforced as long as these Blacks are present, every Indian who seeks to stay will run from them."
- Governor William DuVal
"The only treaty I will ever execute will be this! [plunging his knife into the treaty] There remains nothing worth words. If the hail rattles, let the flowers be crushed - the stately oak of the forest will lift its head to the sky and the storm, towering and unscathed."
--Osceola at the Fort King negotiations
"Should you...refuse to move, I have then directed the Commanding officer to remove you by force."
- President Jackson
"The white man shall not make me black. I will make the white man red with blood; and then blacken him in the sun and rain ... and the buzzard live upon his flesh."
- Osceola
Osceola
"It is confidently hoped that ten years intercourse with the whites has so far corrupted and demoralized the Seminoles as to make them incapable of protracted resistance. The miserable creatures will be speedily swept from the face of the earth."
- Niles Register, January 9, 1836
One of the first actions of the war involved Black Seminoles raiding Florida plantations. Freed slaves quickly joined up with their black brothers.
"Depeyster's negroes were traitors, and must have been in league with the Indians," "Upwards of two hundred and fifty negroes have joined and are more desperate than the Indians," "the whole of Major Heriot's negroes moved off."
- The Charleston Courier, Jan 12
By January, almost 300 slaves from the St. John's region alone had fled to the rebel forces. Months of planning were paying off. The Black Seminoles and their Indian allies were sparking a mass uprising.
On January 17th, Seminole forces and their recently freed allies routed a militia unit at John von Bulow's plantation commanded by Joseph Hernandez. The Seminoles inflicted fifty percent casualties. One white volunteer became so enraged that he scalped an Indian captive, later bragging that he kept the man's ears for trophies.
"[I]f a sufficient military force...is not sent...the whole frontier may be laid waste by a combination of the Indians, Indian negroes, and the negroes on the plantations."
- General Duncan Clinch
Meanwhile a force of 108 soldiers under the command of Major Francis L. Dade was wiped out. There was only a single survivor. Almost half of the Seminole forces there were black.
"You have guns and so have we ... you have powder and lead, and so have we ... your men will fight, and so will ours, till the last drop of the Seminole's blood has moistened the dust of his hunting ground."
- Osceola's message to General Clinch after victory at Withlacoochee
At the outset of the war there were about 250 armed Black Seminoles. These numbers were augmented during the war by runaway slaves. At the height of the conflict there were between 900-1800 blacks aligned with the Seminoles.
With these small numbers, plus only 1,000 Seminole warriors, there was no chance of victory. However, there was one other number the Seminoles could exploit: of Florida's 34,000 residents, 16,000 were slaves. The Seminoles were going to make The Fear a reality.
"Many [slaves] have escaped to and joined the Indians, and furnished them with much important information, and if strong measures [are] not taken to restrain our slaves, there is but little doubt that we should soon be assailed with a servile as well as Indian war."
- letter to Secretary of War
By February 21 plantations had been overrun. Though Southern slaveholders dared not say it, the Florida uprising had mushroomed into the largest slave rebellion that the country had ever seen. By April of 1836, at least 385 field slaves had defected to the Seminoles.
Through the entire first year of the conflict, the U.S. Army failed to win a single battle. President Jackson was apoplectic. After a second catastrophe on the Withlacoochee, Scott and Gaines were called before a court of inquiry in Washington. Though the generals were cleared of wrongdoing, Scott was relieved of the Florida command.
"The government is in the wrong, and this is the chief cause of the persevering opposition of the Indians, who have nobly defended their country against our attempt to enforce a fraudulent treaty. The natives used every means to avoid a war, but were forced into it by the tyranny of our government."
- Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock
Fortunately for Jackson, the nation was distracted. At the same moment that Jackson was using federal funds to round up slaves for southern slaveowners, a couple hundred slaveowners in Mexico (later to be called Texas) started a war with Mexico (over the fact that Mexico had outlawed slavery) and martyred themselves at the Alamo.
Over the summer and fall of 1836 the Army failed to find the Seminoles at all. Jackson was losing his patience, so he called up his most competent General - General Thomas Sydney Jesup.
"This, you may be assured, is a negro, not an Indian war; and if it be not speedily put down, the south will feel the effects of it on their slave population before the end of the next season."
- General Jesup
Jesup's strategy was to divide the indians from the blacks by targeting the blacks first. He struck at the economy, raiding villages, burning crops, confiscating food, horses, and slaves.
"We have, at no former period of our history, had to contend with so formidable an enemy. No Seminole proves false to his country, nor has a single instance ever occurred of a first rate warrior having surrendered."
- General Jesup
While failing to capture the warriors, Jesup was effective at capturing the women and children to be used as hostages. Jesup used those hostages to arrange a meeting with Abraham where he hammered out an armistice. How did Jesup manage that? By breaking with President Jackson and agreeing to allow the blacks to remain with the Seminoles rather than return to slavery.
The slave owners were outraged. If word got out that blacks could win their freedom through resistance it would be every slaveowners greatest fear come true.
"The regaining of our slaves constitutes an object of scarcely less moment than that of the peace of the country."
- St. Augustine Florida Herald, April 27, 1837
The pressure from the slave owners soon got to Jesup and he went into secret negotiations with one of the American-friendly chiefs to turn over "all captured Negroes" to the whites. 200 negroes had been betrayed before action was taken. John Horse gathered up 700 warriors and fled to the jungles before the Army could respond.
"All is lost, and principally ... by the influence of the Negroes."
- General Jesup
Jesup now decided to throw out all the rules of war. He used hostages to gain meeting with leading Seminoles. Once the Seminole leaders came under the white flag of truce, Jesup would seize them as prisoners.
"We disclaim all participation in the 'glory' of this achievement of American generalship, which, if practised toward a civilized foe, would be characterized as a violation of all that is noble and generous in war."
- Niles National Register, November 4, 1837
The resistence was dying. Escaped slaves were returning to their owners rather than face death at the hands of the military. Many of the Seminoles gave up and were shipped west. Only the Black Seminoles continued the struggle.
On the night of November 29, John Horse and the Seminole captives escaped from the strongest fort in Florida. The fort was considered impregnable, and therefore the prison cell wasn't guarded at night. It had only one opening: a slit fifteen feet up the wall, blocked by two iron bars. Waiting for a moonless night, the prisoners cut through the bars with a smuggled file. They had feigned illness for days, starving themselves so they could fit through the opening. Osceola and King Philip had been too ill to join the escape, but the rest were now free. The resistence, almost completely dead, now sprung back to life. John Horse led the warriors deep into the everglades.
John Horse's forces met nearly 1,000 soldiers at the Battle of Lake Okeechobee. Outnumbering the Seminoles nearly three-to-one the American troops eventually won the field, but suffered four times the casualties in the process and failed to prevent them from retreating.
Battle of Okeechobee (romaticized version)
Afterwards the army suffered two other minor defeats. It was dawning on Jesup that the enemy could not be defeated militarily. Jesup decided on a different tactic.
"[T]hat all Negroes the property of the Seminole...who...delivered themselves up to the Commanding Officer of the Troops should be free."
- General Jesup
It was remarkable. By making a battlefield decision to offer freedom to blacks who surrendered, Jesup enacted the first and only emancipation of rebellious blacks on American soil prior to the Civil War. The largest, most organized, and most violent slave uprising in U.S. history had produced a concession of freedom. In essence, the Black Seminole portion of the uprising was a victory.
"Jesup's Proclamation," as it came to be known, pre-dated Lincoln's by twenty-five years. In more ways than one the Black Seminoles were pioneers on the American frontier.
Jesup didn't do this out of abolitionist spirit. He did it for very pragmatic reasons.
"The negroes ... have, for their numbers, been the most formidable foe, more bloodthirsty, active, and revengeful, than the Indians .... The negro, returned to his original owner, might have remained a few days, when he again would have fled to the swamps, more vindictive than ever.... Ten resolute negroes, with a knowledge of the country, are sufficient to desolate the frontier, from one extent to the other."
- General Jesup
On April 4th, John Horse and his Black Seminole followers surrendered to the army.
The war would continue for another four years until President Van Buren finally agreed to General Jesup's suggestion of creating a small reservation in Florida for the Seminoles rather than trying to ship all of them west.
John Horse and his followers were shipped to Oklahoma, rather than into slavery. His son would become a Buffalo Soldier.
This was a far cry from the end of the adventures for the Black Seminoles (an adventure that would eventually lead them to a nighttime escape into Mexico). The continuing Seminole War also brought about an exception to the gag rule in Congress that southern politicians had pushed through concerning slavery. This led to open debate of slavery on the floor of Congress, and eventually to Civil War.
You can read all about it John Horse and the Seminoles here.