He also seized the Spanish part of the island, which had been ceded to France some years before but had not been actually surrendered. He then, in May, 1801, gave to Santo Domingo a const.i.tution by which he not only a.s.sumed power for life but gave to himself the right of naming his successor; and all the while he was awakening the admiration of the world by his bravery, his moderation, and his genuine instinct for government.
Across the ocean, however, a jealous man was watching with interest the career of the "gilded African." None knew better than Napoleon that it was because he did not trust France that Toussaint had sought the friendship of the United States, and none read better than he the logic of events. As Adams says, "Bonaparte"s acts as well as his professions showed that he was bent on crushing democratic ideas, and that he regarded St. Domingo as an outpost of American republicanism, although Toussaint had made a rule as arbitrary as that of Bonaparte himself....
By a strange confusion of events, Toussaint L"Ouverture, because he was a Negro, became the champion of republican principles, with which he had nothing but the instinct of personal freedom in common. Toussaint"s government was less republican than that of Bonaparte; he was doing by necessity in St. Domingo what Bonaparte was doing by choice in France."[1]
[Footnote 1: _History of the United States_, I, 391-392.]
This was the man to whom the United States ultimately owes the purchase of Louisiana. On October 1, 1801, Bonaparte gave orders to General Le Clerc for a great expedition against Santo Domingo. In January, 1802, Le Clerc appeared and war followed. In the course of this, Toussaint--who was ordinarily so wise and who certainly knew that from Napoleon he had most to fear--made the great mistake of his life and permitted himself to be led into a conference on a French vessel. He was betrayed and taken to France, where within the year he died of pneumonia in the dungeon of Joux. Immediately there was a proclamation annulling the decree of 1794 giving freedom to the slaves. Bonaparte, however, had not estimated the force of Toussaint"s work, and to a.s.sist the Negroes in their struggle now came a stalwart ally, yellow fever. By the end of the summer only one-seventh of Le Clerc"s army remained, and he himself died in November. At once Bonaparte planned a new expedition. While he was arranging for the leadership of this, however, the European war broke out again. Meanwhile the treaty for the retrocession of the territory of Louisiana had not yet received the signature of the Spanish king, because G.o.doy, the Spanish representative, would not permit the signature to be affixed until all the conditions were fulfilled; and toward the end of 1802 the civil officer at New Orleans closed the Mississippi to the United States. Jefferson, at length moved by the plea of the South, sent a special envoy, no less a man than James Monroe, to France to negotiate the purchase; Bonaparte, disgusted by the failure of his Egyptian expedition and his project for reaching India, and especially by his failure in Santo Domingo, in need also of ready money, listened to the offer; and the people of the United States--who within the last few years have witnessed the spoliation of Hayti--have not yet realized how much they owe to the courage of 500,000 Haytian Negroes who refused to be slaves.
The slavery question in the new territory was a critical one. It was on account of it that the Federalists had opposed the acquisition; the American Convention endeavored to secure a provision like that of the Northwest Ordinance; and the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia in 1805 prayed "that effectual measures may be adopted by Congress to prevent the introduction of slavery into any of the territories of the United States." Nevertheless the whole territory without regard to lat.i.tude was thrown open to the system March 2, 1805.
In spite of this victory for slavery, however, the general force of the events in Hayti was such as to make more certain the formal closing of the slave-trade at the end of the twenty-year period for which the Const.i.tution had permitted it to run. The conscience of the North had been profoundly stirred, and in the far South was the ever-present fear of a reproduction of the events in Hayti. The agitation in England moreover was at last about to bear fruit in the act of 1807 forbidding the slave-trade. In America it seems from the first to have been an understood thing, especially by the Southern representatives, that even if such an act pa.s.sed it would be only irregularly enforced, and the debates were concerned rather with the disposal of illegally imported Africans and with the punishment of those concerned in the importation than with the proper limitation of the traffic by water.[1] On March 2, 1807, the act was pa.s.sed forbidding the slave-trade after the close of the year. In course of time it came very near to being a dead letter, as may be seen from presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reports of committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statements on the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the complaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies. Fernandina and Galveston were only two of the most notorious ports for smuggling. A regular chain of posts was established from the head of St. Mary"s River to the upper country, and through the Indian nation, by means of which the Negroes were transferred to every part of the country.[2] If dealers wished to form a caravan they would give an Indian alarm, so that the woods might be less frequented, and if pursued in Georgia they would escape into Florida. One small schooner contained one hundred and thirty souls. "They were almost packed into a small s.p.a.ce, between a floor laid over the water-casks and the deck--not near three feet--insufficient for them to sit upright--and so close that chafing against each other their bones pierced the skin and became galled and ulcerated by the motion of the vessel." Many American vessels were engaged in the trade under Spanish colors, and the traffic to Africa was pursued with uncommon vigor at Havana, the crews of vessels being made up of men of all nations, who were tempted by the high wages to be earned. Evidently officials were negligent in the discharge of their duty, but even if offenders were apprehended it did not necessarily follow that they would receive effective punishment. President Madison in his message of December 5, 1810, said, "It appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their own country"; and on January 7, 1819, the Register of the Treasury made to the House the amazing report that "it doth not appear, from an examination of the records of this office, and particularly of the accounts (to the date of their last settlement) of the collectors of the customs, and of the several marshals of the United States, that any forfeitures had been incurred under the said act." A supplementary and compromising and ineffective act of 1818 sought to concentrate efforts against smuggling by encouraging informers; and one of the following year that authorized the President to "make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States" of recaptured Africans, and that bore somewhat more fruit, was in large measure due to the colonization movement and of importance in connection with the founding of Liberia.
[Footnote 1: See DuBois, 95, ff.]
[Footnote 2: Niles"s _Register_, XIV, 176 (May 2, 1818).]
Thus, while the formal closing of the slave-trade might seem to be a great step forward, the laxness with which the decree was enforced places it definitely in the period of reaction.
3. _Gabriel"s Insurrection and the Rise of the Negro Problem_
Gabriel"s insurrection of 1800 was by no means the most formidable revolt that the Southern states witnessed. In design it certainly did not surpa.s.s the scope of the plot of Denmark Vesey twenty-two years later, and in actual achievement it was insignificant when compared not only with Nat Turner"s insurrection but even with the uprisings sixty years before. At the last moment in fact a great storm that came up made the attempt to execute the plan a miserable failure. Nevertheless coming as it did so soon after the revolution in Hayti, and giving evidence of young and unselfish leadership, the plot was regarded as of extraordinary significance.
Gabriel himself[1] was an intelligent slave only twenty-four years old, and his chief a.s.sistant was Jack Bowler, aged twenty-eight. Throughout the summer of 1800 he matured his plan, holding meetings at which a brother named Martin interpreted various texts from Scripture as bearing on the situation of the Negroes. His insurrection was finally set for the first day of September. It was well planned. The rendezvous was to be a brook six miles from Richmond. Under cover of night the force of 1,100 was to march in three columns on the city, then a town of 8,000 inhabitants, the right wing to seize the penitentiary building which had just been converted into an a.r.s.enal, while the left took possession of the powder-house. These two columns were to be armed with clubs, and while they were doing their work the central force, armed with muskets, knives, and pikes, was to begin the carnage, none being spared except the French, whom it is significant that the Negroes favored. In Richmond at the time there were not more than four or five hundred men with about thirty muskets; but in the a.r.s.enal were several thousand guns, and the powder-house was well stocked. Seizure of the mills was to guarantee the insurrectionists a food supply; and meanwhile in the country districts were the new harvests of corn, and flocks and herds were fat in the fields.
[Footnote 1: His full name was Gabriel Prosser.]
On the day appointed for the uprising Virginia witnessed such a storm as she had not seen in years. Bridges were carried away, and roads and plantations completely submerged. Brook Swamp, the strategic point for the Negroes, was inundated; and the country Negroes could not get into the city, nor could those in the city get out to the place of rendezvous. The force of more than a thousand dwindled to three hundred, and these, almost paralyzed by fear and superst.i.tion, were dismissed.
Meanwhile a slave who did not wish to see his master killed divulged the plot, and all Richmond was soon in arms.
A troop of United States cavalry was ordered to the city and arrests followed quickly. Three hundred dollars was offered by Governor Monroe for the arrest of Gabriel, and as much more for Jack Bowler. Bowler surrendered, but it took weeks to find Gabriel. Six men were convicted and condemned to be executed on September 12, and five more on September 18. Gabriel was finally captured on September 24 at Norfolk on a vessel that had come from Richmond; he was convicted on October 3 and executed on October 7. He showed no disposition to dissemble as to his own plan; at the same time he said not one word that incriminated anybody else.
After him twenty-four more men were executed; then it began to appear that some "mistakes" had been made and the killing ceased. About the time of this uprising some Negroes were also a.s.sembled for an outbreak in Suffolk County; there were alarms in Petersburg and in the country near Edenton, N.C.; and as far away as Charleston the excitement was intense.
There were at least three other Negro insurrections of importance in the period 1790-1820. When news came of the uprising of the slaves in Santo Domingo in 1791, the Negroes in Louisiana planned a similar effort.[1]
They might have succeeded better if they had not disagreed as to the hour of the outbreak, when one of them informed the commandant. As a punishment twenty-three of the slaves were hanged along the banks of the river and their corpses left dangling for days; but three white men who a.s.sisted them and who were really the most guilty of all, were simply sent out of the colony. In Camden, S. C, on July 4, 1816, some other Negroes risked all for independence.[2] On various pretexts men from the country districts were invited to the town on the appointed night, and different commands were a.s.signed, all except that of commander-in-chief, which position was to be given to him who first forced the gates of the a.r.s.enal. Again the plot was divulged by "a favorite and confidential slave," of whom we are told that the state legislature purchased the freedom, settling upon him a pension for life. About six of the leaders were executed. On or about May 1, 1819, there was a plot to destroy the city of Augusta, Ga.[3] The insurrectionists were to a.s.semble at Beach Island, proceed to Augusta, set fire to the place, and then destroy the inhabitants. Guards were posted, and a white man who did not answer when hailed was shot and fatally wounded. A Negro named Coot was tried as being at the head of the conspiracy and sentenced to be executed a few days later. Other trials followed his. Not a muscle moved when the verdict was p.r.o.nounced upon him.
[Footnote 1: Gayarre: _History of Louisiana_, III, 355.]
[Footnote 2: Holland: _Refutation of Calumnies_.]
[Footnote 3: Niles"s _Register_, XVI, 213 (May 22, 1819).]
The deeper meaning of such events as these could not escape the discerning. More than one patriot had to wonder just whither the country was drifting. Already it was evident that the ultimate problem transcended the mere question of slavery, and many knew that human beings could not always be confined to an artificial status. Throughout the period the slave-trade seemed to flourish without any real check, and it was even accentuated by the return to power of the old royalist houses of Europe after the fall of Napoleon. Meanwhile it was observed that slave labor was driving out of the South the white man of small means, and antagonism between the men of the "up-country" and the seaboard capitalists was brewing. The ordinary social life of the Negro in the South left much to be desired, and conditions were not improved by the rapid increase. As for slavery itself, no one could tell when or where or how the system would end; all only knew that it was developing apace: and meanwhile there was the sinister possibility of the alliance of the Negro and the Indian. Sincere plans of gradual abolition were advanced in the South as well as the North, but in the lower section they seldom got more than a respectful hearing. In his "Dissertation on Slavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia," St. George Tucker, a professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and one of the judges of the General Court of Virginia, in 1796 advanced a plan by which he figured that after sixty years there would be only one-third as many slaves as at first. At this distance his proposal seems extremely conservative; at the time, however, it was laid on the table by the Virginia House of Delegates, and from the Senate the author received merely "a civil acknowledgment."
Two men of the period--widely different in temper and tone, but both earnest seekers after truth--looked forward to the future with foreboding, one with the eye of the scientist, the other with the vision of the seer. Hezekiah Niles had full sympathy with the groping and striving of the South; but he insisted that slavery must ultimately be abolished throughout the country, that the minds of the slaves should be exalted, and that reasonable encouragement should be given free Negroes.[1] Said he: "_We are ashamed of the thing we practice_;...
there is no attribute of heaven that takes part with us, and _we know it_. And in the contest that must come and _will come_, there will be a heap of sorrows such as the world has rarely seen."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Register_, XVI, 177 (May 8, 1819).]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., XVI, 213 (May 22, 1819).]
On the other hand rose Lorenzo Dow, the foremost itinerant preacher of the time, the first Protestant who expounded the gospel in Alabama and Mississippi, and a reformer who at the very moment that cotton was beginning to be supreme, presumed to tell the South that slavery was wrong.[1] Everywhere he arrested attention--with his long hair, his harsh voice, and his wild gesticulation startling all conservative hearers. But he was made in the mold of heroes. In his lifetime he traveled not less than two hundred thousand miles, preaching to more people than any other man of his time. Several times he went to Canada, once to the West Indies, and three times to England, everywhere drawing great crowds about him. In _A Cry from the Wilderness_ he more than once clothed his thought in enigmatic garb, but the meaning was always ultimately clear. At this distance, when slavery and the Civil War are alike viewed in the perspective, the words of the oracle are almost uncanny: "In the rest of the Southern states the influence of these Foreigners will be known and felt in its time, and the seeds from the HORY ALLIANCE and the DECAPIGANDI, who have a hand in those grades of Generals, from the Inquisitor to the Vicar General and down...!!! The STRUGGLE will be DREADFUL! the CUP will be BITTER! and when the agony is over, those who survive may see better days! FAREWELL!"
[Footnote 1: For full study see article "Lorenzo Dow," in _Methodist Review_ and _Journal of Negro History_, July, 1916, the same being included in _Africa and the War_, New York, 1918.]
CHAPTER V
INDIAN AND NEGRO
It is not the purpose of the present chapter to give a history of the Seminole Wars, or even to trace fully the connection of the Negro with these contests. We do hope to show at least, however, that the Negro was more important than anything else as an immediate cause of controversy, though the general pressure of the white man upon the Indian would in time of course have made trouble in any case. Strange parallels constantly present themselves, and incidentally it may be seen that the policy of the Government in force in other and even later years with reference to the Negro was at this time also very largely applied in the case of the Indian.
1. _Creek, Seminole, and Negro to 1817: The War of 1812_
On August 7, 1786, the Continental Congress by a definite and far-reaching ordinance sought to regulate for the future the whole conduct of Indian affairs. Two great districts were formed, one including the territory north of the Ohio and west of the Hudson, and the other including that south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi; and for anything pertaining to the Indian in each of these two great tracts a superintendent was appointed. As affecting the Negro the southern district was naturally of vastly more importance than the northern. In the eastern portion of this, mainly in what are now Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and eastern Alabama, were the Cherokees and the great confederacy of the Creeks, while toward the west, in the present Mississippi and western Alabama, were the Chickasaws and the Choctaws. Of Muskhogean stock, and originally a part of the Creeks, were the Seminoles ("runaways"), who about 1750, under the leadership of a great chieftain, Secoffee, separated from the main confederacy, which had its center in southwest Georgia just a little south of Columbus, and overran the peninsula of Florida. In 1808 came another band under Micco Hadjo to the present site of Tallaha.s.see. The Mickasukie tribe was already on the ground in the vicinity of this town, and at first its members objected to the newcomers, who threatened to take their lands from them; but at length all abode peaceably together under the general name of Seminoles. About 1810 these people had twenty towns, the chief ones being Mikasuki and Tallaha.s.see. From the very first they had received occasional additions from the Yema.s.see, who had been driven out of South Carolina, and of fugitive Negroes.
By the close of the eighteenth century all along the frontier the Indian had begun to feel keenly the pressure of the white man, and in his struggle with the invader he recognized in the oppressed Negro a natural ally. Those Negroes who by any chance became free were welcomed by the Indians, fugitives from bondage found refuge with them, and while Indian chiefs commonly owned slaves, the variety of servitude was very different from that under the white man. The Negroes were comparatively free, and intermarriage was frequent; thus a mulatto woman who fled from bondage married a chief and became the mother of a daughter who in course of time became the wife of the famous Osceola. This very close connection of the Negro with the family life of the Indian was the determining factor in the resistance of the Seminoles to the demands of the agents of the United States, and a reason, stronger even than his love for his old hunting-ground, for his objection to removal to new lands beyond the Mississippi. Very frequently the Indian could not give up his Negroes without seeing his own wife and children led away into bondage; and thus to native courage and pride was added the instinct of a father for the preservation of his own.
In the two wars between the Americans and the English it was but natural that the Indian should side with the English, and it was in some measure but a part of the game that he should receive little consideration at the hands of the victor. In the politics played by the English and the French, the English and the Spaniards, and finally between the Americans and all Europeans, the Indian was ever the loser. In the very early years of the Carolina colonies, some effort was made to enslave the Indians; but such servants soon made their way to the Indian country, and it was not long before they taught the Negroes to do likewise. This constant escape of slaves, with its attendant difficulties, largely accounted for the establishing of the free colony of Georgia between South Carolina and the Spanish possession, Florida. It was soon evident, however, that the problem had been aggravated rather than settled. When Congress met in 1776 it received from Georgia a communication setting forth the need of "preventing slaves from deserting their masters"; and as soon as the Federal Government was organized in 1789 it received also from Georgia an urgent request for protection from the Creeks, who were charged with various ravages, and among other doc.u.ments presented was a list of one hundred and ten Negroes who were said to have left their masters during the Revolution and to have found refuge among the Creeks.
Meanwhile by various treaties, written and unwritten, the Creeks were being forced toward the western line of the state, and in any agreement the outstanding stipulation was always for the return of fugitive slaves. For a number of years the Creeks retreated without definitely organized resistance. In the course of the War of 1812, however, moved by the English and by a visit from Tec.u.mseh, they suddenly rose, and on August 30, 1813, under the leadership of Weathersford, they attacked Fort Mims, a stockade thirty-five miles north of Mobile. The five hundred and fifty-three men, women, and children in this place were almost completely ma.s.sacred. Only fifteen white persons escaped by hiding in the woods, a number of Negroes being taken prisoner. This occurrence spurred the whole Southwest to action. Volunteers were called for, and the Tennessee legislature resolved to exterminate the whole tribe. Andrew Jackson with Colonel Coffee administered decisive defeats at Talladega and Tohopeka or Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River, and the Creeks were forced to sue for peace. By the treaty of Fort Jackson (August 9, 1814) the future president, now a major general in the regular army and in command at Mobile, demanded that the unhappy nation give up more than half of its land as indemnity for the cost of the war, that it hold no communication with a Spanish garrison or town, that it permit the necessary roads to be made or forts to be built in any part of the territory, and that it surrender the prophets who had instigated the war. This last demand was ridiculous, or only for moral effect, for the so-called prophets had already been left dead on the field of battle. The Creeks were quite broken, however, and Jackson pa.s.sed on to fame and destiny at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. In April of this year he was made commander-in-chief of the Southern Division.[1]
It soon developed that his chief task in this capacity was to reckon with the Seminoles.
[Footnote 1: In his official capacity Jackson issued two addresses which have an important place in the history of the Negro soldier. From his headquarters at Mobile, September 21, 1814, he issued an appeal "To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana," offering them an honorable part in the war, and this was later followed by a "Proclamation to the Free People of Color" congratulating them on their achievement. Both addresses are accessible in many books.]
On the Appalachicola River the British had rebuilt an old fort, calling it the British Post on the Appalachicola. Early in the summer of 1815 the commander, Nicholls, had occasion to go to London, and he took with him his troops, the chief Francis, and several Creeks, leaving in the fort seven hundred and sixty-three barrels of cannon powder, twenty-five hundred muskets, and numerous pistols and other weapons of war. The Negroes from Georgia who had come to the vicinity, who numbered not less than a thousand, and who had some well kept farms up and down the banks of the river, now took charge of the fort and made it their headquarters. They were joined by some Creeks, and the so-called Negro Fort soon caused itself to be greatly feared by any white people who happened to live near. Demands on the Spanish governor for its suppression were followed by threats of the use of the soldiery of the United States; and General Gaines, under orders in the section, wrote to Jackson asking authority to build near the boundary another post that might be used as the base for any movement that had as its aim to overawe the Negroes. Jackson readily complied with the request, saying, "I have no doubt that this fort has been established by some villains for the purpose of murder, rapine, and plunder, and that it ought to be blown up regardless of the ground it stands on. If you have come to the same conclusion, destroy it, and restore the stolen Negroes and property to their rightful owners." Gaines accordingly built Fort Scott not far from where the Flint and the Chattahoochee join to form the Appalachicola. It was necessary for Gaines to pa.s.s the Negro Fort in bringing supplies to his own men; and on July 17, 1816, the boats of the Americans were within range of the fort and opened fire. There was some preliminary shooting, and then, since the walls were too stubborn to be battered down by a light fire, "a ball made red-hot in the cook"s galley was put in the gun and sent screaming over the wall and into the magazine. The roar, the shock, the scene that followed, may be imagined, but not described. Seven hundred barrels of gunpowder tore the earth, the fort, and all the wretched creatures in it to fragments. Two hundred and seventy men, women, and children died on the spot. Of sixty-four taken out alive, the greater number died soon after."[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster, IV, 431.]
The Seminoles--in the West more and more identified with the Creeks--were angered by their failure to recover the lands lost by the treaty of Fort Jackson and also by the building of Fort Scott. One settlement, Fowltown, fifteen miles east of Fort Scott, was especially excited and in the fall of 1817 sent a warning to the Americans "not to cross or cut a stick of timber on the east side of the Flint." The warning was regarded as a challenge; Fowltown was taken on a morning in November, and the Seminole Wars had begun.
2. _First Seminole War and the Treaties of Indian Spring and Fort Moultrie_
In the course of the First Seminole War (1817-18) Jackson ruthlessly laid waste the towns of the Indians; he also took Pensacola, and he awakened international difficulties by his rather summary execution of two British subjects, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, who were traders to the Indians and sustained generally pleasant relations with them. For his conduct, especially in this last instance, he was severely criticized in Congress, but it is significant of his rising popularity that no formal vote of censure could pa.s.s against him. On the cession of Florida to the United States he was appointed territorial governor; but he served for a brief term only. As early as 1822 he was nominated for the presidency by the legislature of Tennessee, and in 1823 he was sent to the United States Senate.
Of special importance in the history of the Creeks about this time was the treaty of Indian Spring, of January 8, 1821, an iniquitous agreement in the signing of which bribery and firewater were more than usually present. By this the Creeks ceded to the United States, for the benefit of Georgia, five million acres of their most valuable land. In cash they were to receive $200,000, in payments extending over fourteen years. The United States Government moreover was to hold $250,000 as a fund from which the citizens of Georgia were to be reimbursed for any "claims"
(for runaway slaves of course) that the citizens of the state had against the Creeks prior to the year 1802.[1] In the actual execution of this agreement a slave was frequently estimated at two or three times his real value, and the Creeks were expected to pay whether the fugitive was with them or not. All possible claims, however, amounted to $101,000. This left $149,000 of the money in the hands of the Government. This sum was not turned over to the Indians, as one might have expected, but retained until 1834, when the Georgia citizens interested pet.i.tioned for a division. The request was referred to the Commission on Indian Affairs, and the chairman, Gilmer of Georgia, was in favor of dividing the money among the pet.i.tioners as compensation for "the offspring which the slaves would have borne had they remained in bondage." This suggestion was rejected at the time, but afterwards the division was made nevertheless; and history records few more flagrant violations of all principles of honor and justice.
[Footnote 1: See J.R. Giddings: _The Exiles of Florida_, 63-66; also speech in House of Representatives February 9, 1841.]
The First Seminole War, while in some ways disastrous to the Indians, was in fact not much more than the preliminary skirmish of a conflict that was not to cease until 1842. In general the Indians, mindful of the ravages of the War of 1812, did not fully commit themselves and bided their time. They were in fact so much under cover that they led the Americans to underestimate their real numbers. When the cession of Florida was formally completed, however (July 17, 1821), they were found to be on the very best spots of land in the territory. On May 20, 1822, Colonel Gad Humphreys was appointed agent to them, William P. Duval as governor of the territory being ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs. Altogether the Indians at this time, according to the official count, numbered 1,594 men, 1,357 women, and 993 children, a total of 3,944, with 150 Negro men and 650 Negro women and children.[1] In the interest of these people Humphreys labored faithfully for eight years, and not a little of the comparative quiet in his period of service is to be credited to his own sympathy, good sense, and patience.
[Footnote 1: Sprague, 19.]
In the spring of 1823 the Indians were surprised by the suggestion of a treaty that would definitely limit their boundaries and outline their future relations with the white man. The representative chiefs had no desire for a conference, were exceedingly reluctant to meet the commissioners, and finally came to the meeting prompted only by the hope that such terms might be arrived at as would permanently guarantee them in the peaceable possession of their homes. Over the very strong protest of some of them a treaty was signed at Fort Moultrie, on the coast five miles below St. Augustine, September 18, 1823, William P. Duval, James Gadsden, and Bernard Segui being the representatives of the United States. By this treaty we learn that the Indians, in view of the fact that they have "thrown themselves on, and have promised to continue under, the protection of the United States, and of no other nation, power, or sovereignty; and in consideration of the promises and stipulations hereinafter made, do cede and relinquish all claim or t.i.tle which they have to the whole territory of Florida, with the exception of such district of country as shall herein be allotted to them." They are to have restricted boundaries, the extreme point of which is nowhere to be nearer than fifteen miles to the Gulf of Mexico. The United States promises to distribute, as soon as the Indians are settled on their new land, under the direction of their agent, "implements of husbandry, and stock of cattle and hogs to the amount of six thousand dollars, and an annual sum of five thousand dollars a year for twenty successive years"; and "to restrain and prevent all white persons from hunting, settling, or otherwise intruding" upon the land set apart for the Indians, though any American citizen, lawfully authorized, is to pa.s.s and repa.s.s within the said district and navigate the waters thereof "without any hindrance, toll or exactions from said tribes." For facilitating removal and as compensation for any losses or inconvenience sustained, the United States is to furnish rations of corn, meat, and salt for twelve months, with a special appropriation of $4,500 for those who have made improvements, and $2,000 more for the facilitating of transportation.