THE HISTORY AND PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT
FOR THE CREEK INDIAN FAMILY SAGA
I have written three books relating the “rest of the story” of our Native American heritage for the early 1800s, including One Step Away from Forever (renamed and reissued of former Swimming with Serpents) set against the backdrop of the Creek Indian War, followed by Find Me If You Can (formerly In Pursuit) the set against the backdrop of the First Seminole War, followed by The Chase is On (formerly On to Angola), the story of the raid on Angola and the death of Peter McQueen. Some historians pursue the “just the facts, ma’am” method of relating history, but as a social historian, I prefer historical fiction to place the individuals in their environment and make them come alive to the reader.
Much research goes into writing historical fiction. I thought I would share a bit with you. (Sharman Ramsey)
WHY REISSUE? Read this VERY INTERESTING POST.
Places of Interest to visit:
Fort Mims in Alabama near Wind Creek Casino (owned by the Poarch tribe of Creek Indians) (Fort Mims Rd, Stockton, AL 36579 204 miles from Panama City
Fort Gadsden (formerly the Negro Fort) near Sumatra, Florid
Angola (archaeology research being done by New College of South Florida under Uzi Baram), Sarasota, Florida
For earlier Indian history, visit Mission San Luis in Tallahassee.
Who, what, when, where, how? As Pat Conroy told Cassandra King, "Tell me a story." The story gets woven only by knowing WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE HOW. That comes from research.
Horseshoe Bend (from One Step Away from Forever)
The spring rains had the streams and rivers rising above their normal boundaries and horse paths had become tiny rivulets making their journey even more precarious. Lyssa was exhausted and despondent.
Day followed day. Word came through scouts that the American leader Russell led his 3rd U S Infantry and a contingent of Choctaw and Chickasaw against the refugee camps of Red Sticks and burned abandoned Red Stick towns. With the Americans woefully inadequate supply lines they were reduced to eating their horses just to reach their base at Fort Claiborne. Meanwhile Josiah Francis harassed settlers who might attempt to resettle on their farms and plantations in the Tensaw country from his base at Moniac’s Island where Weatherford had resettled his family.
As war chief, Menawa of Okfuskee had gathered about 1,000 warriors and over 300 women and children inside the loop of the Tallapoosa River. With the direction of William Weatherford, he built about 400 feet of breastworks to close the loop on the land side. The breastworks provided portholes at a height to be defensive and yet with a clear shot on advancing adversaries. The Red Sticks had learned their lesson from the errors at Fort Mims. The Tallapoosa would be their defense on the other three sides. The head chief of the Okfuskee, their medicine man, said the Americans would attack at the back of the horseshoe at the river, so it was there that Menawa, relying upon the predictions of the prophet, planned his strategy.
Menawa, forty-seven, was one of the wealthiest of all the Creeks. He was famous for his herds of cattle and horses and his large quantity of hogs. As a youth, he had conducted annual horse stealing forays into Tennessee that brought about his name Hothelepoya or Crazy Trouble Hunter. When he became war chief, he gained the name Menawa. Before the war broke out, he was operating a store and enjoying his prosperity at Okfuskee.
It was the end of March. Jackson’s army approached Horseshoe Bend. His scouts reported that Menawa had listened to the head chief, the medicine man, who said the Americans would attack from the across the river at the back of the loop. Jackson adjusted his tactics and situated his cannons at the breastworks in preparation of attack. An infuriated Menawa struck the hapless prophet with his war club and killed him. Ferociously, he redirected his warriors toward the breastworks where Jackson had now established his line of attack.
"MENAWA: A CHIEF OF THE UPPER CREEKS" Contributed by Miriam Fowler
Shelby County Historical Society, Inc.
MENAWA became a legendary figure as a leader of the upper Creeks in the war against the U.S. Government in 1813-1814. The Lower Creeks had already conceded and did not join in the battle at Horseshoe Bend, one of the last heroic stands to save Creek Homelands. Chief Menawa was bom about 1765 at the village of Oakfuskee on the Tallapoosa River. Oakfuskee was located where the lower part of Lake Martin now exists. Menawa was of Scotch and Indian parents and was reared with pride in his Indian heritage. His birth name was Hothlepoya, meaning "Crazy Trouble Hunter," but the name MENAWA was given to him when he became second chief of Oakfuskee. He was a man of wealth and intelligence who was greatly disturbed when he saw white settlers begin to take Indian land and demand the removal of the native inhabitants.
In the Battle of Horseshoe Bend Menawa was second in command of the Creeks against the United States and General Andrew Jackson. Menawa was a realistic military strategist who lost patience with the incantations being used against the U.S. by the prophet Monahell, who was first in command. In a short unpublished biography by J.Y. Brame, Menawa is reported to have killed Monahell during the battle and taken command. Menawa was shot about seven times during the battle and left for dead. He lay on the ground until night and then dragged himself to the river's edge where he crawled into a canoe and floated down river. He was pulled ashore by some Indian women who were hiding from the battlefront and after several months regained his health. He returned to Oakfuskee to find his home and outbuildings destroyed. Menawa sought to regain his wealth and continued to fight against the Dncroachment on Indian lands.
Andrew Jackson in 1814, but after the baffle Mcintosh had drafted a declaration that no more Indian lands in Alabama and Georgia should be sold to the U.S. He then went against his won declaration and signed a treaty to sell all remaining Indian land in Georgia to the U.S. This made Menawa, who had long been an adversary of Mcintosh, furious. Some major Creek chiefs passed a resolution to kill Mcintosh, and Menawa headed the assassination party. Mcintosh was surrounded at his tavern on the old Federal Road in Georgia and shot to death. Menawa went to Washington D.C. along with some other chieftains to try and negate Mcintosh's treaty. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. and then it was rescinded. By 1836 the Creek Indians had been repressed and were defeated a second time trying to save their ancestral lands. The U.S. was planning a general removal of the Nation. Menawa proposed that the Creek Nation give up their collective rights, though each individual who wanted to remain be given a plot of land. This proposal was defeated and the removal was commanded. Menawa had been given an exclusion from relocating by the U.S. but a local judge ordered him to join the exiles to the west.
Menawa reportedly stayed up all the night watching sunset and sunrise over Oakfuskee. As he joined his people traveling to an unknown place he said, "last evening I saw the sun set for the last time and it's light shine on the treetops and the land and the water, that I am never to look upon again." Menawa, heartbroken, died on his way to the new Creek territory in the west. His burial place is now unknown. Some of Menawa's descendants still live in Shelby County and surrounding areas.
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These books are great resources for writing historical fiction, but they are only a few that I used for research. More are listed below at the end. Family connections influenced decisions and actions to a great degree. Important to know!
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From One Step Away from Forever by Sharman Burson Ramsey)
Though scouts had reported the approach of Jackson’s army and there was confusion as to where to establish their major line, the Red Sticks were still confident they had produced what they considered an impenetrable and unconquerable position there in the loop of the river, accessible only through the narrow mouth of the loop. A raging river surrounded them fueled by the spring rains on the three remaining sides. Savannah Jack strutted about wearing only his breech cloth, the wounds and scars of many battles evident upon his muscled body, exhorting the others, exuding blood lust and confidence
Though the warriors fasted and purged with the black drink, women and children still had to eat. Lyssa made it through each day surviving on routine. Chaos swirled around her, with prophets chanting their incantations, women trying to gather up their little ones hurrying them along to safety, children crying, mothers crying along with the children remembering Tallusahatchee and what happened to the Hillabees, dogs barking and chasing wondering what game was afoot, and warriors shouting to one another changes in strategy and planning. In the midst of the reign of terror, a despondent Lyssa listlessly, hopelessly, hummed the tune with which she had successfully convinced all but Savannah Jack, who was oblivious, that madness had possessed her … and stirred the sofkee that bubbled in her pot.
Wearing only a thin ragged blanket about her shoulders covering her deer skin mantle and skirt with moccasins flapping at her feet, she spread her hands to warm them against the chill with the heat of the fire. Seven months into her pregnancy, Lyssa was so large that when she lay down on her back she could barely breathe. The sight of her toes was a mere memory. Running Elk, Charles and Polly had giggled at her pitiful efforts at pulling on her moccasins and had taken mercy on her by taking turns helping her tie them on. Now, there was no one to take mercy on her. Here she was at the beck and call of Savannah Jack for whom she prepared meals and tended his fire.
Insensible to the running back and forth, Lyssa, now an island unto herself, stirred absently with her mind on the man she loved, wondering where he was and if she would ever see him again.
A sound…She stiffened and listened. There. She heard it again. Her eyes darted here and there looking for the source of that sound floating on the wind. She rubbed her aching back and blew back the hair from her eyes but the lethargy of moments before had disappeared.
The notes of a flute? Gabe’s flute? Somehow she knew that the prickle of apprehension she had fought to hold at bay was somehow connected with Cade. He must be near!
Was that despair she felt from him? Hold on. Do not give up, she whispered to him in her mind. She felt his desperation, but what could she do? She could barely tend to her own basic needs. The baby moved and kicked and tumbled about inside of her reassuring her that the baby was healthy. Unconsciously, she stroked her belly, soothing the life within.
Jackson’s army approached. The chaos became a whirlwind of purposeful activity. The men directed the women to take the children and move to the woods further inside curve of the horseshoe.
A jubilant Savannah Jack ran past her painted red and black for war. “Scouts have spotted Jackson’s approach at the breastworks! Go to the woods!”
Jack held his gun in one hand and war club in another. His distinctive knife was tucked into the band of his breechcloth. He brandished his war club as if itching for battle. Excitement glittered in his eyes at the thought of war and blood.
The red and black painted prophets with feathers on their shoulders and heads danced frantically shouting their incantations declaring the land on which they fought holy ground impenetrable to the enemy. The look in their eyes was more desperate than convinced after seeing one of their own struck down dead by Menawa.
FIND ME IF YOU CAN formerly In Pursuit
The Apalachicola River in the early 1800s was the site of great activity. Pirates, Seminoles, British soldiers, Creek Indians, former slaves and free Blacks populated this area spreading from Pensacola to the east coast of Florida. Great Britain continued to support discontented Creek Indians leading up to the Creek Indian War and then encouraged those dispossessed Creeks later on to keep up the fight. Although the Creek Indian War (1813-1814) took place mainly in Alabama (then a part of the Mississippi Territory), Northwest Florida played a big part in that war.
During the 18th century, Britain and Spain played a juggling act between who actually owned Northwest Florida. The fledgling United States remained attune to all that occurred South of Ellicott’s line because that permeable border remained threat to the United States allowing the British to manipulate the Creeks and encourage Blacks to revolution.
After the Creek Indian War, nearly 1000 former Red Sticks made their way from Horseshoe Bend with Red Stick (Nativistic War party of the Creek Indians) leader Peter McQueen to Pensacola where they joined the British Corps of Colonial Marines and took on the red coat of the British to fight Americans. After the war, British officers George Woodbine and Edward Nicholls led this group of former Red Sticks and escaped and free Blacks to the Apalachicola River where they built what came to be known as the Negro Fort. After the bombardment and destruction of the fort by Andrew Jackson’s flotilla on the Apalachicola River in June of 1816, those Blacks who survived the explosion and many of those who had settled there on the banks of the Apalachicola River fled south to Angola (located in Bradenton or Sarasota, Florida).
Most of the former Red Sticks under Peter McQueen had left the Negro Fort to live with the Seminoles in villages north of the Fort.
Andrew Jackson had a vision of the Manifiest Destiny of the United States, though that term was not used until later looking back. That vision included Florida which at that time belonged to Spain with pesky Brits ignoring the sovereignty of Spain to stir up trouble for the United States by providing arms and supplies to those former Red Sticks who had taken on the red jacket to fight against the Americans for the British.
Jackson knew that something had to be done about Florida if the United States was to be secure. Jackson took the fight down into Florida pretty much on his own. He had learned in the Creek War that the army travels on its stomach. After the Creek Indian War, my ancestor, Benjamin Jernigan, was asked by Andrew Jackson to settle in Burnt Corn Creek to herd cattle that would feed the army Jackson anticipated would be needed to settle that Florida problem. Ironically, Jernigan’s wife, Vashti Vann, was the cousin of Chief James Vann of the Cherokee Indians, a people that Jackson ultimately set off on the Trail of Tears. (That is the reason we have such trouble tracking our Native American ancestry. Survival depended upon hiding your Native American heritage.)
200 Years ago, the year 1819 brought the end of the First Seminole War. Jackson had destroyed the Negro Fort in 1816 and returned on May 24, 1818 to march on Pensacola and take the Spanish Fort there with little more than a few warning shots. This action motivated the Spanish Crown agreed to cede Florida to the United States per the Adams–OnÃs Treaty of 1819.
These cold hard facts cannot possibly relate the human story behind them. Those homeless and wandering Red Sticks under Peter McQueen included McQueen’s nephew, Billy Powell, who later became Osceola. They eventually fled to South Florida to a village that had once been the site of their summer hunting at Talakchopco on the Peas (Peace) River very near Angola, near where those Blacks who fled the destruction of the Negro Fort settled at a place they called Angola on the Manatee River. (Uzi Baram, formerly of New College, now Director of Public Archaeology at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens) has led archaeological digs to uncover Angola and preserve its history.)
Most genealogical events pertaining to that era focus on those who participated with Jackson’s militia. The story of those who fought on the other side seldom have their tales told. To the victor belong the spoils and that includes the history that is told about those events. I guess it was my own personal relationship to those events and the fact that our Indian heritage remained a closely held family secret that set me to research “the other side of the story” – that of Red Stick and Black.
In 1821 Andrew Jackson became territorial governor. Much like Henry II’s plea “will no one rid me of this troublesome priest” a group of Jackson’s supporters took Jackson’s constant harping on the need to “handle the problem of Red Sticks and Blacks that remained in Florida or the settlement of Florida by Americans would be hindered” to take action.
On July 27, 1816, a little over two hundred years ago, a gunboat under the command of Lieutenant Duncan Lamont Clinch sailed a gunboat fifteen miles up the Apalachicola River to Prospect Point in Spanish Florida to a place then known as the Negro Fort. That morning the stove neglected breakfast for the more important task of heating a cannon ball, a hot shot, to lob into the fort. The river ran high and the gunboat was able to sail near to the shore. The lucky shot landed directly in the magazine and in an instant nearly three hundred black men, women and children along with a few Seminole and Choctaw Indians lost their lives. Among the few blacks that survived the explosion of the fort was Abraham, former slave of Dr. Sierra of Pensacola, who became a prominent leader in the Seminole Wars as the advisor and interpreter for Billy Bowlegs, Seminole chief.
The story behind the destruction of that fort involves the devious politics of an infant United States, Great Britain, and Spain. Three British officers Lieutenant Colonel Edward Nichols, Colonel George Woodbine and Lieutenant Robert Chrystie Armbrister felt Great Britain owed a debt of honor to those Red Sticks to whom they’d promised on behalf of their king to support them and defend their rights under the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. This Treaty stated that the property and rights of the Native Americans prior to 1811 were to be retained. But Andrew Jackson, a man already with a vision of the manifest destiny of the United Nations, insisted the treaty he had forged with the Creek Indians at Fort Jackson in which he negotiated the cession of 25,000,000 acres of land, be regarded as the ruling instrument.
A community of freemen and escaped slaves had existed along the Apalachicola River near the location of the fort for nearly 100 years and numbered about 800. Then 1811 revolution in Santo Domingo stirred fear among the Georgia settlers close by. Fear of slave revolt and disputes with the Seminoles over cattle and land led to further skirmishes along the border of Spanish Florida. Tensions built. Andrew Jackson took matters into his own hands and ordered the incursion into Spanish Florida and the destruction of the fort.
British officers Nichols, Woodbine and Armbrister had drilled both blacks and former Red Sticks in Pensacola to fight against the United States in the Corps of Colonial marines promising the black slaves their freedom and the Red Sticks their friendship and continued defense. Among first battles of the War of 1812 in the South was the Massacre at Fort Mims and the resultant Creek War that for all intents and purposes ended with the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. A group of Red Stick survivors of that battle numbering about 1000 took to the swamps and eventually wound up in Pensacola, ragged and hungry, led by the former Red Stick (war party) leader Peter McQueen.
McQueen was the head of a clan of Creek Indians descended from James McQueen who came to Georgia with Oglethorpe in July, 1742, and married a Creek woman. Also numbering among the descendants of James McQueen were Tecumseh, Josiah Francis, Seekaboo, and Billy Powell (a.k.a Osceola). Lieutenant Colonel Nichols welcomed these Red Sticks and drilled them in the square at Pensacola along with the freemen and escaped slaves who believed the British promises of freedom, friendship and defense for their participation in the Corps of Colonial Marines based out of Nassau. After losing the War of 1812 these British officers led them and their families to Prospect Point where they joined with them in building for their defense the fort at Prospect Point that came to be known as the Negro Fort. The Red Sticks eventually left the fort to live amongst the Seminoles in the villages that dotted the area.
Conditions in the rest of the world determined the response to this apparent violation of international law – Florida was Spanish territory. The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in April caused 1815 to be known as “the year there was no summer.” It was one of three years of climate deterioration that seriously disrupted the planting and harvesting cycles. Famine and disease occurred as the result and London streets were filled with Irish refugees. In addition, the Napoleonic Wars had just ended bringing unemployed soldiers and sailors to London looking for work. The depleted coffers of the embattled countries of Great Britain and Spain left their leaders unwilling to engage in another battle overseas at a time when there was such instability and unrest at home.
Adventurers and opportunists or honorable men? Whatever one might call them, with dreams of empire and the impetus of the destruction of the Negro Fort, Nichols, Woodbine and Armbrister set out to build a coalition of Seminole, former slaves and freemen promising the Indians a nation in North Florida buffering their own holdings in the South.
Brown, Canter, Florida's Peace River Frontier; University of Central Florida Press; Orlando, Florida; 1993.
Dunn, Hampton; Yesterday’s St. Petersburg; E. A. Seaman Publishing, Inc.; Miami, Florida; 1973.
McReynolds, Edwin C.; The Seminoles; University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma; 1972.
Hatch, Thom; Osceola and the Great Seminole War: A Struggle for Freedom and Freedom; St. Martin’s Press; New York, New York; 2012.
Mulroy, Kevin; The Seminole Freedmen: A History; University of Oklahoma Press; 2007.
Opel, Frank and Tony Meisel; Tales of Old Florida; Castle; Syracruse, New Jersey; 1987
Proctor, Samuel, ed.; Eighteenth Century Florida and Its Borderlands; Storter Printing Company; Gainesville, Florida; 1975.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher; Palmetto Leaves; University of Florida Press; Gainesville, Florida; 1999.
Wasserman, Adam; A People’s History of Florida 1513-1876: How Africans, Seminoles, Women and Lower Class Whites Shaped the Sunshine State; 2010.
THE CHASE IS ON
And just as supporters of Henry II handled the problem of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket so too did supporters of Andrew Jackson take the problem in hand.
Charleston Gazette:
“Towards the end of the month of April last, some men of influence and fortune, residing somewhere in the western country, thought of making a speculation in order to obtain Slaves for a trifle. They hired Charles Miller, William Weatherford [and others], and under these chiefs, were engaged about two hundred Cowetas Indians. They were ordered to proceed along the western coast of East Florida, southerly, and there take, in the name of the United States, and make prisoners of all the men of colour, including women and children, they would be able to find, and bring them all, well secured, to a certain place, which has been kept a secret.”
I have written three books relating the “rest of the story” including ONE STEP AWAY FROM FOREVER (originally Swimming with Serpents) the story of the Creek Indian War, followed by “FIND ME IF YOU CAN (originally In Pursuit)” the story of the First Seminole War, followed by THE CHASE IS ON originally On to Angola, the story of the raid on Angola and the death of Peter McQueen. Some historians pursue the “just the facts, ma’am” method of relating history, but as a social historian, I prefer historical fiction to place the individuals in their environment and make them come alive to the reader
Places of Interest to visit:
Fort Mims in Alabama near Wind Creek Casino (owned by the Poarch tribe of Creek Indians) (Fort Mims Rd, Stockton, AL 36579).
Fort Gadsden (formerly the Negro Fort) near Sumatra, Florida
Angola Sarasota, Florida
For earlier Indian history, visit Mission San Luis in Tallahassee.
And what is the rest of the story?
FOWLTOWN
The burning of the Seminole village of Fowltown in November of 1817 eventually brought Andrew Jackson into Florida to actively engage in the First Seminole War. Jackson ordered his aide, Lt. James Gadsden to build a new fort upon the remaining battery of the Negro Fort. Jackson dubbed the new fort, Fort Gadsden, effectively pulling the covers over the destruction of the Negro Fort and leaving the story of the nearly 300 who lost their lives there who remain buried in a mass grave for future generations to decipher.
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THE CHASE IS ON (formerly On to Angola)
The First Treaty of Indian Springs, or more formally the Treaty with the Creeks, 1821, entailed the Creeks ceding their remaining land east of the Flint River in Georgia to the United States. The treaty made the Creek National Council even more determined to cede no more land. The treaty was signed on January 8, 1821, at Indian Springs, Georgia.
Treaty talks, which began in December 1820 at an inn owned by Lower Creek headman William McIntosh, involved representatives from the federal government, Georgia, and more than 20 Creeks led by McIntosh and Tustunnugee Hopoie (Little Prince). The talks had several purposes. Georgia representatives, who had called the meetings, wished to obtain land in the northern part of the state that would separate the Creeks from the Cherokees to decrease the likelihood of their becoming allies. In addition, Georgia citizens had lodged some $350,000 in unpaid claims against the Creeks for trade transactions going back several decades and aimed to recoup those debts, which were most likely inflated. The commissioners representing the federal government also hoped to obtain land and to convince the Creeks displaced from the ceded land to relocate west of the Mississippi. One proposal would offer the Creeks a tract of land in what was known as the Quapaw Cession in northern Louisiana and the Arkansas Territory, which the Quapaws had ceded in 1818 and which had recently been given to the Choctaws. During the talks, Georgia commissioners also pressed the Creeks to abide by the terms of earlier treaties, which required them to return property, including runaway slaves and horses, to their owners. McIntosh defended the Creeks against the charges, noting that many of the escaped enslaved people were not among the Creeks; he also encouraged lenience for debtors.
Ultimately, the Creeks refused to cede land between themselves and the Cherokees and refused to move west. The Creeks did agree to part with a tract of land that bordered the Flint River to the west and the Ocmulgee River to the east and that stretched north to a point near Alpharetta, just above present-day Atlanta. It was contiguous with the acreage acquired in the First Treaty of Washington and helped further secure the Federal Road. The tract was estimated at more than 6,700 square miles, or approximately 4.3 million acres. Although the cession was large, it was not considered important by the Creeks, as game had been largely driven away by white settlement. In return for the land, the United States agreed to pay the Creeks $10,000 outright at the signing and $40,000 after the accord was ratified. In addition, the federal government agreed to pay $5,000 a year for the following two years, $16,000 annually for five years thereafter, and $10,000 annually for six years after that. The sum totaled $200,000 and the treaty stated it would be paid over 14 years in cash, or goods and farm implements, at the discretion of the Creeks. Also, the various parties agreed upon a sum of $250,000 in Creek debt, which the federal government agreed to pay under a separate document also known as “Treaty with the Creeks, 1821,” signed that day. However, ultimately only about $100,000 was reportedly paid out to Georgia claimants.
Having overseen the negotiations on the Creek side, McIntosh was the primary beneficiary of these payments. He received a $40,000 payment for his assistance in arranging previous agreements and some sources say he received the funds from the treaty to distribute to his supporters, which would have further strengthened his position of leadership. The treaty also awarded McIntosh 1,000 acres surrounding Indian Springs and an additional 640-acre tract of land around his plantation on the Ocmulgee River. Members of the Bernard family and leader Efau Imathla (Efauemathlaw in the treaty text) obtained one-square-mile tracts, with the proviso that they had to reside on the tracts.
Because of this treaty, the Creek National Council resolved never to sell or barter away any more of their ancestral land. The council already had outlawed such acts, but had suspended the law for the 1821 treaty. In 1825, however, accompanied by approximately 50 Creeks including a handful of headmen, McIntosh signed away the remaining Creek land in Georgia to the state in the Second Treaty of Indian Springs. That treaty was later nullified, and McIntosh was sentenced to death by the Creek National Council and executed for his role in the illegal treaty negotiations. (Encyclopedia of Alabama)
President James Monroe presented the Treaty of Indian Springs to the United States Senate on words of one historian, “legitimized slave hunting by both Creeks and whites.”
Gather all the Negroes I can get, and deliver them Up.” (Digital Commons, University of South Florida , Tampa Bay History, Vol. 12, Issue 3 Canter Brown, Jr. The "Sarrazota, or Runaway Negro Plantations": Tampa Bay’s First Black Community, 1812-1821)
January 26, 1821, two days previously his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, had offered the governorship of East and West Florida to Andrew Jackson.
April 2 Jackson acknowledged to Adams the receipt of his commission of office and then inquired of “one subject, which at this early period, I wish thro you, to call the attention of the President to, & receive your instructions thereon.” Jackson’s “one subject” was his authority with regard to the Red Stick Creeks and their black allies. “Are these Indians to be ordered up to the Creek Country, there to settle themselves, or are they to be protected in their new settlement?,” he asked. “Whatever may be the Presidents Instructions upon this subject shall be strictly obeyed,” he assured Adams, “and likewise in relation to the negroes who have run away from the States & inhabit this country and are protected by the Indians.”
At the time Jackson’s letter was received at Washington the President and the Secretary of State were reluctant to respond. Instead, the request for instructions was referred to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun. As of the date of receipt of that letter at Nashville or shortly thereafter, the fate of the Sarasota Bay black plantation – despite the official wishes of the United States government – was sealed. A personal account, either first-hand or derived from a participant, of the events which ensued during the late spring and early summer of 1821 appeared late that year in the Charleston, South Carolina, City Gazette and Commercial Advertiser. It graphically detailed the terror which resulted in the destruction of the black refuge at Sarasota Bay. That account read, in part:
Towards the end of the month of April last, some men of influence and fortune, residing somewhere in the western country, thought of making a speculation in order to obtain Slaves for a trifle. For this purpose, they hired Charles Miller, William Weatherford, Adam, alias Allamonchee, all half breed Indians, and Daniel Perimaus a mulatto, and under these chief [sic], were engaged about two hundred Cowetas Indians. They were ordered to proceed along the western coast of East Florida, southerly, and there take, in the name of the United States, and make prisoners of all the men of colour, including women and children, they would be able to find, and bring them all, well secured, to a certain place, which had been kept a secret.
The expedition took place, under the chief command of Charles Miller. They arrived at Sazazota, surprised and captured about 300 of them, plundered their plantations, set on fire all their houses, and then proceeding southerly captured several others; and on the 17th day of June, arrived at the Spanish Ranches, in Pointerrass Key, in Carlos Bay, where not finding as many Negroes as they expected, they plundered the Spanish fishermen of more than 2000 dollars worth of property, besides committing the greatest excess; with their plunder and prisoners, they returned to the place appointed for the deposit of both.
But the terror thus spread along the Western Coast of East Florida, broke all the establishments of both blacks and Indians, who fled in great consternation. The blacks principally, thought they could not save their lives but by abandoning the country; therefore, they, by small parties and in their Indian canoes, doubled Cape Sable and arrived at Key Taviniere, which is the general place of rendezvous for all the English wreckers, from Nassau Providence; an agreement was soon entered into between them, and about 250 of these negroes were by the wreckers carried to Nassau and clandestinely landed. On the 7th of Oct. last, about 40 more were at Key Taviniere, ready to take their departure for Nassau; these were the stragglers who had found it difficult to make their escape, and had remained concealed in the forests.
While the City Gazette’s correspondent provided a great deal of information about the Coweta raid, he omitted certain facts necessary for an understanding of the event. For one thing, “Colonel” Charles Miller was closely identified with Creek chief William McIntosh, who since 1818 had held a commission as brigadier general in the United States Army.
That officer on May 1 directed Jackson to take no immediate measures early reports of the raid asserted that the party was commanded by McIntosh.
The intimate association between McIntosh and Andrew Jackson had been well-known in the South since the Creek Civil War of 1813-14.
Perhaps almost as well known as the connection between Jackson and McIntosh was that between Jackson and the former Red Stick chief, William Weatherford or “Red Eagle.” Weatherford was the hostile chief who had surrendered to Jackson following the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. After the conclusion of the war Weatherford, according to one early account, returned with Jackson to the latter’s plantation, the Hermitage, near Nashville. He remained there for “nearly a year.” Upon his departure Jackson reportedly presented Weatherford with “two fine horses, – one of them a splendid blooded animal,” as a token of their friendship. Thomas Woodward, who knew both men, wrote of their relationship, “General Jackson, as if by intuition, seemed to know that Weatherford was no savage.
In addition to the detailed account in the City Gazette which linked the 1821 raid to associates of Andrew Jackson, another source pointed to the presence of his old British enemy, Colonel Edward Nicolls. Early in 1822, David Mitchell’ssuccessor as Creek Indian Agent, John Crowell, informed Secretary of War Calhoun: “Special orders were given to Col. Miller not to interrupt the person or property of any Indian or white man & he declares that he did not take from the possession of either red or white person a single negro except one from a vessel belonging to the celebrated Nichols, lying at anchor in Tampy Bay.” Thus, it would appear not only that the raiders presumed to attack an English vessel lying in Tampa Bay, but also that Colonel Nicolls, despite his government’s official refusal to aid the blacks at Sarasota Bay and their nearby Indian allies, had not abandoned the personal commitments he had made as early as 1814.
Whatever the omissions from the City Gazette’s account, its author was quite correct in stating that “terror thus spread along the Western Coast of East Florida.” As the St. Augustine resident quoted at the beginning of this article suggested, the Sarasota Bay blacks, “such as escaped made their way down to Cape Florida and the Reef, where they were collected, within a year past, to the number of three hundred.” A visitor at Cape Florida saw them and some of their Indian allies there in August. “We have found a great many Indians from the Bay of Tampa,” he wrote. “I have [had] a talk with them,” he continued, “they were driven away be McKintosh – together with the black men, to the number of 110 – whom the English wreckers have transported to Nassau Providence.
As already indicated, the British Government did essentially nothing for the refugee blacks and Indians. The British attitude was clearly expressed by the Nassau Royal Gazette and Bahama Advertiser in March 1822: “It is reported that some of the wreckers had carried off from the Florida Keys several Negroes, said to be deserters from the Southern States. From what has been stated here, there is little doubt but a number of black persons have been landed on some of the islands to leeward of this; very improperly however, although the pretext for it is, that they were found in nearly a famishing state, on some of the Florida Keys. Such persons are not wanted here, and the country would be better rid of them.”
Creek Agent Crowell made his report to Calhoun on January 22, 1822. Fifty-nine blacks had been “brought into the Creek nation,” ten of whom later escaped. Thirty-three captives were delivered to owners claiming them “by the Indian detachment, under the command of Col. Wm. Miller, on their march from Florida to Fort Mitchell [Alabama].” One free man was “set a liberty.” Ninety-three of perhaps “300” blacks seized in Florida thus were accounted for.
None of the cattle, horses, or other property seized was mentioned by Crowell. The Charleston City Gazette’s correspondent inquired in December 1821, “[W]ho are those speculative gentlemen who now hold their [Southern planters’] Negroes?” It is a question still unanswered.
After President James Monroe came to office, in November 1817 his administration appointed David Brydie Mitchell as US Indian agent to the Creek. Mitchell had formerly been the governor of Georgia (1809-1813) (1815-1817), as well as holding other posts in the state.[19] After the Creek War, the people suffered from the disruption. The US provided food and supplies as part of the annuities for the land cessions, especially the 21 million acres the Creek gave up following the war. Mitchell and McIntosh were suspected of controlling some of the distribution of food and annuities for their own benefit in this period, increasing McIntosh's power among the Creek.[13]
In addition, Mitchell was implicated in the African importation case, in which illegal African slaves were held at the Creek agency on their sovereign land, for sale in the Mississippi Territory. This was tried in Admiralty Court as Miguel de Castro v. Ninety-five African Negros (1819-1820) because it was in violation of the US law, effective 1808, to end the international African slave trade.[19]
The privateer "Commodore" Aury had taken the Africans as a prize from a Spanish ship bound for Havana, Cuba, where Spain continued slavery. He transported them to Amelia Island off Florida. William Bowen bought 110 slaves for $25,000 and had them taken to the Indian agency in the Creek Nation in two batches: in December 1817 and January 1818.[19] Mitchell appeared to be primarily responsible for keeping the Africans at the Creek agency, which was considered outside US territory as it was within the Creek Nation. This was prior to the expected sale of the slaves in the Mississippi Territory, then including Alabama. Too many people learned about the presence of the Africans, and Mitchell was prosecuted over the issue.[19]
With the change in administrations, President James Madison replaced Mitchell in 1821 with John Crowell, who had previously served as a US Congressman from Alabama. That year, the Creek agreed to another land cession in order to raise money for needed food and supplies, as conditions were still difficult for them.[13]
THE CHASE IS ON
The new Territory of Florida was second only to Georgia in land area east of the Mississippi River. This huge size, coupled with the state's under populated peninsular, posed serious problems to the state's future development. Northern Congressmen feared that Florida would be divided into two slave states, thus disrupting the delicate balance of having equal slave and free states in the United States Senate. Jackson felt there were more obvious problems: a lack of population, the absence of decent roads and physical resources, and the presence of hostile Seminole Indians.
Jackson made his fortune on confiscation of Indian lands. And real estate won him dedicated followers. His friend William Blount was notorious land grabber known as the Dirt Captain by the Indians.
His land deals also made Andrew Jackson wealthy. Up until 1819, Jackson and his wife Rachel were living in a two-story log cabin outside Nashville. Soon after the Alabama land bubble, the Jacksons were wealthy enough to move to new house on the same property. It was the mansion that, with changes and additions, still stands today as a tourist attraction—the Hermitage. Their old log cabin became slave quarters. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/andrew-jackson-made-a-killing-in-real-estate-119727/#:~:text=During%20the%20war%2C%20in%201814,land%20of%20the%20United%20States.
Angola was a Haven for Escaped Slaves. It was a community of formerly enslaved Africans that was thought to have thrived near the Manatee River from at least 1812 until 1821. Settled by Black warriors who, as allies of the Spanish, British, and Seminoles had fought several battles against American forces in northern Florida, Angola was not only a refuge of freedom, but a focus for economic and diplomatic activities within the broader Atlantic world.
Two British filibusters, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister, may have operated a trading post on the Manatee River in support of the Angolan community. Both men were tried and executed as spies in 1818 by Andrew Jackson.
In 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the United States. Within three months the settlement of Angola was destroyed, possibly at the behest of Andrew Jackson, by a Lower Creek Indian war party. Over 300 men, women, and children were returned to slavery. Others escaped to southeast Florida, and then by canoe to the Bahamas.
When word of this reached Georgia, “some men and influence and fortune” apparently contracted with McIntosh to effect the desired end. Chiefs Charles Miller, William Weatherford, Adam (also called Allamonchee) and mulatto Daniel Perimaus were to lead about two hundred Coweta warriors to capture all of the Africans and African Americans they could encounter, and deliver them to an undisclosed point of rendezvous. They were also to attack the vessel of Colonel Nicolls that was reported to be anchored in Tampa Bay (Brown 1990:14-15).
Document: Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Advertiser
re: Angola raid
Report of "AN EYEWITNESS" to the violent slave raid on Angola
appeared on December 3, 1821
"Towards the end of the month of April last, some men of influence and fortune, residing somewhere in the western country, thought of making a speculation in order to obtain Slaves for a trifle…"
"For this purpose, they hired Charles Miller, William Weatherford [and others], and under these chiefs, were engaged about two hundred Cowetas Indians," the letter continued. "They were ordered to proceed along the western coast of East Florida, southerly, and there take, in the name of the United States, and make prisoners of all the men of colour, including women and children, they would be able to find, and bring them all, well secured, to a certain place, which has been kept a secret."
The "EYE-WITNESS" then offered first-hand details of the raid and of Angola's destruction. "They arrived at Sazazota [Sarasota and Manatee River are referred to as in the general area], surprised and captured about 300 of them, plundered their plantations, set on fire all their houses… But the terror thus spread along the Western Coast of East Florida, broke all the establishments of both blacks and Indians, who fled in great consternation…"
Document: John Lee Williams, excerpt from Territory of Florida (page 24)
"A stream that enters the bay joining the Oyster River, on the S.W. was ascended about six miles. It was forty yards wide, and six feet deep, but full of islands…The point between these two rivers is called Negro Point. The famous Arbuthnot and Ambrister had at one time a plantation here cultivated by two hundred negroes. The ruins of their cabins, and domestic utensils are still seen on the old fields."
One of Florida's earliest historians, John Lee Williams visited the lower Gulf coast in 1827. Williams reported that he had examined the bays of Tampa and Sarrazota with care, and explored the Oyster River for twenty miles. Local historian Dewey Dye compared the local topography with William’s descriptions and concluded that the Oyster River is actually the Manatee River and that Negro Point lay at the confluence of the Manatee and the Braden Rivers. - (John Lee Williams, Territory of Florida pages 49 & 300) http://www.academia.edu/4421722/Cosmopolitan_Meanings_of_Old_Spanish_Fields_Historical_Archaeology_of_a_Maroon_Community_in_Southwest_Florida
Places mentioned in THE CHASE IS ON
Big Swamp and the Cove of the Withlacoochee River Middle Florida Black Seminole Villages Relocated
offered seclusion to the Black Seminole groups who settled there. Both were situated in a series of cypress swamps and wetlands, interspersed with cypress islands and upland hammocks, near where the Withlacoocohee River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The recesses of the Big Swamp and the Withlacoochee Cove were known only to the Seminoles, the Black Seminoles and invited guests such as allies and trading partners (Knetsch 2003; Weisman 2000).
Within the Cove of the Withlacoochee, a Black Seminole village occupied by slaves of Seminole chief Sitarkey, of the Alachua band, established a thriving village by at least 1820. The area around Sitarkey’s Village contained some of the richest soils in Florida. Here, on the banks of the Withlacoochee River, Black Seminoles cultivated corn, rice, sugarcane, beans, squash and other subsistence crops, and also raised cattle, hogs, horses and other livestock. The village consisted of board houses constructed around a square ground. Sitarkey’s Villageremained a thriving settlement for more than two decades (Covington 1993; Weisman 2000).
Buckra Woman’s Town
Near Long Swamp East of Big Hammock. Named after the individual to whom tribute was paid. Through matrilineal descent of property and tributary rights, women came to own, or serve as guardians over, many slaves and obligations of tributary allies.
Cumberland Island
lighthouse was built first on Cumberland Island, Ga., in 1820
Cuscowilla
After Bowlegs' death a few years later, King Payne's nephew became chief. He also died shortly after, and Payne's younger nephew Micanopy became chief. Micanopy was one of the major chiefs during the Second Seminole War. The nephew of Micanopy was Billy Bowlegs, who was the famous leader of the Third Seminole War. Micanopy's sister married King Philip (Emathla), and Philip's son was Coacoochee or Wildcat. This is what had been called the Seminole Royal Family.
Kapiche Micco’s Blacks
30 miles west of Cudjo’s town in the Big Swamp probably headed by Pompey
Kingsley Plantation
KINGSLEY PLANTATION is the site of a former estate in Jacksonville, Florida, that was named for an early owner, Zephaniah Kingsley, who spent 25 years there.
Mulatto Girls’ Town
South of Cuscowilla
Nassau and Havana
The diplomatic campaign apparently met with some early successes. By October 1818 an “English trading vessel” had slipped into Tampa Bay to relieve the privations of the refugees, and in the following month “ten pack-horse loads of ammunition” had arrived from St. Augustine. The later missions proved not so encouraging, however. One Floridian noted in 1822: “The chiefs of the outcast Indians, who had found a mode of communication with the Governor of Nassau, once or twice went over, but were very cooly treated. On their last visit, they were imprisoned for a time and then sent back without presents, and the ship masters were
One reason that the later visits proved so unavailing was that the demands had changed in 1819. Visits and contacts the previous year surely had centered around the urgent need for food and ammunition. Those needs were satisfied by late 1818. However, circumstances radically altered the next February when representatives of the Kingdom of Spain agreed at Washington, D.C., to the cession of Florida to the United States. Actual transfer of the territory to American suzerainty was delayed for over two years, and in the meantime Indians and blacks would have taken every possible step to demand that their British and Spanish allies protect them.
Such certainly was the case at Nassau in late 1819. The Florida Indians eloquently pleaded there for protection and assistance. “They represent themselves,” one report noted, “as driven from their homes, and hunted as wild Deer: that there are about two thousand of them, and that their greatest enemies are the Cowetas, a nation like themselves, who having made terms with the Americans are set on by them to harass and annihilate their tribe.” Unwilling to risk the enmity of a United States soon to be in full possession of nearby Florida, British officials declined to intervene on behalf of either Indians or their black allies. Rejected, the natives determined to appeal to higher authority. “They are desirous of getting to Jamaica.”
Access to Spanish officialdom was not the only goal of the travelers. The British, that those commitments be met. forbidden, under heavy penalties, to bring them over again.” were left essentially – or, as will be seen, at least officially – to their own devices. reported, “but their visit there can be to as little effect as it is here.”
Pelaklakaha
Another central Florida Black Seminole village established after 1813 was the town of Pelaklakaha, also known as Abraham’s Old Town. Located in present-day Sumter County, the town was the home of Black Seminoles associated with Micanopy, a nephew of Cowkeeper and hereditary leader of the Seminole.
Micanopy’s main settlement was at the town of Okihumpky, six miles north of Pelaklakaha, but he apparently preferred to reside at Pelaklakaha, where he had additional wives (Mahon 1985; Weik 2000). Pelaklakaha was much less secluded than Sitarkey’s Village; being situated at the crossroads of a network of much-used Indian trails leading from the upper peninsula to Florida’s lower cape (Weik 2000). Their central location allowed Pelaklakaha’s inhabitants to trade and interact with Native American and black travelers enroute to South Florida hunting grounds.
Abraham was the leader of the Pelaklakaha Black Seminoles. Although Seminole subchief Jumperoccupied the position of sense-bearer or counselor to Micanopy, Abraham had an enormous influence upon Micanopy and was often noticed whispering to the latter during war councils, reportedly urging him to remain firm in negotiations with the Americans (Sprague 1848). McCall (1974:160) also identifies Black Seminoles July and August as leaders at Pelaklakaha, and Potter (1966:9) mentions subchief Billy John.
Plot
CATO OVERHEARS: On January 24, 1821 Secretary of State John Quincy Adams conveyed the governorship of Florida to Andrew Jackson. One of his earliest communications with Washington, written on April 2, 1821, concerned the disposition of the Red Stick Creeks and maroons at and below Tampa Bay. Jackson inquired as to whether these groups should be ordered into Georgia to settle among the Creeks, or whether they were to be protected in their current location. He strongly urged the former course of action. While the American government pondered Jackson’s question, events unfolded that would render it practically moot.
Even before the official announcement of the cession of Florida to the United States, former Georgia governor and now United States Indian Agent David Mitchell had convened a meeting at his Georgia home with Creek leaders including Coweta chief William McIntosh. The parties met to discuss the possibility of forcibly removing the fugitive Red Stick Creeks from Florida. Part of the plan involved bringing away the blacks among the Red Sticks, and returning them to slavery. The participants parted with a determination to pursue such a course of action (Brown 1991).
When President Adams received Jackson’s April letter urging the removal of the Red Stick Creeks and their black allies from Florida, he was reluctant to respond and redirected Jackson’s letter to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun. On May 1, Calhoun directed Jackson to take no immediate action.
Port au Prince
burned August 15, 1820 1821 Hispanola revolt overturned Spanish authority
August 15, 1820, Port au Prince had burned, resulting in damages valued in the millions. The same month, Christophe was stricken by paralysis and, while he was invalided, revolt broke out on the island. By October 8, he was a suicide
Sitarky’s Village
Black town within the fertile, but isolated Cove of Withlocoochee on Boggy (now Kettle) Island. Raised corn, rice beans, squash, sugar cane, horses, cattle, hogs and other livestock
SPANISH FISHERIES
In 1990 historian Canter Brown provided the first scholarly account of a community of free blacks and self-emancipated slaves on southern Tampa Bay that he identified as Angola. Brown (1990) took the name from a Cuban
fisherman’s unsuccessful 1828 land claim for 640 ac. on the Manatee River (Figure 2). The Caldiz land claim fits the social dynamics for the late-18th through early-19th-century fishing villages, known as ranchos, on the gulf keys.
Cuban fishermen would spend from September to March (Covington 1993:27) fishing the water and trading with Seminoles and free blacks in the interior. Such relationships and industry flourished under Spanish rule, but were challenged during the British period (1763–1783),unraveled when the United States (beginning in 1821) took the peninsula, and ended with the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). The relationships among fishing communities, farmers, hunters, and warriors are part of a social world that vanished after southern Florida began attracting Anglo-American settlers in the 1840s; the landscape of those cosmopolitan communities was erased, and its history nearly forgo
Talbot Island
In March, 1820, Florida experienced an uprising along Talbot Island that was put down by a detachment of federal troops [Wish, Harvey, and “American Slave Insurrections Before 1861, p.318].
Treaty (Adams-Onis Treaty)
An exchange of flags ceremony took place on July 10 at St. Augustine and on July 17 at Pensacola. Andrew Jackson, who had been appointed temporary governor in March 1821 to oversee the transition, resigned following the transfer. William P. DuVal of Leon County was appointed first territorial governor in 1822. Raid: http://libcom.org/history/black-maroon-settlement-angola-beacon-freedom-florida
Abraham (Abram)
was probably born between 1787 and 1791. The former slave of a Dr. Sierra in Pensacola, Abraham was universally described as “courtly,” “genteel,” and mannered. One observer found him to have “a gentle, insinuating manner,” while another described him as “plausible, pliant and deceitful” (Porter 1946:4). Regardless of observers' varying opinions about Abraham’s underlying motives, most recognized him as a powerful and influential leader among the Middle Florida Black Seminoles (Mahon 1985).
Abraham was the leader of the Pelaklakaha Black Seminoles. Although Seminole subchief Jumperoccupied the position of sense-bearer or counselor to Micanopy, Abraham had an enormous influence upon Micanopy and was often noticed whispering to the latter during war councils, reportedly urging him to remain firm in negotiations with the Americans (Sprague 1848). McCall (1974:160) also identifies Black Seminoles July and August as leaders at Pelaklakaha, and Potter (1966:9) mentions subchief Billy John.
Lord Bathhurst
Lord Bathurst was the elder son of Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst, by his wife Tryphena, daughter of Thomas Scawen. He was educated at Eton from 1773 to 1778 and then at Christ Church, Oxford.
Political career[edit]
Lord Bathurst was member of the British Parliament for Cirencester from 1783 until he succeeded to the earldom in August 1794. Owing mainly to his friendship with William Pitt, he was a lord of the admiralty from 1783 to 1789; a lord of the treasury from 1789 to 1791; and commissioner of the board of control from 1793 to 1802. Returning to office with Pitt in May 1804 he became Master of the Mint, and was President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint during the ministries of the Duke of Portland and Spencer Perceval, only vacating these posts in June 1812 to become Secretary of State for War and the Colonies under Lord Liverpool. For two months during the year 1809 he was in charge of the foreign office. He was Secretary for War and the Colonies until Liverpool resigned in April 1827; and deserves some credit for improving the conduct of the Peninsular War, while it was his duty to defend the government concerning its treatment of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Bathurst's official position caused his name to be mentioned frequently during the agitation for the abolition of slavery, and with regard to this traffic he seems to have been animated by a humane spirit. The current capital of The Gambia, Banjul, was originally named Bathurst after the earl. He was Lord President of the Councilin the government of the Duke of Wellington from 1828 to 1830, and favoured the removal of the disabilities of Roman Catholics, but was a sturdy opponent of the Reform Bill of 1832. The Earl, who had four sons and two daughters, died on 27 July 1834. Bathurst was made a Knight of the Garter in 1817, and held several lucrative sinecures.
The Grandstand
The first permanent grandstand was proposed by Charles Bluck of Doncaster. In 1829 he took out a ninety-year lease from the Lord of the Manor on a one acre plot of Downs' land for £30 per year. Bluck planned a relatively small and simple building to cost in the region of £5000. A group of Epsom locals had bigger ideas and set up the Epsom Grand Stand Association (EGSA). They persuaded Bluck to sub-let the land for £1000. To raise the necessary capital, the EGSA issued one thousand £20 shares so that they could build a stand for up to five thousand spectators together with four refreshment rooms and a 108ft long saloon.(See the inset below) The building was designed by EW Trendall. Although it was not fully finished, it was used for the 1830 Derby meeting.
Andrew Turnbull
Greek Settlement at New Smyrna failed
Georges Biassou
Bois-Caiman
George Boxley
George Boxley, a white store owner, was a religious visionary figure much like John Brown. Boxley was between 30 and 40 years of age, six feet two, with a thin visage, of a sallow complexion. His hair was blond thinning at the top. He had large whiskers, and blue-gray eyes. He participated in slave religious gatherings and told the slaves that the Lord had sent him a holy message by a little white bird, which said that he should deliver them from bondage. On the basis of the symbolisms of the “white bird” in slave culture, numerous African American joined his movement. However, before the plan could be executed, a slave woman revealed the plan. Several Blacks were arrested and imprisoned. Boxley with a dozen of slaves march on the city with the aim of releasing them from prison, but on the road many of his followers lost courage and returned to their plantations. Boxley fled to the woods and remained in hiding for a long time before finally surrendering. Six slaves were convicted and hanged, and six others were transported. George Boxley escaped, never to be heard from again. [Archives of Virginia, Executive Papers, February 25, 1816].
George Boxley led slave revolt and disappeared
http://slaverebellion.org/index.php?page=united-states-insurrections
http://anthropology.usf.edu/faculty/personal/publications/Weisman%20Floridas%20Working%20Class%20Past%20.pdf
Bukra Woman
Daughter or Cowkeeper? Sister of Payne and Hothli Hapoya and mother of Holata Micco. Sister of Mikkoanapa and Sitarky. By 1823 she settled on Bowlegs Creek, a stream that flows westward into the Pease River and called the town Tobasa or Wahoo
Buckra Woman/uncle Cowkeeper/brother Alachua King Payne
Osceola Cowkeeper/Payne
http://www.scribd.com/doc/121277273/The-Encyclopedia-of-African-American-History#scribd
Jan 19, 2013 - Solomon Overseers Patrollers Payne. ...... Atlantic Africans were the children of African women and European traders ...... Bukra Woman's Town (1818–1823). .... Pointe Du Sable: A Historical Sketch of a Distinguished
Pioneer.
Clapham Sect
A group of Christian influential like-minded Church of England social reformers based in Clapham, London at the beginning of the 19th century (active c. 1790–1830). They are described by the historian Stephen Tomkins as "a network of friends and families in England, with William Wilberforce as its centre of gravity, who were powerfully bound together by their shared moral and spiritual values, by their religious mission and social activism, by their love for each other, and by marriage".[1]
1 Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845), MP and brewer
2 William Dealtry (1775–1847), Rector of Clapham, mathematician
3 Edward James Eliot (1758–97), parliamentarian
4 Thomas Gisbourne (1758–1846), clergyman and author
5 Charles Grant (1746–1823), administrator, chairman of the directors of the British East India Company, father of the first Lord Glenelg
6 Katherine Hankey (1834–1911), evangelist
7 Zachary Macaulay (1768–1838), estate manager, colonial governor, father of Thomas Babington Macaulay
8 Hannah More (1745–1833), (2 February 1745 – 7 September 1833) was an English religious writer and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical philanthropist.
Within a short time More had associated herself with London's literary elite, including Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke. She also became one of the foremost members of the Bluestocking group of women engaged in polite conversation and literary and intellectual pursuits, attending the salon of Elizabeth Montagu, where she also met and became acquainted with Frances Boscawen, Elizabeth Carter, Elizabeth Vesey and Hester Chapone, some of whom were to become lifelong friends. She later wrote a witty celebration of her friends and the circle to which they belonged in her 1782 poem The Bas Bleu, or, Conversation, published in 1784.[ Poem on Slavery http://www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/morepoems.htm
9 Granville Sharp (1735–1813), scholar and administrator
10 Charles Simeon (1759–1836), Anglican minister, promoter of missions
11 James Stephen (1758–1832), Master of Chancery, great-grandfather of Virginia Woolf.
12 Lord Teignmouth (1751–1834), Governor-General of India
13 Henry Thornton (1760–1815), economist, banker, philanthropist, MP for Southwark, great-grandfather of writer E.M. Forster
14 Henry Venn (1725–97), founder of the group, father of John Venn and great-grandfather of John Venn (originator of the Venn diagram)
15 John Venn (1759–1813), Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Clapham
16
17 William Wilberforce (1759–1833), MP successively for Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire and Bramber, leading abolitionist
Wilberforce's other efforts to 'renew society' included the organisation of the Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1802. He worked with the reformer, Hannah More, in the Association for the Better Observance of Sunday. Its goal was to provide all children with regular education in reading, personal hygiene and religion. He was closely involved with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He was also instrumental in encouraging Christian missionaries to go to India.
Peter Stephen Chazotte,
East Florida Land Coffee Plantation 50 years old. Had cultivated coffee on land in Santo Domingo until 1798 and the rebellion had him flee. Returned 2 years later with U.S. citizenship which narrowly saved his life. Returned to U. S. in 1804 when cast upon the southernmost point of florida and remembered how beautiful that area was. Wanted to ask Congress for a grant of land to cultivate coffee and cocoa. Grand national nursery. Or new bonapartist colony? East Florida Coffee Land Association
Coacoochee (Wildcat)
Coacoochee, also known as Wild Cat, was born about 1809, near Ahapopka (now Apopka), Florida. As his father was Philip and his mother was a sister of Micanopy, he was the heir apparent to the throne of the Seminoles. Five feet eight inches in height, he was physically well proportioned, with dark, full, and expressive eyes, and an extremely youthful and pleasing appearance. Governing his band with skill and firmness, he early obtained a reputation as a brave and daring warrior, as well, for his fluency of speech, vivid imagination, and spirituality.
Coacoochee, his younger brother Otulke, and a brother of King Philip
Prior to Coacoochee’s exile from Florida, he had been asked where he should go when he died. He, with much solemnity, responded with the vision of the White Cloud:
“When I am laid in the earth, I shall go to my twin sister, with whom I played until I was a large boy. When she died, I was on a great bear hunt. Seated alone by myself one night, something told me to go to her. The wolves howled around me, one sounded like her voice. At daylight I started for her camp and on my arrival found her dead.
“When hunting again, with my brother, Otulke, I was sitting beside a pine tree. I tried to sleep, but could not. I felt myself rising, and went far above to a new country where all was bright. I there saw clear water ponds, streams and prairies, deer, and all kind of game abounded.
“Soon I saw a white cloud approaching, out of which came my twin sister. She was dressed in white, with silver work all over. Her long black hair streamed down her back. She clasped me around the neck. I shook with fear. When she said Coacoochee, I knew her voice, but could not speak. In one hand she held a string of white beads, which she said came from the spring of the Great Spirit, and if I would drink, I should return and live with her.
“While I drank, she sang the peace song of the Seminoles, and danced to its music. She had silver bells on her feet, which made a loud noise. Taking something from her bosom, I could not tell what, she laid it before, shook her head and gradually disappeared in the cloud. The fire she made had gone out. I looked about me and felt myself sinking until I came to the earth when I met my brother Otulke. He had been seeking me, and was alarmed at my absence, having found my rifle where he last saw me asleep.
“I could not tell him neither can I tell you what else my sister said to me....When I die, I shall go to her, live with her. My body may be placed on land or in water. I shall go to her. At first I thought she lived alone, but she told me—no. There were others around, but I could not see them. There was no night there; it was always day. No white man came there.”
Cudjo
In 1822 one year after Captain Bell produced his list: After Payne’s death African named Cudjoe headed the most prominent of the deceased Payne’s remaining black settlements at Big Swamp
Richard Call
October 24, 1792 – September 14, 1862
In 1813 he left college to take part in the Creek War. Richard Call came favorably to the attention of General Andrew Jackson, a leader during the war. In 1814, Call was commissioned as a first lieutenant and went to Florida to serve as Jackson's personal aide. He returned with General Jackson in 1821 to establish the territorialgovernment after the United States acquired Florida from Spain by the Adams-OnÃs Treaty. After resigning from the Army in 1822, Call decided to make Florida his home and opened a legal practice.[
James Plantation
Emathla (King Philip)
Father of Wildcat (Cooacoochee)
Situated on west side of the St. John’s River 35 miles from Volusia. Later moved to island in Lake Apopka Tohopikalika. In 1823 120 Indians and 8 blacks lived there under leadership of half breed Bradley. By the time Emathla moved there in 1835, John Caesar was leader.
Andrew Jackson http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3532&context=flstud_pub
The source of the Coweta raid
Though the blacks and Indians clustered at or near Tampa Bay in the aftermath of the First Seminole War and the purchase of Florida by the United States may have lacked the official support of their friends and allies, they did not escape the attention of their enemies. Even before the announcement of the purchase, talk was rife of a complete forced removal of the Seminoles,
On October 2, 1818, Creek leaders, including the Coweta chief William McIntosh, gathered near Milledgeville, Georgia, at the home of Indian Agent and former Georgia Governor David B. Mitchell to discuss the implications of such an action. A part of the discourse later was summarized by Mitchell. “In the event of their removal [from Florida]” he wrote, “I have it in contemplation to Send McIntosh with a Party of warriors to capture and bring away all the Negroes.”
The delay in the formal transfer of possession of Florida to the United States forestalled for a time any forced removal of the Indians, but thoughts of armed free blacks clustered near Tampa Bay remained alive, particularly among white Georgians. In December 1820, commissioners of that state treated with representatives of the Creek Nation at Indian Springs. The commissioners’ official “talk” had this to say about the blacks: “As to the Negroes now remaining among the Seminoles, belonging to the white people, we consider these people [the Seminoles] a part of the Creek Nation; and we look to the chiefs of the Creek Nation to cause the people there to do justice.” On behalf of the Nation William McIntosh replied, “If the President admits that country [Florida] to belong to the Creek nation, I will go down with my warriors and bring back all the Negroes I can get, and deliver them Up.”
President James Monroe presented the Treaty of Indian Springs to the United States Senate on words of one historian, “legitimized slave hunting by both Creeks and whites.” The treaty negotiated in January 1821, in the 3Two days previously his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, had offered January 26, 1821.
the governorship of East and West Florida to Andrew Jackson.
April 2 Jackson acknowledged to Adams the receipt of his commission of office and then inquired of “one subject, which at this early period, I wish thro you, to call the attention of the President to, & receive your instructions thereon.” Jackson’s “one subject” was his authority with regard to the Red Stick Creeks and their black allies. “Are these Indians to be ordered up to the Creek Country, there to settle themselves, or are they to be protected in their new settlement?,” he asked. “Whatever may be the Presidents Instructions upon this subject shall be strictly obeyed,” he assured Adams, “and likewise in relation to the negroes who have run away
At the time Jackson’s letter was received at Washington the President and the Secretary of State were reluctant to respond. Instead, the request for instructions was referred to Secretary of from the States & inhabit this country and are protected by the Indians.”
John Horse Cavallo (ca. 1812–1882),
He rose to prominence in the third year of what was to become a seven year war when the first generation of Black Seminole leaders was largely decimated and the primary Seminole war chief, Osceola (Asi Yahola), fell into the hands of the American military commander, General Thomas Jesup. John Horse had been fighting alongside Osceola and acting as his interpreter by this time. When they were taken prisoner during truce negotiations with Jesup's emissary, Florida militia general Joseph Hernandez, John Horse found himself imprisoned along with Osceola and other members of his band at Fort Marion (Castillo de San Marcos) an old Spanish fort at the one time Spanish colonial port of St. Augustine. John Horse gained his initial fame for joining with a Mikasuki brave named Wildcat (Coacoochee), the son of the Mikasuki chief, King Phillip Emathla, in executing a daring escape from the fort which, until then, had been believed by American forces to be unbreachable. Wildcat and John Horse formed an alliance and went on to lead the remnants of the shattered Seminole bands, including members of the Mikasuki, Talahassee, Appalachee and Yamassee bands (many of different ethnic backgrounds in what was by then a highly mixed grouping of Indians and Africans) to safety in the south-central part of Florida, ahead of Jesup's forces. In a famous Florida battle at Lake Okeechobee in the winter of 1837, Halpatta Tustanagi (Chief Alligator), an ally of the captured Osceola, and the Seminole medicine man Abiaka (Sam Jones) led the escaping Seminole and Wildcat and John Horse played leading roles in holding off the assault of Zachary Taylor, then in hot pursuit.
Joseph Bonaparte
in Philadelphia Wine and Olive colony King of Indies A final factor, the designs of Joseph Bonaparte, must be added to the equation. Soon after his arrival in the United States, the former king of Spain had begun to entertain guests who proposed to make the exile "king of the Indies," beginning with the overthrow of the viceroy of Mexico. One of the plans was rumored to involve a Philadelphia- organized "Society for the Cultivation of the Vine and Olive," which had secured a Congressional grant of land on Alabama's Tombigbee River.
April 26, 1821 East Florida Coffee Land Association, the associators charged Chazotte to explore South Florida with a party consisting of six laboring men and five volunteers. Specifically, he was to identify the "best tract of land, not previously occupied, at a convenient distance from the sea or a navigable river; combining fertility of soil and salubrity of climate, and of an extent sufficient to embrace the plans and objects of the association."
Gasparilla
They deal with weather, discrimination, alligators, and snakes to finally make it to Tampa Bay where Sabrina is captured by the pirate Gaspar in December 1821. Deciding it is time to retire from pirate life, Gaspar has just convinced his crew to split up their accumulated fortune, disband and live out their lives in peace and luxury. He plans to take Sabrina with him into his retirement. But before she can board the ship, the sight of a merchant ship sailing northwestwardly toward New Orleans is all too inviting for the greedy adventure-seekers. Gaspar decides on one last thrill, and they will end their careers in grand style. Leaving Sabrina ashore with those men dividing the treasure, Gaspar sets forth to pillage the seemingly unassuming merchantman. Closing in on their prey, the pirates realize, to their chagrin, they have chosen a United States Navy warship in disguise for their final folly. And final it is. A bloody battle ensues, leaving Gasparilla's flagship burning to ruin. Just as the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise boards the defeated ship, Gasparilla seizes a heavy chain, wraps it around his waist and neck and leaps into the water, brandishing his sword in a final gesture of defiance as he sinks into the sea.
Cato and Andro make it to Gasparalla Island just in time to watch all of this take place. They observe ten of Gasparilla men loading a longboat with the treasure chests while he took the rest of the crew in pursuit of the merchant ship. The ten men witness the battle with the USS Enterprise from shore. Seeing the Floridablanca go down, they slip, unnoticed, up the Peace River to a place called Spanish Homestead with Sabrina aboard. The boys follow. Spanish Homestead is owned by Lady Boggess. The pirates bribe Lady Boggess with a small part of the treasure, ensuring that she would not divulge their location if the Americans pursued them to the area.
Sam Jones (Abiaka) Apayaka Hadjo (Crazy Rattlesnake).
(ca. 1760, Georgia[2] – ca. 1860, Florida[3]) was a powerful spiritual alektca (medicine chief) and war chief of the Miccosukee,[4] a Seminole-Muscogee Creek tribe of the Southeast United States. Though his exploits were not as well publicized, Seminole medicine man Abiaka may have been more important to the internal Seminole war machine than Osceola. Abiaka was a powerful spiritual leader who used his "medicine" to stir Seminole warriors into a frenzy. His genius directed Seminole gains in several battles, including the 1837 ambush now known as the Battle of Okeechobee.
Many years older than most of the Seminole leadership of that era, wise old Sam Jones was a staunch resistor of removal. He kept the resistance fueled before and after Osceola's period of prominence and, when the fighting had concluded, was the only major Seminole leader to remain in Florida. Starved, surrounded, sought with a vengeance, Sam Jones would answer no flag of truce, no offer of compromise, no demand of surrender. His final camp was in the Big Cypress Swamp, not far from the Seminole Tribe's Big Cypress community of today.
David Levy
born June 12, 1810 in Charlotte Amalie, United States Virgin Islands[1][2] -– died October 10, 1886 in New York City
Born in Charlotte Amalie, on the island of St. Thomas. The parents sent their son to a boy's academy and college in Norfolk, Virginia. Levy returned to Florida to study law in St. Augustine.[6][9]
David L. Yulee, photograph by Mathew Brady was an American politician and attorney of jewish moroccan origins from Florida, a territorial delegate to Congress, the first Jewish[5] member of the United States Senate and a member of the Confederate Congress during the American Civil War. He founded the Florida Railroad Company and served as president of several other companies, earning the nickname of "Father of Florida Railroads".[6] In 2000 he was recognized as that year's "Great Floridian" by the state.
Levy added Yulee to his name, the name of one of his moroccan ancestors, soon after his 1846 marriage to the daughter of ex-Governor Charles A. Wickliffe of Kentucky. Yulee became Christian and raised his children as Christians, was subject to antisemitism throughout his career. Yulee supported slavery and secession. He was imprisoned for nine months after the war as a prisoner of state at Fort Pulaski before being pardoned. He then returned to railroad building.
Moses Elias Levy (father of David L. Yulee)
Moses Elias Levy was a Moroccan Sephardi Jew who made a fortune in lumber. His mother was also Sephardi; her ancestors had gone from Spain to the Netherlands and England. Some had later gone to the Caribbean as English colonists during the British occupation of the Danish West Indies, now the United States Virgin Islands. His father Moses Levy was a first cousin and business partner of Phillip Benjamin, the father of future Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin.[8]
After the family immigrated to the United States, Moses Levy bought 50,000 acres (200 km2) of land near present-day Jacksonville, Florida Territory. He wanted to establish a "New Jerusalem" for Jewish settlers.
Moses Elias Levy was one of the antebellum South's most influential and interesting Jews. Born in Morocco where his father was a courtier to the sultan, through his career as a merchant shipper in the Caribbean, he was also one of the earliest and largest developers in Florida. He purchased 92,000 acres that were part of the Arredondo Spanish land grant by 1819. Moses Levy was drawn to Spanish Florida, where he purchased about 100,000 acres of land, including part of the Arredondo grant, which included present-day Alachua County. His first plantations were Volutia eight miles above Lake George on the St. John's River and opposite this place Hope Hill. He created a utopian colony called New Pilgrimage for persecuted Jews. He studied the Talmud and spoke out for abolition. (He wrote A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery
London, 1828.) His plantation was known as Pilgrimage Plantation, a communitarian center near Micanopy. By 1823 he
had twenty-one European Jewish refugees. The plantation was mostly destroyed during the Second Seminole War.
As a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, Moses Levy founded Pilgrimage Plantation, the first Jewish communitarian settlement in America, in 1822. At least five German Jewish families lived there. The 1,000-acre plantation operated until 1835 and contained houses, a sugar mill, saw mill, corn mill, stable and blacksmith shop. Levy reintroduced sugar cane and fruit trees to Florida as viable crops and established the first sugar cane plantation in Alachua County.
Micanopy (Mick-ah-no-pee),
the hereditary Seminole chief. He showed great favor toward the maroons and was said to reside most of the year in the black town of Piliklakaha, near present-day Bushnell, Florida.
Achille Murat (21 January 1801 – 15 April 1847)
After Napoleon was exiled for a second time in 1815, Joachim Murat was subsequently deposed and executed by his own subjects.[3] Young Achille Murat and his siblings were taken by their mother into exile at the castle of Frohsdorf,[4] near Vienna in Lower Austria. When he turned twenty-one, he obtained permission to emigrate to America,[5] and in 1821 he embarked from a Spanish port bound for the United States. On his arrival in New York, Murat made immediate application for naturalization.[6] After a few months in that city he made an extensive tour through the United States. using an assumed name at first, since he had a striking resemblance to his famous uncle in countenance and mannerisms. Even though he had renounced all his European titles[7] and citizenship, his wide social connections brought Murat to Washington, where he befriended Richard Keith Call,[8]Florida's territorial delegate to the Congress.
The eccentric Murat, who liked to go nude, made a submersible chair to escape the heat of the north Florida summers, using it to sit naked in the waters of Moses Creek with mosquito netting over his head.[13] A neighbor observed that he was obsessed with the "...eatibility of the whole animal tribe." Murat was known to dine on baked turkey buzzard,[14] boiled owl, roasted crow, stewed alligator,[15] lizards and rattlesnakes. He had an aversion to baths, didn't like to change his clothes, "washed his feet only after he wore out his shoes", and slept on a mattress stuffed with Spanish moss.[16]
Prince Achille Murat (January 21, 1801 - April 15, 1847 house in St. Augustine owned by Antonio Huertas,
granted lot #257 for the taxes and mortgages it for security. Wall construction: Plastered coquina.3. Porches, stoops: A wooden frame "balcony projects from south (street) side of upper story; it has a
shed roof and crude wooden decorative details, A one-step stone stoop is at the main entry on St.
George Street.4. Chimneys: Stone chimneys.
Prince Achille Murat (January 21, 1801 - April 15, 1847
He was the eldest son of the King of Naples during the First French Empire and later in life mayor of Tallahassee, Florida in the United States. When he moved to St. Augustine he joined the Masonic society and served in the milita under General Hernandez.
In 1823 he purchased an extensive property of 2,800 acres (1133 ha) and built a plantation where he planted orange groves, rice, and indigo. He named it 'Parthenope', in honor of his onetime principality in Naples, Italy, which was founded on the site of the ancient Greek settlement of Parthenope (see
History of Naples). Parthenope was located about ten miles south of St. Augustine on the west side of the Matanzas River, at the mouth of Moses Creek. He would later become the Mayor of Tallahassee.
Nero
The principal Black Seminole town on the Suwannee River was Nero’s Town. Covington (1993:45) describes Nero as a mulatto and a powerful civil and military leader among the local Black Seminoles. Nearby were several related Black Seminole villages that brought the total population of area to between 300 and 400 Black Seminoles. Nero’s town contained plank houses which were described as larger and better than those of the Seminoles at Bowlegs’ Town. The many inhabitants of this village complex cultivated rice, corn, peas, beans, potatoes, fruit and other subsistence crops. Wooden fences protected the crops from the cattle and hogs that villagers also raised (Brown 1991; Covington 1993).
In the area of the Alachua savannah around King Payne’s old community, a cluster of Black Seminole settlements sprang up after 1813 that were connected via a system of trails used by travelers of Middle Florida’s frontier. Here, Black Seminole inhabitants came into contact with white settlers, free and enslaved Africans and African Americans, Seminoles and other Black Seminoles. The central location of these villages allowed the Black Seminoles to participate in the growing frontier economy by hiring their services as frontier guides and interpreters. They also bartered surplus proceeds from agriculture and animal husbandry to neighbors, settlers and travelers. Itinerant traders often employed black interpreters as well (Wright 1986). The largest of these settlements was King Heijo’s Town, which was situated below King Payne’s old town (Mahon 1985).
Colonel Edward Nicolls
Gadsden’s reference to Colonel Nicolls reflects a continuing involvement by the British officer in the affairs of the black plantation at Sarasota Bay, an involvement which appears to have continued until at least June 1821. A fear of such British presence, combined with the threat posed by a large colony of armed blacks on the lower Gulf coast, and other factors, prompted Gadsden to recommend the construction of a military post on Tampa Bay.with the recommendation, and in November 1818 he requested approval of the scheme from the Secretary of War. “The troops detached to the bay of Tampa,” Jackson advised the secretary, “having constructed and garrisoned a suitable work [and] having reconnoitered the neighboring country” then would be in a position to destroy “Woodbine’s negro establishment.” For the time being, however, Jackson’s proposal was ignored.
Dr. Odet Philippi
Odet Philippe
Born Lyon, France, 1787 Died at this Site 1869 As the first European settler in Pinellas County he established St. Helena Plantation, now Philippe Park. Philippe was the first to cultivate grapefruit in Florida and introduced cigar-making to TampaHis descendants populated his frontier. He was said to be a doctor
and of noble birth.
Philippe was originally of French descent, born in 1789 in Lyons. He reportedly was a childhood friend of Napoleon, eventually becoming the chief surgeon of the French Emperor's army. He was also said to be a nephew of King Louis XVI. The legends continue with Philippe being captured by the British at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1806, leading to his release into the Americas on the promise that he never return to French service. At various ports of call in American and Caribbean locales, he used his ability to heal to gain favor with a variety of characters and people, including the famed pirate Gomez.
From him, Philippe learned of the uninhabited "Espirito Santu Bay," what is now known as Tampa Bay.
Historical records do not agree with many of these claims, and it is highly likely that Philippe never received any formal medical training nor would he have been a childhood friend of Napoleon, since the two were likely nearly 20 years apart in age. It is also very unlikely that Philippe ever came into contact with the pirate Gomez. Philippe's biographer Allison DeFoor in Odet Philippe: Peninsular Pioneer, (1997), also discounts the likelihood of the above facts but has carefully traced Philippe's antecedents in Haiti, Charleston, Key West, before coming to Tampa Bay.
Regardless of his past, Philippe did sail his ship, the Ney (named after Napoleon's ship), into Florida waters on several occasions. He initially made settlement attempts on Florida's eastern shore but was driven off by Native Americans. He had better luck when he landed on Florida's west coast around the time of Spain's ceding of Florida in 1821. On the shores of what is now known as Old Tampa Bay and near the present-day Tampa suburb of Safety Harbor, Phillipe established a plantation named St. Helena. An old Indian mound sat near his landing site, and he constructed his homestead close to the edifice.
Philippe, the first settler in the region, planted a variety of citrus and other fruit products, most notably grapefruit but also including oranges, limes, avocados, pears, and bananas, all of which he had acquired during his time in the Caribbean. The grove he established was the first post-colonial commercial grove in the relatively unsettled territory of Florida and the first on the west coast. His plantation was ravaged by a fierce hurricane in 1848, but the Indian mound protected his holdings from more significant damage and Philippe rebuilt his homestead.
Philippe's efforts not only led to the spread of citrus in Hillsborough County, but also to the settlement and development of the region to begin with. He was known for sharing generously with his neighbors, and he often handed out budwood and instructions on how to convert wild sour orange tree into producers of sweet oranges
A tantalizing alternative explanation appeared in correspondence from an Alabamian who toured Florida in 1851, seeking to regain his health. Clement Claiborne Clay (1816-1886) was the son of Governor Clement Comer Clay of Alabama. A lawyer by profession, he was serving in 1851 as a county judge. He subsequently was elected to the United States Senate and later served in the Confederate Senate. Suffering from a bronchial condition, he toured Florida in 1851 and kept an active correspondence concerning what he found. At one point, he referred to an attempt to cross Tampa Bay which was prevented by bad weather. Clay then wrote: “So, I was disappointed in not seeing the head bluffs of Olde Tampa and the orange groves of Mons. Philippi, a Frenchman and native of St. Domingo about the color of Alfred – who was anxious to extend to us his hospitality.” “Alfred” was Clay’s house slave in Alabama.
The clear suggestion is that Philippe’s true origins may have been in Santo Domingo, or more properly St. Dominigue, the French half of the island of Hispaniola. Today’s Haiti, St. Dominigue was an area of great sophistication at the end of the eighteenth century, and it produced enormous wealth for France. The colony consisted of a half million black African slaves governed by about 40,000 white colonists. Between these poles lay a large group of free mulattos, affranchis, who were almost equal in number to the whites. The free mulattos exercised largely the same rights as whites, and by 1789 they possessed one-third of the landed wealth and one-quarter of the slaves of the colony. The affranchis were a rich and powerful class, with many educated in Europe. Beginning in 1790 they began agitation for liberty, inspired by the French Revolution. The spirit of revolt spread to the slaves of St. Domingue, who rose up and succeeded in winning their independence with the proclamation of the Republic of Haiti in 1803. During the thirteen-year struggle, a large number of the governing class of whites, as well as those of mixed race, were killed or fled to safer environments in the face of a paroxysm
Billy Powell
Osceola (a.k.a. William Powell) and the inspirational medicine man Abiaka (a.k.a. Sam Jones). Elegant in dress, handsome of face, passionate in nature and giant of ego, Osceola masterminded successful battles against five baffled U.S. generals, murdered the United State's Indian agent, took punitive action against any who cooperated with the white man and stood as a national manifestation of the Seminoles' strong reputation for non-surrender. Osceola was not a chief with the heritage of a Micanopy or Jumper, but his skill as an orator and his bravado in conflict earned him great influence over Seminole war actions.
Prince
Sir Phillip Stapleton
After the Stapletons took their leave, Jake turned to Cade and Gabe and said, “Apparently Sir Phillip Stapleton earned his fortune through his association with the East India Company. He has a close relationship with Lord Bathhurst, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. I once asked Sir Phillip if he was acquainted with Zachary and Colin MacCauley and his face lit up. They are sons of John MacCauley an old friend of John Witherspoon, who was President of the College of New Jersey, as well as my professor and mentor. John MacCauley and John Witherspoon were both ministers in the Church of Scotland before Witherspoon agreed to come to America and take on the challenge of educating a bunch of colonists.”
“I have learned that both brothers are associated with the Clapham crowd,” he said. Lyssa nodded, used to her father’s connecting the dots in governmental circles. She had grown up with his explanations of the intricacies of government and politics.
“Zachary publishes the Christian Journal and Colin is a general with the East India Company. Both are abolitionists. William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister during the American Revolution, who died only recently, was a member of that group. William Wilberforce whom everyone acknowledges is the most steadfast and ardent of abolitionists, was a leader in pushing for the Slave Trade Act of 1807 that abolished the slave trade throughout the British Empire, though not slavery itself. Lord Bathurst is sympathetic to their cause.
The Duke made eye contact with each individual sitting at the table, “These are names with which you should all be familiar. It is networks like this that often work outside official policy.”
“With connections like those of Sir Phillip, Gabe, we should have the choice of ships and the best intelligence in order to pursue Joie and Godfrey’s kidnappers,” he said.
Cade and Gabe were fast becoming educated in the politics of the age. Simply sitting at the dinner table with Jake Rendel and Cade’s wife Lyssa became a learning experience. Both read several journals and discussed the current issues of the day -- frequently quite heatedly. A large part of duties of the tutor the Dowager Duchess had insisted on hiring for Cade and Sam was to help them navigate the shark infested waters of London society.
One of the Duke’s primary concerns upon his return to Virginia was addressing the problem of the slaves he had inherited from his father. It wasn’t something he had really thought much about until Andros had become a part of his family. That was why he was now so familiar with the history and participants of the Clapham group because of his interest in their philosophy and their answers to the dilemma he now faced.
When Stapleton returned, it was with a letter of introduction and orders to assist signed by the colonial undersecretary, Sir James Stephens. “Should the information you acquire in Falmouth require further pursuit, Sir James recommends that you find the schooner Venus and Captain George Woodbine. If there is a connection between pirates and the kidnapping, he is most likely to be acquainted with those who might be able to be of assistance. There is a sloop at your disposal at Wapping Stairs to take you to Falmouth,” Sir Phillip said to Gabe.
William Weatherford 1780 or 1781 – March 24, 1824
Perhaps almost as well known as the connection between Jackson and McIntosh was that between Jackson and the former Red Stick chief, William Weatherford or “Red Eagle.” Weatherford was the hostile chief who had surrendered to Jackson following the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. After the conclusion of the war Weatherford, according to one early account, returned with Jackson to the latter’s plantation, the Hermitage, near Nashville. He remained there for “nearly a year.” Upon his departure Jackson reportedly presented Weatherford with “two fine horses, – one of them a splendid blooded animal,” as a token of their friendship. Thomas Woodward, who knew both men, wrote of their relationship, “General Jackson, as if by intuition, seemed to know that Weatherford was no savage and much more than
In addition to the detailed account in the City Gazette which linked the 1821 raid to associates of Andrew Jackson, another source pointed to the presence of his old British enemy, Colonel Edward Nicolls. Early in 1822, David Mitchell’s successor as Creek Indian Agent, John Crowell, informed Secretary of War Calhoun: “Special orders were given to Col. Miller not to interrupt the person or property of any Indian or white man & he declares that he did not take from the possession of either red or white person a single negro except one from a vessel belonging to the celebrated Nichols, lying at anchor in Tampy Bay.” Thus, it would appear not only that the raiders presumed to attack an English vessel lying in Tampa Bay, but also that Colonel Nicolls, despite his government’s official refusal to aid the blacks at Sarasota Bay and their nearby Indian allies, had not abandoned the personal commitments he had made as early as 1814.
Spirituals
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long way is from home
A long way is from home
Do believe us, A long ways from home
A long ways from home
Yes, sometimes I feel like a motherless child
(Why?)
Why? 'Cause nothin' ever happens
(Nothin'?)
Well nothin' good
(So what's good?)
You know to have a ball, man
(You sick?)
No
No man
I just had myself a whole mess of black eyed peas and rice
(Long way, long way)
I did I am a long ways from home
But things could be worse, sure could
MY CHILD IS GONE — Slavery Song
Hark! from the winds a voice of woe,
The wild Atlantic in its flow,
Bears on its breast the murmur low,
My child is gone!
Like savage tigers o’er their prey,
They tore him from my heart away;
And now I cry, by night by day–
My child is gone!
How many a free-born babe is press’d
With fondness to its mother’s breast,
And rocked upon her arms to rest,
While mine is gone!
No longer now, at eve I see,
Beneath the sheltering plantain tree,
My baby cradled on my knee,
For he is gone!
And when I seek my cot at night,
There’s not a thing that meets my sight,
But tells me that my soul’s delight,
My child, is gone!
I sink to sleep, and then I seem
To hear again his parting scream
I start and wake–’tis but a dream–
My child _is_ gone!
Gone–till my toils and griefs are o’er,
And I shall reach that happy shore,
Where negro mothers cry no more–
My child is gone!
- See more at: http://www.jankollitz.com/rcc/my-child-is-gone.html#sthash.0BmYea4i.dpuf
Legends
Legend has it that an old woman, one who was knowledgeable with potions and healing, used to live nearby, and her spirit still haunts the bridge. So the tales say, the woman was hired to make a love potion, for which her payment was to be the client’s first-born child. When the client heard the terms, he was angry and struck her, causing her to fall; her head was said to be impaled by a cypress knee. The man hid her body in the swampy muck, but she was found, and the man fled the area to avoid being charged for murder. But her ghost was often seen, an uneasy spirit in the wake of the crime. Although the nearby residents burned her home in hope that would set her spirit free, her ghost is said to still walk here to this day.
Locals tell of eerie beams of light that come from the island and shoot toward the sky, seen as early as 1895. Old legends say the Native Americans in the 1800s wouldn’t set foot on this island, and that African-Americans working here saw an apparition in the 1920s. Some say there are strange tales surrounding an old hermit who lived on the island in the 1920s or 1930s. He had a long beard and sold citrus he grew in a grove here.
Tampa Sulphur springs Tower Stories say the historic tower was often used as a landmark on pirates’ maps, a tale that may support the fact that a ghostly pirate is said to roam the area. Another story told around these parts is that of a marine monster who lives in the waters adjacent to the tower, and was seen dragging a little girl under the water.
St Augustine The restaurant is housed in renovated 1791 home, a coquina brick, 3-story structure. Locals say at least two haunts reside here, the spirit of Margaret Worth, a war widow who bought the building in the 1850s, and an unknown man. Apparitions have been seen, mysterious odors have been detected, doors open by themselves, and locked doors slam closed. Objects on many occasions have been known to move by themselves, or disappear and reappear an hour or so later; in one witness’s story, two salt shakers performed a little dance around the table. http://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/o-c-whites-seafood-and-spirits/
A small bigfoot-type creature, perhaps the fabled “skunk ape,” is reportedly roaming the area between downtown Two Egg and the Chattahoochee River. Footprints, and even the creature itself, have been spotted by the locals. two egg stumper jumper
One of the treasure caches of early 1800s outlaw John A. Murrell is believed hidden on Stuart's Island near the upper end of Lake Chicot.
A treasure known as the Spanish Galleons Treasure, a huge hoard consisting of $45 million in gold bars, is said to be hidden in the area of Kelso.
Coweta Expedition
Geopolitical intrigue in Florida intended to kill two birds with one stone: defeating insubordinate natives and preventing fugitive slaves from finding safe-haven. In late April 1821, William McIntosh, Jackson-appointed brigadier general, ordered a war party of Coweta Creeks into Florida to eliminate the Red Stick Creek settlements and enslave the blacks at Angola. A force of two hundred Coweta Creeks was commissioned under the command of William Weatherford and Charles Miller, pro-white Creek chiefs who were closely associated with McIntosh.
An “eye-witness,” possibly a participant in the incursion, described the purpose of the raid in the columns of the Charleston Gazette:
“Towards the end of the month of April last, some men of influence and fortune, residing somewhere in the western country, thought of making a speculation in order to obtain Slaves for a trifle. They hired Charles Miller, William Weatherford [and others], and under these chiefs, were engaged about two hundred Cowetas Indians. They were ordered to proceed along the western coast of East Florida, southerly, and there take, in the name of the United States, and make prisoners of all the men of colour, including women and children, they would be able to find, and bring them all, well secured, to a certain place, which has been kept a secret.” 33
Indian
Agent John Crowell wrote about the raid in a letter to Secretary of War John Calhoun:
“Some short time previous to my coming into this agency, the chiefs, had organized a Regt. of Indian Warriors, and sent them into Florida in pursuit of negroes that had escaped from their owners, in the Creek nation as well as such as had run off from their owners in the States; this detachment has recently returned, bringing with them, to this place fifty nine negroes, besides about twenty delivered to their respective owners on their march up.” 34
The raiders wrecked havoc throughout Florida until they launched a surprise attack on Angola and devastated the settlement. The Creek raiders captured over three hundred inhabitants, plundered their plantations, and set fire to all of their homes. Afterwards, the war party made its way south and plundered the Spanish fisheries on the Caloosahatchee River. Most of the three hundred prisoners taken in the raid disappeared as the Creek party made their way back to the United States.
The “eye-witness” in the Charleston Gazette detailed the raid of Angola:
“They arrived at Sazazota, surprised and captured about 300 of them, plundered their plantations, set on fire all their houses, and then proceeding southerly captured several others; and on the 17th day of June, arrived at the Spanish Ranches, in Pointerrass Key, in Carlos Bay, where not finding as many Negroes as they expected, they plundered the Spanish fishermen of more than 2000 dollars worth of property, besides committing the greatest excess. With their plunder and prisoners, they returned to the place appointed for the deposit of both.” 35
Corresponding events in 1821 were the beginning of James Monroe's second term as President, the death of Napoleon,
The Coweta Incursion and the Destruction of Angola ... On January 24, 1821 Secretary of State John Quincy Adams conveyed the governorship of Florida to Andrew Jackson. ... Chiefs Charles Miller, William Weatherford, Adam (also called Allamonchee) and mulatto Daniel Perimaus were to lead about two hundred Coweta
In 1821, Moses Elias Levy purchased 53,000 acres of land in northeast Florida. Levy believed that Florida could be a new Zion, a home for the persecuted Jews of Europe. Today, in a very different form, Levy’s vision has become a reality. South Florida now has the third largest concentration of Jewish population in the United States.
CATO OVERHEARS: On January 24, 1821 Secretary of State John Quincy Adams conveyed the governorship of Florida to Andrew Jackson. One of his earliest communications with Washington, written on April 2, 1821, concerned the disposition of the Red Stick Creeks and maroons at and below Tampa Bay. Jackson inquired as to whether these groups should be ordered into Georgia to settle among the Creeks, or whether they were to be protected in their current location. He strongly urged the former course of action. While the American government pondered Jackson’s question, events unfolded that would render it practically moot.
Even before the official announcement of the cession of Florida to the United States, former Georgia governor and now United States Indian Agent David Mitchell had convened a meeting at his Georgia home with Creek leaders including Coweta chief William McIntosh. The parties met to discuss the possibility of forcibly removing the fugitive Red Stick Creeks from Florida. Part of the plan involved bringing away the blacks among the Red Sticks, and returning them to slavery. The participants parted with a determination to pursue such a course of action (Brown 1991).
When President Adams received Jackson’s April letter urging the removal of the Red Stick Creeks and their black allies from Florida, he was reluctant to respond and redirected Jackson’s letter to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun. On May 1, Calhoun directed Jackson to take no immediate action.
The new Territory of Florida was second only to Georgia in land area east of the Mississippi River. This huge size, coupled with the state's under populated peninsular, posed serious problems to the state's future development. Northern Congressmen feared that Florida would be divided into two slave states, thus disrupting the delicate balance of having equal slave and free states in the United States Senate. Jackson felt there were more obvious problems: a lack of population, the absence of decent roads and physical resources, and the presence of hostile Seminole Indians.
A Clandestine Plan to Destroy Angola
When word of this reached Georgia, “some men and influence and fortune” apparently contracted with McIntosh to effect the desired end. Chiefs Charles Miller, William Weatherford, Adam (also called Allamonchee) and mulatto Daniel Perimaus were to lead about two hundred Coweta warriors to capture all of the Africans and African Americans they could encounter, and deliver them to an undisclosed point of rendezvous. They were also to attack the vessel of Colonel Nicolls that was reported to be anchored in Tampa Bay (Brown 1990:14-15).
The COWETA expedition surprised and fell upon the inhabitants of the Pease Creek frontier. Arriving first at Angola, the attackers captured about 300 of the inhabitants, destroyed the plantation, and set fire to all of the houses. Proceeding southward, the party captured several others, and arrived at the Spanish fisheries around Pointerras Key in Charlotte Harbor on June 17. Not finding as many blacks as they had expected there, they “plundered the Spanish fishermen of more than 2,000 dollars worth of property,” and returned to their appointed rendezvous (Brown 1990:14).
The Aftermath and the Flight to Freedom
Many of the settlements in the path of the Coweta expedition were broken up. Native Americans and Africans fled in all directions. Some escaped in their canoes around the point at Cape Sable and made their way to the area below New River (Cape Florida) on the east coast, where they made contact with English wreckers at Key Tavernier.
An agreement was reached between those parties, and the wreckers soon carried about 250 black freedom seekers to Nassau, where they were clandestinely landed. Word having reached those still concealed in the swamps and hammocks about the former Pease Creek settlements; such as could made their way to the new east coast refuge, and on October 7, 1821 about 40 more Africans were gathered there to depart for Nassau (Brown 1990).
The circumstances of the refugees’ experience after their arrival at Cape Florida are unclear, although some documentary accounts provide small glimpses. West Indian coffee grower Peter Stephen Chazotte, on an expedition on behalf of a group of East Florida speculators, encountered black and Native American refugees at Cape Florida in late July or early August of 1821. A band of Choctaws were reported to have fled there temporarily from Charlotte Harbor. With them were Red Sticks and other fugitive Creeks (Brown 1991).
A St. Augustine resident wrote a lengthy account which appeared in a Boston newspaper in 1822, excerpted below:
“When the Indians went in pursuit of these negroes, such as escaped made their way down to Cape Florida and the Reef, where they were collected, within a year past, to the number of three hundred. Numbers of them have, at different times since, been carried off by the Bahama wreckers to Nassau; but the British authorities having invariably refused to allow them to be landed, they have been smuggled into remoter islands, and at this period large numbers of them are to be found on St. Andrew’s Island and the Biminis” (Brown 1990:1)
An account published in the March 22, 1822 edition of the Nassau Gazette and Bahama Advertiser, quoted in Brown 1990, stated: “It is reported that some of the wreckers had carried off from the Florida Keys several Negroes, said to be deserters from the Southern States. From what has been stated here, there is little doubt but a number of black persons have been landed on some of the islands to the leeward of this; very improperly, however, although the pretext for it is, that they were found in a nearly famishing state, on some of the Florida Keys. Such persons are not wanted here, and the country would be better rid of them” (Brown 1990:16).
In a September 23, 1823 letter to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Governor William DuVal reported that “I have been informed by Gentlemen upon whom I can rely, that there are about ninety negros (sic), fugitives from this Province and the neighboring States, on Andrews Island one of the Bahamas, & about thirty more on the Great Bahama & the neighboring Islands, those Negros went from Tampa Bay, & Charlotte Harbor, in boats to the Florida Keys from whence they were taken to the Bahamas by Providence Wreckers” (Carter 1956:745).
Accounts of the days following the attack tell of the aftermath. A remnant of the Seminoles who had been dispersed in the raid on the Pease Creek settlements appeared in St. Augustine on July 16, 1821 where they were described as “a wretched, miserable Set (sic).” There they reported the raid to the Spanish authorities (Brown 1990; Boyd 1958).
James G. Forbes reported to the Secretary of State that the group’s purpose in traveling to St. Augustine was to ascertain whether any provision in the Adams/Onis Treaty which ceded Florida to the United States would provide them protection from future attacks by the Cowetas (Carter 1956:119).
In a letter to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun written from St. Augustine on July 17, 1821, interim governor John R. Bell reported that he had drawn upon government stores for provisions for the Seminole party, who stated that the attackers had warned the remnant that they would return at the earliest opportunity to finish the work of destruction that they had started (Carter 1956:126).
John Lee Williams, traveling around Sarrazota Bay, in 1828, described one of the ruined settlements on the east shore of Palm Sound, where he discovered the ruins of about fifteen old houses then grown over with grass and weeds. “The hammock is covered with live oaks and cane … We found in 1828, in the old gardens among luxuriant weeds, tomatas (sic), lima beans, and many aromatic herbs perfectly naturalized” (Covington 1957:83). Williams also discovered Indian old fields at Roman Isle, just south of the present-day town of Goodland (Covington 1957:83).
Brown’s vital research on the Peace River frontier has illuminated the lives and fates of those blacks who had settled there in the years between 1812 and 1821. The documentary record is thus far mute on the lives of the scattered that regrouped in the area below New River, although it is reasonable to assume that some who did not have plans for immediate departure created a settlement there.
The change from Spanish to American rule was not a smooth transition. The Spanish population quickly realized the unruly settlers who visited their homes and establishments had neither the money nor inclination to purchase their property at fair market value. Why buy a house which must be vacated by the end of December? The volatile Mayor of St. Augustine Juan Entralgo refused to cooperate with Jackson, and when the Spanish Governor Don Jose Callava protested Jackson's policies, Jackson threw him in jail. Few Spaniards elected to remain under American rule. Many elected to strip their homes of anything useful and burnt the foundations so the Americans were left with ruins. Only a number of Minorcan families, who were used to being a minority in Saint Augustine, elected to stay in Florida. Many owned stores and inns which had value.
St Augustine: The restaurant is housed in renovated 1791 home, a coquina brick, 3-story structure. Locals say at least two haunts reside here, the spirit of Margaret Worth, a war widow who bought the building in the 1850s, and an unknown man. Apparitions have been seen, mysterious odors have been detected, doors open by themselves, and locked doors slam closed. Objects on many occasions have been known to move by themselves, or disappear and reappear an hour or so later; in one witness’s story, two salt shakers performed a little dance around the table. http://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/o-c-whites-seafood-and-spirits/
Huckleberry Finn influence plot
Trust someone who sells Andro and Cato
Sabrina evades the capture pretending to not know the two.
Tired of his confinement and fearing the beatings will worsen, Andro and Cato escape by faking their own death, killing a pig and spreading its blood all over the cabin.
They hide on Jackson’s Island in the middle of the Mississippi River, watch the townspeople search the river for his body. Encounter a runaway slave he who her talk about selling him to a plantation down the river, where he would be treated horribly and separated from his wife and children. Huck and Jim team up, despite Huck’s uncertainty about the legality or morality of helping a runaway slave. While they camp out on the island, a great storm causes the Mississippi to flood. Huck and Jim spy a log raft and a house floating past the island. They capture the raft and loot the house, finding in it the body of a man who has been shot. Jim refuses to let Huck see the dead man’s face.
close encounter with a gang of robbers on a wrecked steamboat. They manage to escape with the robbers’ loot.
encounter a group of men looking for escaped slaves. then lies to the men and tells them that his father is on the raft suffering from smallpox. Terrified of the disease, the men give Huck money and hurry away.
Indian Villages in Florida
Upper Creek Towns in Florida Lived in Frame Houses, women wore petticoat and short gown like white women, men wore cotton shirt fringed to below the knee
Red Town, Oponay’s Town , Totstalaor Watermelon Town, Oclacohayahe, Totstahoeetska all near Tampa
Followers of Josiah Francis and Peter McQueen from the Coosa to the east side of Tampa Bay, also new Creeks who had come to Florida --Ahhapopla, back of Mosquito Inlet, Waukasausu, and McQueen’s village
Pelaclekaha –residence of principle chief of the Seminole Micanopy 120 miles south of Alachua
Another central Florida Black Seminole village established after 1813 was the town of Pelaklakaha, also known as Abraham’s Old Town. Located in present-day Sumter County, the town was the home of Black Seminoles associated with Micanopy, a nephew of Cowkeeper and hereditary leader of the Seminole.
Micanopy’s main settlement was at the town of Okihumpky, six miles north of Pelaklakaha, but he apparently preferred to reside at Pelaklakaha, where he had additional wives (Mahon 1985; Weik 2000). Pelaklakaha was much less secluded than Sitarkey’s Village; being situated at the crossroads of a network of much-used Indian trails leading from the upper peninsula to Florida’s lower cape (Weik 2000). Their central location allowed Pelaklakaha’s inhabitants to trade and interact with Native American and black travelers enroute to South Florida hunting grounds.
Abraham was the leader of the Pelaklakaha Black Seminoles. Although Seminole subchief Jumper occupied the position of sense-bearer or counselor to Micanopy, Abraham had an enormous influence upon Micanopy and was often noticed whispering to the latter during war councils, reportedly urging him to remain firm in negotiations with the Americans (Sprague 1848). McCall (1974:160) also identifies Black Seminoles July and August as leaders at Pelaklakaha, and Potter (1966:9) mentions subchief Billy John.
Another central Florida Black Seminole village established after 1813 was the town of Pelaklakaha, also known as Abraham’s Old Town. Located in present-day Sumter County, the town was the home of Black Seminoles associated with Micanopy, a nephew of Cowkeeper and hereditary leader of the Seminole.
Micanopy’s main settlement was at the town of Okihumpky, six miles north of Pelaklakaha, but he apparently preferred to reside at Pelaklakaha, where he had additional wives (Mahon 1985; Weik 2000). Pelaklakaha was much less secluded than Sitarkey’s Village; being situated at the crossroads of a network of much-used Indian trails leading from the upper peninsula to Florida’s lower cape (Weik 2000). Their central location allowed Pelaklakaha’s inhabitants to trade and interact with Native American and black travelers enroute to South Florida hunting grounds.
Abraham was the leader of the Pelaklakaha Black Seminoles. Although Seminole subchief Jumper occupied the position of sense-bearer or counselor to Micanopy, Abraham had an enormous influence upon Micanopy and was often noticed whispering to the latter during war councils, reportedly urging him to remain firm in negotiations with the Americans (Sprague 1848). McCall (1974:160) also identifies Black Seminoles July and August as leaders at Pelaklakaha, and Potter (1966:9) mentions subchief Billy John.
Abraham (Abram) was probably born between 1787 and 1791. The former slave of a Dr. Sierra in Pensacola, Abraham was universally described as “courtly,” “genteel,” and mannered. One observer found him to have “a gentle, insinuating manner,” while another described him as “plausible, pliant and deceitful” (Porter 1946:4). Regardless of observers' varying opinions about Abraham’s underlying motives, most recognized him as a powerful and influential leader among the Middle Florida Black Seminoles (Mahon 1985).
Chucuchatta – 20 miles south of Pelaclekaha
Hitchepuesusse – 20 miles south
Big Hammock – west of Hitchepuesusse and north of Tampa Bay
Oclewahaw – west of St. Johns
Mulatto Girls’ Town—south of Caskawilla Lake
Bucker Woman’s Town—east of Big Hammock
King Heijah’s Town – South of Alachua
King Payne’s Negro Town—in Alachua (300 slaves belonging to Seminoles)
In the area of the Alachua savannah around King Payne’s old community, a cluster of Black Seminole settlements sprang up after 1813 which were connected via a system of trails used by travelers of Middle Florida’s frontier. Here, Black Seminole inhabitants came into contact with white settlers, free and enslaved Africans and African Americans, Seminoles and other Black Seminoles. The central location of these villages allowed the Black Seminoles to participate in the growing frontier economy by hiring their services as frontier guides and interpreters. They also bartered surplus proceeds from agriculture and animal husbandry to neighbors, settlers and travelers. Itinerant traders often employed black interpreters as well (Wright 1986). The largest of these settlements was King Heijo’s Town, which was situa The Seminoles who lived at Paynes Prairie (also called the Alachua Savannah) area were originally Oconee Creek Indians who visited Florida during raids by Georgia's Governor Oglethorpe. When things got too crowded in Georgia, they moved down south and established the village of Lotchaway (Alachua) around 1740. Chief Cowkeeper was one of the early leaders of the town, and moved his village again, where it became the town of Cuscowilla, near modern day Micanopy. The English signed a treaty with "Cowkeeper of Lotchaway Town," and you can see it in almost perfect condition in the Creek Museum in Olkmulgee, Oklahoma.
In 1773, English botanist William Bartram visited the Seminole town of Cuscowilla (also referred to as Taskawilla, Tuskawilla, etc...) and wrote much about his visit. These Seminoles had many European trade goods, and the town is described as having vegetable gardens and many head of cattle. (The cattle were descended from the original Spanish stock left behind in the area.) Their houses were log cabins, with some having plastered walls with frescos inside. These Seminoles were very friendly to visitors and treated Bartram very hospitable. This very organized and advanced society would go through some violent changes starting with the War of 1812.
Cowkeeper was friendly with the English, but hated the Spanish. He had caused much trouble with the Spanish and their Yamassee Indian allies around St. Augustine. On his deathbed, he mentioned how he had pledged to kill 100 Spaniards, and had his successor pledge to continue since he was 14 short of his goal. Bartram also recorded that Cowkeeper had Yamassee slaves.
Paynes Prairie State Preserve is named after King Payne, the Seminole chief who succeeded Cowkeeper as chief of the Alachua Seminoles. On September 27, 1812, King Payne with his brother Bowlegs battled against Newnan's forces from South Carolina and Georgia. Payne was injured and died a few months later, and Newnan's force was badly defeated. It was reported that Payne was killed in battle, but it is said that he attended a council a few months later.
King Payne was in favor of negotiating peace with the Americans, but died shortly after the battle with Newnan. Paynes' brother Bowlegs took over the leadership of the Alachua Seminoles, and was against removal or negotiation with the United States. One thing that Bowlegs did was to move the town to the southwest.ted below King Payne’s old town (Mahon 1985).
John Hicks Town --West of Alachua settlement of Mikosukee Indians
Coweta Indians lived south of Okefenokee Swamp
Cheehaws lived at Beech Creek
Chief Billy’s Uchees lived at Spring Garden above Lake George
Choctaws lived on West Coast of Charlotte Bay
After the Patriot War broke up Seminole and Black Seminole settlements in the Alachua area, some of the Black Seminoles separated from their brethren in Middle Florida and migrated south to the area around Pease Creek (present-day Peace River) and Charlotte Harbor. A good number of Creek and Seminole refugees accompanied them. Whether or not there were established permanent Seminole settlements or Black Seminole settlements there before 1812, is not clear from the early accounts (Brown 1991).
St. Johns River
Philip, or Emathla, the father of Coacoochee, at the onset of the Third Seminole War (1835-42), was a Mikasuki chief and with Coe Hajo occupied the country on both sides of the St. Johns River, around Lake Monroe. About sixty, Philip was known as a good-natured, sensible Indian, whose views and advice were often adopted.
St. Augustine
The change from Spanish to American rule was not a smooth transition. The Spanish population quickly realized the unruly settlers who visited their homes and establishments had neither the money nor inclination to purchase their property at fair market value. Why buy a house which must be vacated by the end of December? The volatile Mayor of St. Augustine Juan Entralgorefused to cooperate with Jackson, and when the Spanish Governor Don Jose Callava protested Jackson's policies, Jackson threw him in jail. Few Spaniards elected to remain under American rule. Many elected to strip their homes of anything useful and burnt the foundations so the Americans were left with ruins. Only a number of Minorcan families, who were used to being a minority in Saint Augustine, elected to stay in Florida. Many owned stores and inns which had value.
Kings Road
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flgssvc/old-kings-road.pdf
James William Boykin was born in 1792, lived for years near Milledgeville, Georgia, but had moved to Columbus by 1830, where he died in 1846. He married Clarissa Ann Owens, daughter of Elijah Owens and Nancy Ann Howard. Nancy Ann Howard's parents were Nehemiah Howard and Edith Smith who have numerous descendants in Columbus, Georgia. In 1830, as Ambassador of Indian Affairs, James Boykin responded to a request from Georgia Governor George R. Gilmer for information regarding a Creek Indian Council held near Fort Mitchell, Alabama. Boykin wrote the governor that he believed that Cherokee chiefs Van and Ridge attended the council to encourage rejection of proposals made by the United States government. In 1831, Boykin, along with Grigsby E. Thomas, wrote the governor again, lamenting the desperate state of our "red brethren of the Creek nation" in Columbus, Georgia, and suggesting that the President of the United States could reduce the starvation and suffering and encourage emigration so "they may [again] become a happy people."
In January 1813, shortly before the Patriots made the final assault on the Alachua settlements, Benjamin Hawkins reported that the Seminoles and blacks were fleeing to South Florida in anticipation of the attack:
“I received from an Indian of note…the following information…Paine is dead of his wounds…the warring Indians have quit this settlement, and gone down to Tellaugue Chapcopopeau, a creek which enters the ocean south of Moscheto river, at a place called the Fishery. Such of their stock as they could command have been driven in that direction, and the negroes were going the same way. The lands beyond the creek towards Florida point, were, for a considerable distance, open savannas, with ponds; and, still beyond the land, stony, to the point." 20
Hawkins was definitely describing Southwest Florida, particularly the area between Tampa Bay and present-day Ft. Myers. The “Fishery” he alluded to was the Spanish fishery located on Charlotte Harbor. Hawkins later reported: “The negroes now separated and at a distance from the Indians on the Hammocks or the Hammoc not far from Tampa bay,” after they fled the Patriots invasion. In 1815, after Nichols left the “Negro Fort,” some of the blacks no longer felt secure without the British presence. Woodbine left the “Negro Fort” with about two hundred blacks to establish a plantation south of Tampa Bay. Still more had fled after the U.S. military had destroyed their settlements around the “Negro Fort.” According to historians William S. Coker and Thomas D. Watson, “other slaves joined the blacks on the Suwannee and some fled as far south as Tampa,” after the fort’s obliteration. 21 There they built an autonomous community and cultivated the fields along the Manatee River, present day Bradenton. This community would be termed “Angola,” the last remaining stronghold for the free blacks in Florida. The term “Angola” was ascribed because many of the blacks were West African slaves who had escaped from the Carolinas. They applied an assortment of African agricultural techniques to cultivate vast acres of plantation land. A large number of Seminoles were also in the vicinity. In 1821, a South Florida Expeditionary mapped out the region. The map chart was entitled: “A draft of Sarrazota, or Runaway Negro Plantations.” 22
Various black, Seminole, Red Stick Creek, and Spanish settlements were spread out from Tampa Bay all the way down to present-day Ft. Myers. The Angola community, approximately located at present-day Sarasota, was a refuge for blacks escaping the onslaught of white slave raiders. Its population varied between 750 and 900 residents. Considering the accounts of the Creek raid on Angola, it appears that the combined number of refugees, black and Seminole, with those taken in the raid, amount to six or seven hundred at the time of its destruction. A settlement of Red Stick Creeks resided forty miles away on the Peace River. Woodbine chose to relocate the blacks from the “Negro Fort” to Tampa Bay because of its extremely fertile lands and optimal trading location. According to one report: “This is an extensive bay, and capable of admitting ships of any size, contiguous to which are the finest lands in East Florida, which Woodbine pretends belong to him by virtue of a grant from the Indians.” 23 In 1817, there were reports that Woodbine was amassing a large band of Seminole and black allies in Tampa Bay for the purpose of invading and seizing St. Augustine. This was essentially to prevent the United States from taking acquisition of the territory rather than any outright hostility against Spanish rule. The rumors never materialized though. 24 Arbuthnot and Ambrister, the two British officials executed under Jackson’s orders, supported the blacks at Angola with weapons and trade. Robert Ambrister was commissioned to ensure that the blacks that Woodbine left at Angola were secure. A witness at his trial reported: “I frequently heard him say he came to attend to Mr. Woodbine’s business at the bay of Tamper.” The same with Arbuthnot: “The prisoner was sent by Woodbine to Tampa, to see about those negroes he had left there.” 25 In 1837, John Lee Williams made observations of ruins left behind from the Angola community as he extensively explored the Manatee River: “The point between these two rivers is called Negro Point. The famous Arbuthnot and Ambrister had at one time a plantation here cultivated by two hundred negroes. The ruins of their cabins, and domestic utensils are still seen on the old fields.” 26
The Manatee River was not only an extremely fertile, easily defensible location but an optimal site for communication with the British Empire and Spanish Empire in Cuba. After the battle of Suwannee, blacks from Seminole territory found a refuge there and prepared for U.S. reprisal. Captain James Gadsden, aide to Jackson in his Florida campaign, reported back to Jackson about the importance of establishing Tampa Bay as a maritime depot: “It is the last rallying spot of the disaffected negroes and Indians and the only favorable point from whence a communication can be had with Spanish and European emissaries. Nichols it is reported has an establishment in that neighborhood and the negroes and Indians driven from Micosukey and Suwaney towns have directed their march to that quarter.” 27 In some retrospect, Angola could have been a potential last stand for the Seminoles and blacks. They began arming themselves through their Spanish and British trading partners. With reports of Spanish provision of armaments, General Gaines offered to “do what can be done with the limited means under my control, and strike at any force that may present itself.” 28 According to Gaines, the Spanish “furnished hostile Indians, at the bay of Tampa, with ten horseloads of ammunition, recommending to them united and vigorous operations against us.” 29 Jackson focused on establishing and increasing the military force in Tampa with five hundred regulars. This would be to “insure tranquility in the south.” The detachment was intended to destroy “Woodbine’s negro establishment.” 30 Col. Robert Butler reported that the blacks were fortifying themselves at Tampa Bay in anticipation of a U.S. attack. 31 Jackson had remained consistent in his goal to obliterate independent black settlements throughout the peninsula. Secretary of War Calhoun failed to authorize Jackson the use of direct military force. He knew that any further incursions into Florida would possibly put a damper on negotiations with Spain for its acquisition. Angola had secured itself for the time-being. This was until Jackson was granted governorship of the Florida territory early in 1821. On April 2, 1821, Andrew Jackson requested instruction from Secretary of State John Quincy Adams on the removal of the Red Stick and black settlements in the Tampa Bay region. 32 Before he received an answer, Jackson would take action into his own hands.
Geopolitical intrigue in Florida intended to kill two birds with one stone: defeating insubordinate natives and preventing fugitive slaves from finding safe-haven. In late April 1821, William McIntosh, Jackson-appointed brigadier general, ordered a war party of Coweta Creeks into Florida to eliminate the Red Stick Creek settlements and enslave the blacks at Angola. A force of two hundred Coweta Creeks was commissioned under the command of William Weatherford and Charles Miller, pro-white Creek chiefs who were closely associated with McIntosh. An “eye-witness,” possibly a participant in the incursion, described the purpose of the raid in the columns of the Charleston Gazette:
“Towards the end of the month of April last, some men of influence and fortune, residing somewhere in the western country, thought of making a speculation in order to obtain Slaves for a trifle. They hired Charles Miller, William Weatherford [and others], and under these chiefs, were engaged about two hundred Cowetas Indians. They were ordered to proceed along the western coast of East Florida, southerly, and there take, in the name of the United States, and make prisoners of all the men of colour, including women and children, they would be able to find, and bring them all, well secured, to a certain place, which has been kept a secret.” 33
Indian Agent John Crowell wrote about the raid in a letter to Secretary of War John Calhoun:
“Some short time previous to my coming into this agency, the chiefs, had organized a Regt. of Indian Warriors, and sent them into Florida in pursuit of negroes that had escaped from their owners, in the Creek nation as well as such as had run off from their owners in the States; this detachment has recently returned, bringing with them, to this place fifty nine negroes, besides about twenty delivered to their respective owners on their march up.” 34
The raiders wrecked havoc throughout Florida until they launched a surprise attack on Angola and devastated the settlement. The Creek raiders captured over three hundred inhabitants, plundered their plantations, and set fire to all of their homes. Afterwards, the war party made its way south and plundered the Spanish fisheries on the Caloosahatchee River. Most of the three hundred prisoners taken in the raid disappeared as the Creek party made their way back to the United States. The “eye-witness” in the Charleston Gazette detailed the raid of Angola:
“They arrived at Sazazota, surprised and captured about 300 of them, plundered their plantations, set on fire all their houses, and then proceeding southerly captured several others; and on the 17th day of June, arrived at the Spanish Ranches, in Pointerrass Key, in Carlos Bay, where not finding as many Negroes as they expected, they plundered the Spanish fishermen of more than 2000 dollars worth of property, besides committing the greatest excess. With their plunder and prisoners, they returned to the place appointed for the deposit of both.” 35
The aftermath of the Coweta Creek raid was chaotic for the free blacks and Red Stick Creeks in the Florida territory. Settlements were scattered, refugees fled into different areas, and others, having grown tired of the constant terror, escaped the country. While some remained behind under the protection of Spanish gunboats, about three hundred refugees left on canoes to the Florida Keys and escaped to the Bahamas through British wrecking vessels. The “eye-witness” detailed the aftermath of the assault:
“The terror thus spread along the Western Coast of East Florida, broke all the establishments of both blacks and Indians, who fled in great consternation. The blacks principally, thought they could not save their lives but by abandoning the country; therefore, they, by small parties and in their Indian canoes, doubled Cape Sable and arrived at Key Taviniere, which is the general place of rendezvous for all the English wreckers [those who profited from recovery of shipwreck property], from Nassau, Providence; an agreement was soon entered into between them, and about 250 of these negroes were by the wreckers carried to Nassau and clandestinely landed.” 36
A Florida observer wrote that some the blacks from the “Negro Fort”, along with runaway slaves from Florida and other Southern states, “formed considerable settlements on the waters of Tampa Bay. When the Indians went in pursuit of these negroes, such as escaped made their way down to cape Florida and the reef, about which they collected within a year and a half upwards of three hundred; vast numbers of them have been at different times since carried off by the Bahama wreckers to Nassau.” 37 After the assault, some blacks armed themselves and remained isolated in the southwest region of the state under the protection of Spanish traders. Some Florida residents petitioned the President to “retain their property” that escaped to an island or cluster of islands off the Florida west coast and were “protected by an armed banditti.” 38 In July, a small party of destitute Seminoles made their way to St. Augustine, informing Capt. John R. Bell that “very recently a party of Indians (Cawetus) said to be headed by McIntosh came into their neighborhood and had taken off a considerable number of negroes and some Indians, that the commander of party had sent them information that in a short time he should return and drive all the Indians off.” 39 Bell denied that the party was authorized by Jackson or any higher authorities, but failed to note that William McIntosh was Jackson’s close ally.
A mass exodus of blacks took place from the Keys to the Bahamas. James Forbes reported that runaway blacks were amassed at Cape Florida: “At this key, which presents a mass of mangroves, there were lately about sixty Indians, and as many runaway negroes, in search of sustenance, and twenty-seven sail of Bahaman wreckers.” 40 Florida officials were not merely satisfied with the blacks taken during the Coweta raid. In 1823, Governor Duval wrote to Calhoun in apprehension of fugitive blacks escaping to the Bahamas: “I have been informed by Gentlemen upon whom I can rely, that there are about ninety negros, fugitives from this Province and the neighboring States, on St. Andrews Island one of the Bahamas, & about thirty more on the Great Bahamas & the neighboring Islands, those Negros went from Tampa Bay, & Charlotte Harbour, in boats to the Florida Keys from whence they were taken to the Bahamas by the Providence Wreckers. The slaves might be obtained, if Com. Porter be ordered to demand them from the authorities at those Islands.” 41 James Forbes also wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, claiming that the Seminoles “apprehend some disturbance from the Cowetas. These last are said to have been at Tampa about 200 strong and taken from thence about 120 Negroes after destroying four Spanish settlements there.” 42
Calhoun shouldered the blame of the illegal incursion onto “rogue” Creek chiefs, shifting any responsibility from Andrew Jackson. He purposely avoided mentioning Jackson as the possible culprit for organizing it, his avid determination to destroy “Woodbine’s negro establishment,” or his close association with the Creek leaders who led the incursion. Jackson’s involvement was behind the scenes and there was nothing to directly implicate him. Calhoun reprimanded the Creeks in a letter to Indian Agent John Crowell:
“The expedition to Florida was entirely unknown to this Department. I have to express my concern at, and most decided approbation of, the conduct of the chiefs; that they should seize upon the very moment when that country was about to pass from the possession of Spain to that of the United States, and when everything was in confusion, to use the superior force of the Creek nation over the weakness of the Seminoles, to impose on and plunder them.” 43
Calhoun was actually more interested in the fate of the blacks taken in the raid, the most controversial aspect for Southern slaveholders. He cared nothing for the free blacks who had been seized from their lands and sold as slaves. If hundreds of fugitive slaves were indeed captured in this raid, where did they go? Crowell’s letter to Calhoun, attempting to justify the raid, indicated that this is where the Secretary of War’s main concern lied:
“Special orders were given to Col. Miller not to interrupt the person or the property of any Indian or white man & he declares that he did not take from the possession of either red or white person a single negro except one from a vessel belonging to the celebrated Nichols, lying at anchor in Tampy Bay. The negroes he took, were found and acknowledged by the inhabitants of the country to be runaways.” 44
It was presumed that most of the blacks seized in the raid were sold by the Creek mercenaries to Florida planters as they made their way back to the United States. Crowell gave a list of 59 slaves that had made it to the United States, titled a “Description of the Negroes brought into the Creek nation by a detachment of Indian Warriors under the command of Col. Wm. Miller a half breed Indian.” In turn, Calhoun gave the list to Capt. John R. Bell of St. Augustine in hopes that some Florida slaveholders could retrieve their property: “I furnished you with a list of negroes taken from the Seminole Indians by a party of Creeks; by which it would seem that many of them belong to the Inhabitants of Florida.” 45 Slaveholders attempted to retrieve the blacks taken in the raid and the black refugees who escaped to the Bahamas. The “eye-witness” in the Charleston Gazette rhetorically concluded his editorial column on the Creek incursion:
“Now all these Negroes, as well as those captured by the Indians, and those gone to Nassau, are runaway Slaves, from the Planters on St. John’s River, in Florida, Georgia, Carolina, and a few from Alabama. Cannot those Planters who have had their Negroes missing recover them by means of these chiefs I have named, and who are so well known by the parts they have been playing for some time past in the late Indian wars, and discover who are those speculative gentlemen who now hold their Negroes, and if they were lawfully their slaves? Could not all those Negroes unlawfully introduced into Nassau be also recovered by an application to the English governor, backed by a formal demand from the Government of the United States?” 46
When it came to catching the refugee blacks, Governor Duval’s hands were tied. Duval instructed Horatio S. Dexter to bring in the runaway slaves he found in the vicinity of Tampa Bay. Duval could not pursue the black refugees from Angola until he received permission from Bahaman authorities nor call out a militia against the blacks in Florida territory until given Presidential authority. Duval received information that a “considerable number of slaves” had established themselves at Pine Island on the mouth of the Charlotte River after fleeing from Tampa. They were “well armed with Spanish Muskets” and “refuse to permit any American to visit the Island.” They maintained their allegiance to the Spanish traders, cutting timber and fishing for the Havana market. In turn, the Spaniards gave them protection with several small gunboats armed with one to three guns each. Duval could not comply with the wishes of slaveholders until he received Presidential authority to which he would commission sixty mounted militiamen under the command of Col. Humphreys to apprehend the blacks. 47 The blacks and Seminoles of Middle Florida also felt the effects of the Creek incursion. The black and Red Stick Creek settlements in Middle Florida scattered into even more remote locations. In 1822, Dr. William Simmons travelled to a black settlement in the Big Swamp “accompanied by an Indian Negro, as a guide.” In his route, he witnessed “the sites of Indian towns, which had been recently broken up, and the crops left standing on the ground. These were chiefly settlements of Lower Creek Indians, who, after their defeat by General Jackson, in the late war, came down among the Seminoles, and supposing themselves peculiarly obnoxious to the Americans, dispersed themselves in the woods, or retired to remote situations, as soon as the transfer of the Province took place.” 48
Simmons also found that his black Seminole hosts had recently fled from their settlements in apprehension of Coweta slave raiders, impoverished and unable to provide him with any form of hospitality: “These people were in the greatest poverty, and had nothing to offer me; having, not long before, fled from a settlement farther west, and left their crop ungathered, from an apprehension of being seized on by the Cowetas, who had recently carried off a body of Negroes, residing near the Suwaney.” 49 U.S. imperialism in Florida meant the decentralization of black and native settlements. Ironically this would make things very difficult two years later when they attempted to concentrate them within a tight reservation. Native and black people who had once flourished on the Alachua savannah for almost a century were broken up by the Patriots invaders. Native and black people who had once cultivated the fertile banks of the Appalachicola River were broken up by a U.S. incursion that slaughtered hundreds at the “Negro Fort.” Native and black people who cultivated fields along the Suwannee River were broken up by Andrew Jackson’s incursion two years later. Native and black people who lived off of the fertile lands and abundant hunting grounds in the vicinity of Tampa Bay were broken up by a pro-white Creek incursion detached by Jackson. In four separate incursions over the span of a decade, the U.S. made it clear that its Florida policy was to subjugate its free black residents in order to make it safe for slavery to flourish.
References:
20. ASPIA 1: 838; Hayes, Louis F. Letters of Benjamin Hawkins, 1797-1815. Atlanta: Georgia Department of Archives and History, 1939. 198-200.
21. Coker, William S. and Watson, Thomas D. Indian Traders of the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Panton, Leslie & Company and John Forbes & Company, 1783-1847. Pensacola: University of West Florida Press, 1986. 309.
22. For a complete illustration of the Angola community see Brown, Canter, Jr. “Sarrazota, or runaway Negro plantations”: Tampa Bay’s First Black Community.” Tampa Bay History 12 (Fall-Winter): 5-19.
23. ASPFA 4: 603.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid. 604; ASPMA 1: 731.
26. Williams, Territory of Florida, 299-300.
27. “The Defenses of the Floridas, Report of Capt. James Gadsden to Gen. Jackson, 1818.” Florida Historical Quarterly. April 1937. 249.
28. ASPMA 1: 753.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid. 752-753.
31. Carter, Territorial Papers, XXII, 167.
32. ASPFA 4: 755.
33. “Advice to Southern Planters” in Charleston City Gazette, c. November 1821, reprinted in Philadelphia National Gazette and Literary Register, December 3, 1821, cited in Brown, “Sarrazota, or Runaway Negro Plantations.”
34. John Crowell to John C. Calhoun, January 22, 1822, in T. J. Peddy, “Creek Letters 1820-1824.” (typescript in Georgia Department of Archives and History, Atlanta), 22.2.22.C.C.
35. Brown, “Sarrazota, or Runaway Negro Plantations,” 12-15.
36. “Advice to Southern Planters” in Charleston City Gazette, c. November 1821.
37. Vignoles, Charles B. Observations upon the Floridas. New York: E. Bliss & E. White, 1823: 135-136.
38. Carter, Territorial Papers, XXII, 763.
39. Ibid. 126.
40. Forbes, Sketches, historical and topographical, of the Floridas, 105.
41. Carter, Territorial Papers, XXII, 745.
42. Ibid. 119.
43. “J.C. Calhoun to Col. John Crowell, Indian Agent.” Creek Letters 1820-1824. Georgia Dept. of Archives & History, Atlanta. September 29, 1821.
44. “John Crowell to J.C. Calhoun,” Creek Letters 1820-1824, January 22, 1822.
45. Carter, Territorial Papers, XXII, 221.
46. “Advice to Southern Planters” in Charleston City Gazette, c. November 1821.
47. Carter, Territorial Papers, XXII, 681, 744.
48. Simmons, Notice of East Florida, 41-42.
49. Ibid.
The presence of many mixed bloods in the missionary schools in Choctaw country is also reported by Reverend Jedidiah Morse in his 1820 report on 1ndian Affairs to the secretary of war. Morse stated that:
“Intermarriages…have taken place to a great extent, and this too by many men of respectable talents and standing in society. More than half the Cherokee nation, a large part of the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and I add indeed, of all other tribes with whom the whites have had intercourse, are of mixed blood. The offspring of this intercourse, a numerous body, are of promising talents and appearance. Their complexion is nearly that of the white population. They require only education, and the enjoyment of our privileges to make them a valuable portion of our citizens.”42
Among the early settlers of Laurens County was Thomas McCall, Surveyor General of Georgia in the 1780's. McCall, who served in the North Carolina militia in the American Revolution, was known throughout the South as a master winemaker, cultivating the natural grapes of the area and experimenting with imported varieties as well on his "Doll Neck" plantation near Fish Trap Cut. Gov. John Clarke, son of Gen. Elijah Clarke and bitter enemy of Gov. George Troup, owned a large tract of land in eastern Laurens County. Jonathan Sawyer, Dublin's founder, went to Darien, where he was a founding director of the Bank of Darien in 1818, the strongest bank south of Philadelphia.
Gaines Ferry near Dublin
The Oconee River and old Indian trails were the only methods of transportation. The old roads were improved. New ones were cut by the male citizens of the county and their slaves. William Neel and George Gaines established ferries across the Oconee at Sandbar prior to the formation of Laurens County. Jared Trammel established the first Laurens County ferry in 1808. That ferry was purchased by David Blackshear in 1823 and consolidated with Blackshear's old ferry. Laurens County took over the operation of the Gaines Ferry, which operated until the railroad bridged the river in 1891. Blackshear's Ferry ran under county supervision until 1947.
Cheehaw Massacre
While most muster rolls from Laurens County have not survived, many of the county's young men served in the armies formed to protect the front along the Ocmulgee River. The only known casualties were William Kemp and John Perry, soldiers in the United States Army. Ezekiel Attaway was cited for bravery during the Georgia militia's attack on Autossee in southern Alabama in 1813, a battle which saw the commanding general John Floyd fall in action. After the battle, David Blackshear took over command of the Georgia forces. In 1818, the Laurens County Dragoons, under the command of Jacob Robinson, participated in an unfortunate massacre of defenseless members of a Cheehaw Indian Village.
Laurens County's most well known resident moved here in the early 1810s. George M. Troup served in the House and Senate of the United States from 1806 to 1818. Troup lived on the old River Road just above I-16 on his Valdosta Plantation. His two other plantations, Valambrosa and Thomas Cross Roads, were located east and northeast of Dudley. George Troup was one of the largest slave owners in Laurens County. Many descendants of those slaves still live in Laurens County. One of his slaves was Isaac Jackson, known to many as "Old Isaac." Isaac was credited as being the last surviving slave of President George Washington.
Gov. Troup sought the aid of his first cousin, William McIntosh, in the acquisition of Indian lands. McIntosh, half Scottish and half Creek Indian, was Chief of the Lower Creeks and a military leader, who was allied with the Americans against the British in the War of 1812. McIntosh visited Troup on a regular basis. One legend states that the chief stayed at his reservation at Well Springs, about eight miles below Dublin, while visiting Gov. Troup. Chief McIntosh sent his children to school in Dublin during his visits. William McIntosh was attacked and murdered by upper Creeks for his part in the sale of Indian lands. His son, Chili, who went to school in Dublin, escaped and later became the first state school superintendent in Oklahoma.
During the first three years of Governor's Troup's terms in office, his personal secretary Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar lived in Troup's Valdosta home. In 1830, Lamar moved to Columbus, Georgia, where he established "The Columbus Enquirer." He joined the army of Texas after the fall of the Alamo. Colonel Lamar led the cavalry at the battle of San Jacinto and later became a major general and commander in chief of the army. Lamar served as Secretary of War in the interim administration of President David G. Burnet's cabinet. In September of 1836, in the first national election in the Republic of Texas, he was elected as the first vice-president of Texas. Two years later, when President Sam Houston could not succeed himself as President, Lamar was elected as the second president of Texas. Lamar fought in the Mexican War of 1845 as a Lt. Colonel. In the last two years of his life, Lamar served as Ambassador to Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
http://laurenscountygeorgiahistory.blogspot.com/2010/01/history-of-dublin-and-laurens-county.html
Isaac Jackson died in Montgomery County at the age of one hundred and twenty two. Isaac was a former slave of Gov. George M. Troup of Laurens County. "Old Isaac" appears in a mortgage of slaves at Troup's Valdosta Plantation in 1846. Isaac Jackson is credited with being the last surviving slave of President George Washington. Hawkinsville Dispatch, Oct. 19, 1876.
Emathla (Phillip)
(for other info on Indian villages see also: https://books.google.com/books?id=cPZSZ6zedDkC&pg=PA407&lpg=PA407&dq=location+of+long+swamp+east+of+Big+Hammock&source=bl&ots=d_qk1FsxCy&sig=ujzZo9JUnYq-Quya5MBPnTAttYI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iTW8VJb2BpDlgwSd1oPYDw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=location%20of%20long%20swamp%20east%20of%20Big%20Hammock&f=false
Early history of the Creek Indians and their neighbors
By John Reed Swanton
The chief known to the Seminoles as Emathla but better known to the U.S. Army as King Philip would have liked that.
The site, after all, was his hiding place, his sanctuary.
Philip, a powerful leader among the Seminoles of the St. Johns River valley, called the lake ''Tohopekaliga,'' a word that meant ''fort site.'' Philip built a stockade-like settlement on an isolated island surrounded by thick foliage.
The spelling ''Topkoliky'' and also ''Tohopkeliky'' appear in the journal of Myer M. Cohen, an officer during the Seminole wars.
''There is a large lake, containing a number of islands, upon the largest of which Philip is established,'' according to Cohen's Notices of Florida: The Campaigns.
In 1836 Cohen, a lawyer and former teacher from Charleston, S.C., was in Florida for four months as a staff officer of Gen. Abraham Eustis.
''This island is surrounded with water so deep, that it cannot be forded, except in one place, nor can it be approached from any point without discovery,'' Cohen writes. ''Here the old chief resides, with his women, children, old men and negroes, attending to the cultivation of his crops, whilst his warriors are marauding about the country.''
Philip and a black ally named John Caesar had raided coastal and St. Johns River sugar plantations in what then was called Mosquito County, which included all of what today is Osceola County and a lot more.
Only days after Seminoles ambushed Maj. Francis Dade, slaughtering nearly all of his 108 soldiers near Bushnell, and Seminole leader Osceola murdered federal agent Wiley Thompson, Philip led raiding parties on attacks of plantations east of the St. Johns to St. Augustine.
Afterwards, his bands slipped back to the safety of their Lake Toho island. In the years to come, Philip's son, Coacoochee, who was born on the island, carried on his father's battle. Coacoochee, a fierce warrior known to the Army as Wildcat, led the Feb. 8, 1837, attack by more than 200 Seminoles on the army camp on Lake Monroe. His battle cry, according to Dr. Jacob Motte's war journal, was ''tohopeka,'' which he said was their term for a fort or strong place.
Fort footnote: Cohen lists a battle at ''Tohopka'' as one of the ''forts of Indian allies'' where Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the Creeks of the Southeast before invading Spanish Florida, an act that set off the first of the three Seminole wars and led to Spain's decision to let the United States take Florida in 1821.
Wild Cat, born Coacoochee or Cowacoochee (c. 1807/1810–1857), was a leading Seminole chieftain during the later stages of the Second Seminole War as well as the nephew of Micanopy.
Wild Cat's exact place year and place of birth is not agreed upon. Many local scholars believe he was born in 1807 on an island in big Lake Tohopekaliga, south of Orlando.[1][2][3] Some scholars say Wild Cat was born to King Philip (or Ee-mat-la) in Yulaka, a Seminole village along the St. Johns River in northern Florida around 1810. Still others suggest that he was born near present day Apopka, Florida.[4] Wild Cat may have had a twin sister who died at birth and, having been born a twin, he was regarded by the tribe as being particularly gifted. As tensions mounted between Seminoles and local settlers following the purchase of Florida by the United States in 1821, Seminole tribes encouraged the escape of slaves in neighboring Georgia in reaction to encroaching settlers who began settling on the Florida coast previously occupied by Seminoles.
At the start of the Second Seminole War, the nineteen-year-old Wild Cat gained prominence leading a band of Seminoles and Black Seminoles until his father's capture and imprisonment in Fort Marion in 1837. Although some of the Black Seminoles had fled to Florida to escape slavery, most of the Black Seminoles were free descendants of Black Seminoles who had lived in Florida for more than a century.
In October 1837, Wild Cat appeared before American forces in a ceremonial peace headdress claiming to be an emissary of Osceola and, after negotiations with Colonel Thomas S. Jesup, American authorities agreed to peace talks. However, after the arrival of the Seminoles, Jesup ordered their arrest. While imprisoned at Fort Marion, Wild Cat would escape with nineteen other Seminoles, reportedly fasting for six days before they were able to slide through the bars of their jail cell and drop into the moat on the outside of the fort.
With the imprisonment of Osceola, Wild Cat emerged as the leading commander of the war fighting with Alligatorand Arpeika against Colonel Zachary Taylor at the inconclusive Battle of Lake Okeechobee on December 25, 1837 before retreating to the Everglades. In 1841, only two years after his father's death while being transported to Indian Territory, Wild Cat agreed to meet American authorities for peace negotiations. After negotiating with Lieutenant William T. Sherman at the Indian River post of Fort Pierce, Wild Cat agreed to be transported to Fort Gibson in Oklahoma's Indian Territory along with his remaining two hundred followers. Growing depressed over his forced surrender, he was said to have stated, "I was in hopes I would be killed in battle, but a bullet never reached me."'
Traveling to Washington, D.C. with Alligator as part of a Seminole delegation in 1843, Wild Cat failed to gain financial aid for the Seminoles as the tribe suffered a series of floods and raids by neighboring Creeks (capturing free blacks and Indians and selling them to southern slave holders). This devastated the black and Indian Seminoles. Conditions continued to worsen until 1849 when Wild Cat left the reservation with about one hundred followers, consisting of Seminoles and black Seminoles, which included some former slaves, and escaped to Texas. Joined by about one thousand Kickapoos, Wild Cat's band eventually were able to establish a new community in Mexico where the government awarded the tribe an area of land in recognition for their service against Apache and Comanche raiders. Earning a commission of Colonel in the Mexican army, Wild Cat would live with the Seminoles until his death of smallpox in Alto, Mexico in 1857. He was succeeded by his son Gato Chiquito or Young Wild Cat.
On May 29, 2012 an application was registered at the US Bureau of Geographic Names to name a stretch of unnamed barrier islands on the Florida East Coast for this chief.
Book 3 of the Creek Indian Family Saga went through a series of titles and has finally wound up with the title THE CHASE IS ON. It began as THE SONS OF CAESAR.
TIMELINE OF SONS OF CAESAR
Prologue, August, 1813
Sheba must give up her twin sons.
Chapter One, January 1821
Andro and Sabrina get kidnapped and escape by hiding in barrels that make their way onto a Dutch clipper heading for America.
Chapter Two November 1820
Rescued from the Massacre at Fort Mims by Lyssa Rendel Kincaid and Joie Kincaid, Andro becomes a part of a new family. Papa Jake Rendel assumes his position as heir to a title and an estate and takes his entire family to England to take possession of his holdings. This includes his wife, Malee, daughter of Choctaw chief Pushmataha; their son, Lancelot Rendel, and daughter Lyssa. Their family consists also of Lyssa’s husband Cade Kincaid, their children and the orphans Lyssa and Cade’s sister Joie rescued from the massacre at Fort Mims, Andro, Meme, Sister, Running Elk, Ben, and J. J., Cade, Joie and Gabriel Kincaid’s infant brother. (Swimming with Serpents, Mercer University Press, 2013).
Cade, Joie and Gabriel, like Lyssa’s mother, are of mixed blood, white and Indian.
As a toddler, Andro demonstrates a fascination with Grandpa Jake’s extensive library. The Duke takes him under his wing and teaches him just as he did Lyssa and Lance. Andro’s early readers are the Bible and the London Times. He surprises the Duke with gifted intelligence, and an uncanny and unerring vision for how events and statistics pertain to future events. The Duke acts on Andro’s insights and accrues a fortune. He buys out a shipping company. Jealousy, bitterness and resentment at his success make enemies for life.
With his love for the black child, Andro, the Duke sees slavery through a different perspective and realizes this boy that he sees as a grandchild would be endangered in America, the duke attempts to find answers for the condition of slavery on the American plantation he inherits from his father. He is drawn to the Clapham Sect a group of Christian, influential, like-minded social reformers intent upon the abolition of slavery. Through this group, he becomes acquainted with Stapleton who has connections with the government and a friendship between his son-in-law’s sister, Joie Kincaid, springs up based on their common interest in horses.
Meme, a petite, ethereal blonde, captured along with Andro, bonded to Andro when as toddlers ten years ago, they were rescued at Fort Mims. She and Andro befriend their aunt Joie’s blind friend, Sabrina Stapleton. Sabrina, determined to make the most of the condition in which she finds herself, draws inspiration from a great uncle, James Fielding, who, though blind, assisted another uncle, Henry Fielding in establishing the Bow Street Runners. James became magistrate after his brother Henry. He could recognize the dialect and identify the person, and also determine the veracity of testimony simply from their speech. Andro accompanies her to court hearings and encourages her in establishing a detective agency.
Andro and Sabrina are in St. James Park discussing the agency when they hear Meme’s cry. Andro rushes to rescue her from the assailants who are attempting to toss her into a carriage. Sabrina follows the sound of the scuffle and pulls a pistol from her reticule shooting and injuring one of the assailants. Meme escapes, but the chloroformed Andro and Sabrina are kidnapped and taken to a warehouse on the Thames. Andro escapes his bonds, frees Sabrina and the two hide in barrels when the assailants discover their escape and set their henchmen to find them.
When the barrels in which they hide are taken as a part of the supplies for a ship in port, Sabrina and Andro wind up in the hold of Dutch merchant ship going to sea.
Chapter Three
December 1820
The ship is set upon by pirates who investigate the cargo and discover useless stowaways, Andro and Sabrina. They are taken back to the ship under the command of a huge black pirate by the name of Caesar. Curiously, the mention of Joie Kincaid saves them from walking the plank. They convince the pirate leader to allow them to leave the ship at Amelia Island.
Chapter Four
Cato, raised as a slave, though one favored to be the master’s sons playmates, has just discovered the origin of his birth. He overhears a conversation that motivates him to run away.
Chapter 5
Sabrina visits the port office for Andro’s grandfather’s shipping company. The manager has heard of Sabrina’s father, Sir James Stapleton, and Andro. They convince the manager that they are who they say they are and they are supplied with funds and a booking on a ship to return to England.
Departing from a tavern where they have gone to enjoy a celebratory meal, a thin black boy rips Sabrina’s reticule from her arm. Andro takes chase and Sabrina follows. Andro tackles the undernourished boy and is shocked to see his face on the other boy. Cato is Andro’s twin brother, taken as booty by a Red Stick warrior at Fort Mims. He has discovered who their mother is and that their mother lives and may be at Angola, a community of escaped slaves and free blacks on the Manatee River on the West Coat of Florida.
Voodoo Woman from Haiti hides them. Communication through song.
Andro realizes that he has left Sabrina alone for too long. He and Cato return to find her in the clutches of men sent by the manager to recapture her and Andro and bring them to him where he, once a co-owner of the shipping line along with the original abductor, will blackmail the Duke and then kill Sabrina and Andro who could identify him.
They make their escape, though Cato would just as soon throw the white woman to the wolves. Andro refuses. She is his friend. He is a gentleman. Cato argues that he cannot be a gentleman. Because of his harsh treatment and experience he initially thinks he cannot be a friend to someone of a different race. Thus begins the conflict over Sabrina and the issues of right and wrong. Andro speaks like an English gentleman. Cato talks in the dialect of a black slave. They learn from one another. Cato is shocked that Andro is as knowledgeable about Indian ways as he is. But, perhaps most shocking, they discover a telepathic bond.
Chapter Five
The change from Spanish to American rule was not a smooth transition. The Spanish population quickly realized the unruly settlers who visited their homes and establishments had neither the money nor inclination to purchase their property at fair market value. Why buy a house which must be vacated by the end of December? The volatile Mayor of St. Augustine Juan Entralgorefused to cooperate with Jackson, and when the Spanish Governor Don Jose Callava protested Jackson's policies, Jackson threw him in jail. Few Spaniards elected to remain under American rule. Many elected to strip their homes of anything useful and burnt the foundations so the Americans were left with ruins. Only a number of Minorcan families, who were used to being a minority in Saint Augustine, elected to stay in Florida. Many owned stores and inns which had value.
Chapter Six
Gabe and Moses Elias Levy pursue.
Sabrina Stapleton’s locket is found in the warehouse. Gabriel Kincaid and Moses Levy return to America on a ship together. Gabriel learns more of the political situation in Florida.
Chapter 6
gang of robbers Murrell?
raft
April, 1821 Charles Miller, McIntosh and Weatherford lead war party of Coweta Creeks
A few days later, Sabrina, Andro and Cato, rescue a pair of men who are being pursued by armed bandits. The men, clearly con artists, claim to be a displaced English duke (the duke) and the long-lost heir to the French throne (the dauphin)
August 15, 1820, Port au Prince had burned, resulting in damages value in the millions. The same month, Christophe was stricken by paralysis and, while he was invalided, revolt broke out on the island. By October 8, he was a suicide
Bartram.
Bartram to Cuscowilla Lake
Bartram's Travels is the short title of naturalist William Bartram's book describing his travels in the American South and encounters with American Indians between 1773 and 1777. The book was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1791 by the firm of James & Johnson.
The book's full title is Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions; Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians.
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Big Talbot Island, Duval County |
n March of 1774, William Bartram boarded ship at St. Simons Island, Georgia for the St. Johns River. He was bound specifically for Spalding and Kelsall’s Lower Store, located at present Stokes Landing on the west side of the river about six miles southwest of present Palatka, and to this point he had already dispatched his chest of books and valuable papers.
James Spalding of St. Simons Island was senior partner in the trading firm of Spalding and Kelsall. He gave Bartram letters to his agents instructing them to furnish him with guides, horses and any other assistance needed. Spalding and Kelsall also maintained at present Astor a store called the Upper Store. The Lower Store served as a distribution point for the Upper Store and the trading houses at Alachua and at Talahosochte on the Suwanee River, and was the center to which shipments of Indian goods were sent for dispatch to Savannah or Sunbury and eventually to Europe. The Lower Store was managed by Charles McLatchy, and the Upper Store was under the direction of Job Wiggens and his Indian wife.
As Bartram’s ship ran by Cumberland Island they met a trading schooner from the stores on the St. Johns. Passengers on the trading vessel told of recent raids by the Indians upon both Spalding stores, and the captain determined to return to Frederica on St. Simons Island for instructions. Bartram, however, was anxious to proceed, and he prevailed upon the captain to put him ashore on Cumberland Island so that he might continue his journey. (Bartram identifies this as Little St. Simons Island, but it is today known as Cumberland.) Aside from Fort William, at the southern end of the island, most of Cumberland was then uninhabited, accounting for Bartram’s report of “harsh treatment from thorny thickets and prickly vines.”(66) He was taken to Amelia Island, Florida, by the captain of Fort William.
Bartram landed on the north end of Amelia Island and crossed present Clark’s Creek (formerly Egan’s Creek) to the headquarters of Lord Egmont’s plantation. Mr. Egan was plantation agent or manager. The plantation contained between eight and nine thousand acres, and a town—Egmont Town—laid out in 1770 on the northern end. Bartram remained several days on this plantation and reported that he was much impressed with the fine state of cultivation, particularly of the indigo. According to local historians, the indigo plantation was in the northeastern sector of present Fernandina. Bartram observed here several very large Indian mounds. Francis Harper’s commentary in the Naturalist’s Edition of Bartram’s Travels notes that in 1940, remnants of one large sand mound and three shell mounds existed. The sand mound was on the grounds of Public School No. 1 on the north side of Atlantic Avenue near 12th Street. A large part of it had been removed in building the school or grading the grounds, so that it was impossible to tell how high it had originally been. The remnant was about 10 feet above the general level. This had been described by Brinton,(67) who estimated its height at 20 to 35 feet and reported that human bones and utensils had been disinterred. One of the shell mounds was about 200 yards south of the Amelia Island Lighthouse, the second about 3/8 mile east near Clark’s Creek, and the third about a mile south of the first.
Bartram left the Egmont Plantation by boat, passing through Kingsley Creek and across Nassau Sound. His party probably camped on the north end of Talbot Island, as Bartram reported a well of fresh water there; Faden’s Atlas of 1776 shows a small spring in that location. They then proceeded by way of Sawpit Creek and Sister Creek to Cow-Ford, present Jacksonville. At that time there was a public ferry there, and nearby—probably in the area of Arlington on the east side of the St. Johns opposite Jacksonville—Bartram secured a small boat and fitted it with sails for the journey up the river.
Bartram mentioned that it was now about the middle of April. After leaving Cow-Ford he probably camped first in or near present Ortega. The next day he recrossed the river to the vicinity of Goodby’s Creek where he visited the Marshall Plantation (formerly Greenwood’s, familiar to him from his earlier travels with his father). The next plantation after Marshall’s was very likely at New Switzerland Point in St. Johns County where Francis Philip Fatio of Berne, Switzerland, had received a grant in 1772. He may well have been the host who assured Bartram that the trouble with the Indians had been settled and that he might proceed up the river without fear.
Bartram sailed up the river to Picolata where he found the old fort dismantled and deserted. On a previous visit here in 1765, he had attended a congress with the Lower Creek Indians (68) called by Governor Grant. This was also near the spot where he had tried his hand as a planter of rice and indigo—and failed some eight years before.
His next camp was very probably in the area of Hibernia near the mouth of Clark’s Creek in Clay County, on the west bank of the river. His description of the giant live oak corresponds closely to the great oak still standing at Hibernia as late as 1940. He next stopped somewhere between Racy Point and Tocoi Creek; the description of the still lagoon indicates that it might well have been the cove at the mouth of Tocoi Creek.
Bartram kept along the west shore, probably crossing between Racy Point on the east shore and Nine Mile Point on the west, the logical place to have crossed to shorten the distances in the curving river. He spoke of “doubling a long point of land”(69)—most likely Forrester’s Point on the east shore three miles north of Palatka He described the promontory and Indian settlement on the site of Palatka. Some of the Indian youths were fishing; others were shooting frogs with bows and arrows. Some of the women were hoeing corn. Bartram reported a large orange grove at one end of the village with trees large and carefully pruned and the ground beneath them clean, open and airy. Several hundred acres were cleared for cultivation around the village, much of which was planted in corn, beans, potatoes, squash, pumpkins, melons and tobacco.
Bartram stopped at Rollestown (or Charlotia), located on the east shore of the river between East Palatka and San Mateo. Rollestown was a social experiment in settlements under the direction of Denys Rolle, who peopled his grant with vagrants, beggars, debtors and women of the street. It was first established in 1764 and led a fitful existence, receiving occasional shiploads of shiftless settlers who soon drifted elsewhere. At the time of Bartram’s visit in 1774, only the overseer and the blacksmith and their families were in residence. Florida Power and Light Company now has a generating plant on the site of this ill-fated settlement.
At Rollestown Bartram secured directions to the island to which the traders had removed their goods at the time of the Indian raids. This was Murphy’s Island, about seven miles up river from Rollestown. It is a large, shell-based island with low swampy areas at each end but a high and hammocky section in the middle. It lies just up river from Dunn’s Creek. Upon arrival there, Bartram found that his chest and its contents were intact and would shortly be removed with the trade goods back to the Lower Store, so he went on to the store.
Stokes Landing’ site of the Lower Store, is now a fishing camp, facing Stokes Island a short distance off shore. According to local tradition, the store stood in a grove of live oak trees (still standing) some hundred yards west of the landing, for here some very old bricks from a well or chimney were excavated. Some Seminole pottery has also been recovered from this site
A few days after his arrival at the Lower Store in April, Bartram joined a trading party preparing to leave for the trading house on the Alachua Savanna near the Indian village of Cuscowilla on Tuscawilla Lake near present Micanopy. (Micanopy is in Alachua County; it was the first permanent white settlement in that county and was earlier known as Wanton and later as Fort Defiance.) Cuscowilla was founded by the famed Chief Cowkeeper of the Creeks. Chief Payne of Cuscowilla gave his name to Payne’s Prairie (the Alachua savanna) and Chief Micanopy gave his name to the town which now stands on the site of Cuscowilla.
Micanopy, site of the Seminole village of Cuscowilla |
From the Lower Store Bartram and his party traveled southwest about four miles to Camp Branch, crossing Deep Creek, and passing present Kenwood. Beyond Kenwood the old trail passed north of Hewitt Lakes, across Little Cabbage Creek, to present Johnson. A mile and a half west of Johnson lies Cowpen Lake (Bartram’s Halfway Pond). The party crossed Little Orange Lake, Lochloosa Creek (near the north- western corner of Orange Lake), the River of Styx, Tuscawilla Lake and arrived at the village of Cuscowilla.
The Indians had moved from their village of Alachua on the border of the great Alachua savanna (present Payne’s Prairie, crossed by Highway 441 just south of Gainesville) to Cuscowilla on the edge of Lake Tuscowilla because of the “unhealthiness, as they say, occasioned by the stench of putrid fish and reptiles in the summer and autumn, driven on shore by the alligators, and the exhalation from marshes of the swamps, together with the persecution of the musquitoes.”(70)
Only a small garden spot was planted at each Indian habitation in Cuscowilla. Most of their planting was done on the rich lands bordering the savanna. Youths from the village were on guard by day against predatory animals and birds; by night the men patrolled the corn fields against bear, deer and raccoons. Bartram, who made two sketches of the savanna, described it as follows:
“The extensive Alachua savanna is a level green plain, above fifteen miles over, fifty miles in circumference, and scarcely a tree or bush of any kind to be seen on it. It is encircled with high, sloping hills, covered with waving forests and fragrant Orange groves, rising from an exuberantly fertile soil. The towering magnolia grandiflora and transcendent Palm stand conspicuous among them…Herds of sprightly deer, squadrons of the beautiful fleet Siminole horse, flocks of turkeys, civilized communities of the sonorous watchful crane, mix together, appearing happy and contented in the enjoyment of peace, till disturbed and affrighted by the warrior man.”(7l)
Gather images: Maps, historical figures, etc.
Maps and Places:
ONE STEP AWAY FROM FOREVER (formerly Swimming with Serpents)
Imagined trading post and cabin where Joie Kincaid was born
Choctaw chief Pushmataha
Indian Council House at Mission San Luis. probably what the council house in Tuckabatchee where Tecumseh spoke
Tecumseh (cousin of Josiah Francis)
William Augustus Bowles
Massacre at Fort Mims
William Weatherford
Far Off Warrior
Davy Crockett
Horseshoe Bend Swamp
Fort Gadsden built on the remains of the Negro Fort
Location of the Spanish Fort on the St. Marks River
THE CHASE IS ON (formerly On to Angola)
Also how I imagine the Okefenokee Swamp
Pirate Gaspar
ABRAHAM
Gasparilla's ship
Jean Lafitte
Lyssa Rendel? 
Cade Kincaid
Gabe Kincaid? 
Godfrey Lewis Winkel? 
Meme?
Sabrina Stapleton?
Andro and Cato
Black Caesar? Sheba?
Coweta Indian leader William McIntosh
So, how do I handle character development? I find actors who exemplify, to me, the characters in my novels.
I include these biographies in response to the arrogance of those who write "just the facts man" nonfiction and think that those of us who write historical fiction have done any less research. Many of these books are in my own possession and a part of my personal library. I list them with great respect to the authors. I do think we share a common purpose: introducing a time and a people that should be remembered.
End notes:
1 John Swanton, Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians (Smithsonian Institution: Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin no. 103, 1931), 4.
2 Gideon Lincecum, “Life of Apushimataha,” Mississippi Historical Society Publications (1906) 9:415-485; and H. B. Cushman, History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians (originally published in 1899; reprinted Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999).
3 On the Choctaw-Creek war see Greg O'Brien, “Protecting Trade through War: Choctaw Elites and British Occupation of the Floridas,” Martin Daunton and Rick Halpern, eds., Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 1600-1850 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 149-166.
4 Swanton, Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians, 121
Further reading:
James Taylor Carson, Searching for the Bright Path: The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to Removal (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).
H. B. Cushman, History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians (originally published 1899; reprinted Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999).
Clara Sue Kidwell, Choctaws and Missionaries in Mississippi, 1818-1918 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).
Gideon Lincecum, “Life of Apushimataha,” Mississippi Historical Society Publications (1906) 9:415-485.
Greg O'Brien, Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age, 1750-1830 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming).
John Swanton, Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians (Smithsonian Institution: Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin no. 103, 1931).
Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983).
Websites:
Pushmataha
http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature18/pushmataha.html
Sam Moniac Deposition to Judge Harry Toulman http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cmamcrk4/crkdox1.html#anchor773321
War of 1812
Draft as of 22 March 1997
HISTORICAL RESOURCES BRANCH
US ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
UNITED STATES MILITARY HISTORY:
WAR OF 1812
Southern Operations
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Adams, Reed M. B. "New Orleans and the War of 1812." Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 16 (1933), pp. 221-234, 479-503, 681-703; 17 (1934), pp. 169-182, 349-363, 502-523.
Akers, Frank Heiman, Jr. "The Unexpected Challenge: The Creek War of 1813-1814." Ph.D. Dissertation, Duke University, 1975.
Alexander, J. H. "The Ambush of Captain John Williows, U.S.M. C.: Failure of the East Florida Invasion, 1821-1813." Florida Historical Quarterly, 56 (January 1978), pp. 280-296.
Bassett, John S. The Life of Andrew Jackson. 2 vols. Garden City: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1911.
Biggin, Dorothea C. "The Creek Wars in Alabama--1813-1814." Master's Thesis, Auburn University, 1930.
Blackshear, David. Memoir of General David Blackshear. Edited by Stephen F. Miller. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1858.
Brannon, Peter A. "Fort Mitchell." Arrow Points, 3 (November 1921), pp. 72-75.
-----. "Fort Bainbridge; a Military Post Established by General John Floyd of the Georgia militia in 1814." Arrow Points, 5 (August 1922), pp. 21-28.
-----. "Camp Mandaville." Arrow Points, 8 (February 1924), pp. 48-49.
Brooks, Charles B. The Siege of New Orleans. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1961.
Brown, Wilbert S. The Amphibious Campaign for West Florida and Louisiana, 1814-1815: A Critical Review of Strategy and Tactics at New Orleans. University: University of Alabama Press, 1969.
Buell, Augustus C. A History of Andrew Jackson. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904.
Carr, James A. "The Battle of New Orleans and the Treaty of Ghent." Diplomatic History, (Summer 1979), pp. 273-282.
Carter, Samuel. Blaze of Glory: the Fight for New Orleans, 1814-1815. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971.
Chidsey, David B. The Battle of New Orleans. New York: Crown, 1961.
Claiborne, John F. H. Life and Times of General Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1860.
Claiborne, W. C. C. Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 1801-1816. Edited by Dunbar Rowland. 6 vols. Jackson, Miss.: State Department of Archives and History, 1917.
Coffee, John. "Letters of General John Coffee to his Wife, 1813-1815." Edited by John H. DeWitt. Tennessee Historical Magazine, 2 (December 1916), pp. 264-295.
Coker, William S. "The Last Battle of the War of 1812: New Orleans. No, Fort Bowyer!" Alabama Historical Quarterly, (Spring 1981), pp. 42-63.
Coley, C. J. "The Battle of Horseshoe Bend." Alabama Historical Quarterly, 14 (January 1952), pp. 129-134.
Colyar, A. S. Life and Times of Andrew Jackson, Soldier, Statesman, President. 2 vols. Nashville: Marshall & Bruce Co., 1904.
Cook, William C. "The Early Iconography of the Battle of New Orleans, 1815-1819." Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 48 (Winter 1989), pp. 218-237.
Cutrer, Thomas W. "'The Tallapoosa Might Truly Be Called the River of Blood': Major Alexander McCulloch and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, March 27, 1813." Alabama Review, 43 (January 1990), pp. 35-39.
Davis, Frederick T. "United States Troops in Spanish East Florida, 1812-1813." Florida Historical Quarterly, 9 (July 1930), pp. 3-23.
DeGrummond, Jane L. The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1961.
Doster, James F. "Letters Relating to the Tragedy of Fort Mims: August-September, 1813." Alabama Review, 14 (October 1961), pp. 269-285.
Eaton, John H. The Life of Major General Andrew Jackson. Philadelphia: McCarthy & Davis, 1828.
-----, and John Reid. The Life of Andrew Jackson, Major General in the Service of the U.S.: Creek Campaign to New Orleans. Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son, 1817.
Eggleston, George C. Red Eagle and the Wars with the Creek Indians of Alabama. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1878.
Faust, Richard H. "Another Look at General Jackson and the Indians of the Mississippi Territory." Alabama Review, (July 1975), pp. 202-217.
Faye, Stanley. "British and Spanish Fortifications of Pensacola, 1781-1821." Florida Historical Quarterly, 20 (January 1942), pp. 277-292.
Fisher, Ruth Anna, editor. "The Surrender of Pensacola as Told by the British." American Historical Review, 54 (January 1949), pp. 326-329. [1814]
Foster, A. P. "Camp Blount, Tennessee." History Magazine, 1 (1931), pp. 270-273.
Fredericksen, John C. "A Georgia Officer In the War of 1812: The Letters of William Clay Comming." Georgia Historical Quarterly, 71 (1987), pp. 668-692.
-----. "Colonel James Burn and the War of 1812: the Letters of a South Carolina Officer." South Carolina Historical Magazine, 90 (October 1989), pp. 299-312.
Gray, R. H., and John B. Fiske. "Camp Blount, Tennessee." Arrow Points, 10 (April 1925), pp. 55-56.
Halbert, Henry S. "Were there one or two Black Warrior Expeditions during Creek War of 1813 and 1814?" Gulf, March 1, 1902, pp. 145-146.
-----, and Timothy H. Ball. The Creek War of 1813-1814. Montgomery: White, Woodruff & Fowler, 1895. [Reprinted and edited by Frank L. Owsley, Jr., University: University of Alabama Press, 1969]
Hall, Arthur H. "The Red Stick War; Creek Indian Affairs During the War of 1812." Chronicles of Oklahoma, 12 (1934), pp. 264-293.
Hasbrouck, Alfred. "Our Undeclared War with Spain." Military Affairs, 2 (Fall 1938), pp. 115-125.
Haynes, Robert V. "The Southwest and the War of 1812." Louisiana History, 5 (Winter 1964), pp. 41-51.
Henderson, William Abbot. "Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane and the Southern Campaign to New Orleans, 1814-1815." Southern Historian, 8 (Spring 1987), pp. 24-38.
Holland, James W. Andrew Jackson and the Creek War: Victory at the Horseshoe. University: University of Alabama Press, 1968.
-----. "Andrew Jackson and the Creek War: Victory at the Horseshoe." Alabama Review, 21 (October 1968), pp. 243-275.
Horseshoe Bend Battle Park Association. Significance of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend Alabama, March 27, 1814. Birmingham: Alabama Power Co., 1956.
Ivers, Larry E. "The Battle of Fort Mosa." Georgia Historical Quarterly, (June 1967), pp. .
Jackson, Andrew. "Letters of Andrew Jackson, 1813-1820." Magazine of History, 25 (July 1917), pp. 43-48.
James, Marquis. Andrew Jackson, The Border Captain. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1933.
Latimer, Margaret Kinard. "South Carolina--A Protagonist of the War of 1812." American Historical Review, 61 (July 1956), pp. 914-929.
Latour, Arsene Lacarrière. Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814-1815. Edited by Rembert W. Patrick and translated by H. P. Nugent. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1964.
Lengel, Leland L. "The Road to Fort Mims: Judge Harry Toulmins Observations on the Creek War, 1811-1813." Alabama Review, (January 1976), pp. 16-36.
McIlwaine, Finley. "The Horseshoe." Tennessee Valley Historical Review, 2 (Fall 1973), pp. 2-11.
Maclay, Edgar S. "The Battle of New Orleans Half Won at Sea." Magazine of History, 16 (January 1913), pp. 29-34.
Mahon, John K. "The Carolina Brigade Sent Against the Creek Indians in 1814." North Carolina Historical Review, 28 (October 1951), pp. 421-425.
-----. "British Strategy and Southern Indians: War of 1812." Florida Historical Quarterly, 44 (April 1966), pp. 285-302.
Martin, Joel W. Sacred Revolt: The Muskogees' Struggle for a New World. Boston: Beacon, 1991.
Murdoch, Richard K. "A British Report on West Florida and Louisiana, November 1812." Florida Historical Quarterly, 43 (July 1964), pp. .
Nelson, Larry L. "The Mapping of Fort Meigs." Northwest Ohio Quarterly, 58 (Autumn 1986), pp. 123-142.
Orr, W. B. "Surrender at Weatherford." Alabama Transactions, 2 (1898), pp. 57-59.
Owsley, Frank Lawrence, Jr. Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands: The Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans, 1812-1815. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1981.
-----. "Jackson's Capture of Pensacola." Alabama Review, 19 (July 1966), pp. 175-185.
-----. "British and Indian Activities in Spanish West Florida During the War of 1812." Florida Historical Quarterly, 46 (October 1967), pp. 111-123.
-----. "The Role of the South in the British Grand Strategy in the War of 1812." Tennessee Historical Quarterly, (Spring 1972), pp. 22-38.
Parsons, Edward A. "Jean Lafitte in the War of 1812." American Antiquarian Society Proceedings, New Ser., 50 (October 1940), pp. 205-224.
Parton, James. Life of Andrew Jackson. 3 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1887-1888. [Original edition New York: Mason Brothers, 1861]
-----. General Jackson. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1912.
Patrick, Rembert W. Florida Fiasco: Rampant Rebels on the Georgia-Florida Border, 1810-1815. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954.
Peterkin, Ernest W., and Detmar H. Finke. "Regulations Prescribing the Uniform for the Southern Department, 24 January 1813." Military Collector and Historian, 42 (Fall 1990), pp. 82-89.
Quinn, Yancy M., Jr. "Jackson's Military Road." Journal of Mississippi History, (November 1979), pp. 335-350.
Reilly, Robin. The British at the Gates: The New Orleans Campaign in the War of 1812. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974.
Ricketts, Robert. "The Men and the Ships of the British Attack on Fort Bowyer--February 1815." Gulf Coast Historical Review, 5 (Spring 1990), pp. 7-17.
Rogers, Micasah C. "Report of Dec. 21, 1814." American Historical Magazine, 7 (April 1903), p. 180.
Rowland, Eron O. Andrew Jackson's Campaign Against the British, or the Mississippi Territory in the War of 1812, Concerning the Military Operations of the Americans, Creek Indians, British, and Spanish, 1813-1815. New York: Macmillan Co., 1926.
Sevier, John. "Views of John Sevier on the Second War with England, 1812-1815." Gulf States Historical Magazine, 1 (March 1903), pp. 357-358.
Smith, Thomas Adam. "United States Troops in Spanish East Florida, 1812-1813." Edited by T. Frederick Davis. Florida Historical Quarterly, 9-10 (1930-1932), pp. .
Souter, Shelton. "Jackson in Florida." Master's Thesis, Emory University, 1924.
Sprague, Lynn T. "'Old Hickory' and his Indian Campaigns." Outing, 49 (November 1906), pp. 223-231.
Stephen, Walter W. "Andrew Jackson's 'Forgotten Army'." Alabama Review, 12 (April 1959), pp. 126-131.
Sugden, John. "Jean Lafitte and the British Offer of 1814." Louisiana History, 20 (Spring 1979), pp. 159-167.
-----. "The Southern Indians in the War of 1812: The Closing Phase." Florida Historical Quarterly, 60 (January 1982), pp. 273-312.
Summerall, Charles P. "Soldiers Connected with Florida History Since 1812." Florida Historical Quarterly, 9 (1931), pp. 242-258.
Tait, James. "The Journal of James Tait for the Year 1813." Edited by Peter A. Brannan. Alabama Historical Quarterly, 2 (1940), pp. .
Talmadge, John E. "Georgia's Federalist Press and the War of 1812." Journal of Southern History, 19 (November 1953), pp. 488-500.
Taylor, George Rogers, and Margaret K. Latimer. "South Carolina--A Protagonist in the War of 1812." American Historical Review, 61 (July 1956), pp. 914-929.
Thomason, Hugh M. "Governor Peter Early and the Indian Frontier, 1813-1815." Georgia Historical Quarterly, 45 (September 1961), pp. 223-237.
Ticknor, Earl H. "Andrew Jackson's Campaign in Alabama during the Creek War of 1812." Master's Thesis, Auburn University, 1938.
Twiggs, John. "Letters from General John Twiggs' Order Book." Georgia Historical Quarterly, 11 (December 1927), pp. 334-341.
Waldo, Samuel P. Memoirs of Andrew Jackson, Major General in the Army of the United States; and Commander In Chief of the Division of the South. Hartford: S[ilas] Andrus, 1819.
Walker, J. L. "General John Floyd." South Georgia Historical and Genealogical Quarterly, 1 (January 1922), pp. 8-13.
West, Elizabeth H. "A Prelude to the Creek War of 1813-1814." Florida Historical Quarterly, 18 (April 1940), pp. 247-266.
White, N. D. "The South in the War of 1812." Journal of American History, 15 (April 1921), pp. 141-143.
Williams, Samuel C. "A Forgotten Campaign." Tennessee Historical Magazine, 8 (January 1925), pp. 266-276.
Wright, J. Leitch. "A Note on the First Seminole War ... ." Journal of Southern History, 34 (1960), pp. .
Wright, Marcus J. "The Battle of Tohopeka or Horse-Shoe." Magazine of American History, 19 (1888), pp. 45-49.
Wyllys, Rufus Kay. "The East Florida Revolution of 1812-1814." Hispanic American Historical Review, 9 (November 1929), pp. 415-445.
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS
Alabama Department of Archives and History. (Montgomery)
John Coffee Papers.
Henry S. Halbert Papers.
A. B. Meek Papers.
Albert J. Pickett Collection.
Georgia Department of Archives and History. (Atlanta)
Timothy Barnard Papers.
John Floyd Papers.
Benjamin Hawkins Papers.
Library of Congress. (Washington)
Benjamin Hawkins Papers.
Andrew Jackson Papers.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. (Jackson)
J. F. H. Claiborne Collection.
Charlton M. Clark Papers.
William Dunbar Papers.
David W. Haley Papers.
Executive Journal of David Holmes. [Governor, Mississippi Territory, 1810-1814]
Mobile Public Library. (Mobile, Alabama)
John Forbes Papers.
North Carolina Department of Archives and History. (Raleigh)
Joseph Graham Papers.
Benjamin Hawkins Papers.
Perkins Library, Duke University. (Durham)
William Churchill Papers.
John Floyd Papers.
Andrew Jackson Papers.
Thomas Pinckney Papers.
D. Robertson Orderly Book, 1806-1816.
Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina. (Chapel Hill)
Mrs. John B. Clotworthy Collection.
Alexander Donelson Coffee Papers.
Thomas Crawford Papers.
Letitia Floyd Papers.
Lenoir Family Papers.
John McKee Papers.
War of 1812 Order Book.
Tennessee Historical Society. (Nashville)
John Coffee Papers.
Andrew Jackson Papers.
John Reid Papers.
James Winchester Papers.
Tennessee State Library. (Nashville)
Joseph Carson Papers.
Andrew Jackson Papers.
James Robertson Papers.
1. Includes the following streamers on the Army flag: New Orleans (23 September 1814-8 January 1815); and Creeks (27 July 1813-9 August 1814).
Samuel Takkes-Hadjo Moniac (Manack)
Sam Moniac was a Creek Indian from Alabama who had been decorated by General Washington while in New York, and was reportedly buried at Pass Christian in 1837.
Every year, treasure hunters and other interested parties call the Pass Christian City Hall, the Library, or the Chamber of Commerce seeking information. One of these was during the 1950s, from Professor Wilbur W. Stout of the English Department of Mississippi Southern University who wrote to the Pass Christian Chamber of Commerce inquiring about the location of an 1837 Pass Christian Cemetery.
In his letter, he quoted Indian historical authority, Thomas S. Woodard, who wrote, “I have often seen a medal General Washington gave Moniac. He always kept it on his person, and it is with him in his grave at Pass Christian.”
“He reportedly had a plantation near Montgomery, Alabama, and another at Manack (a variant spelling of Moniac) and owned an island in the Alabama River called Moniac. He raised range cattle on his properties as early as 1799.”
“He was married to Betsy, a sister of Red Eagle (William Weatherford). Their son, David Moniac born in 1802, was the first non-white West Point graduate from Alabama. Attaining rank of Major in the United States Army, he (David) was killed at the Battle of Wahoo Swamp on November 21, 1836.”
“Sam Moniac’s father was William, a native of Holland, and his mother was Polly Colbert, whose name connects her with James Logan Colbert (1736-1784), the Scottish leader of the Chickasaw nation.”
“Sam Moniac was mentioned during the Creek War of 1813-14, being the guide who led U.S. Army Brigadier General Ferdinand Leigh Claiborne to make the attack at Holy Ground between Montgomery and Selma near the town of Benton.”
Local lore has it that Sam Moniac actually did come to the Pass about 1837.
One of the founders and a chartering officer of the Pass Christian Historical Society was William Wiegand. Some of the foregoing information was extracted from the Wiegand Historical Collection notes. He reported that, there was a grave discovered at the site of the old Lynne Castle Hotel, where silver adornment artifacts were excavated. “The silver ovals, that were believed to be epaulets, actually were medals of the kind shown in portraits of chiefs such as appear in the Oklahoma museum and in the volume on art collectors entitled The Proud Possessors.”
"Although there were those who claimed the skeletal body and ornaments were those of a hapless pirate having moored his boat at a live oak with an imbedded iron ring, many years prior to it becoming the Linn Watkins’ property and that entrance from the Sound was into a Bay or bayou that faced the area known as the Rice Fields."
Wiegand believed with other researchers who claimed that the uncovered beads and relics were more likely to have been that of an Indian.
A Burial Site possibility
There is more than enough documentary to support that Sam Moniac died and was buried in Pass Christian, but as to the actual site, many questions remain.
Wiegand's notes describe that, "At the time of the digging and discovery of' the skeleton the property was the summer home of Judge Linn Boyd Watkins, a member of the Louisiana Supreme Court, who originally was from north Louisiana
"His daughter, Lynne Watkins, married Rudolf S. Hecht. The Hecht Japanese Garden is near the old Lynne Castle site at West Beach and Henderson Avenue, which for years had been a Pass Christian show place. Mr. Hecht was a president of the Hibernia Bank in New Orleans, a president of the American Bankers Association, and one of the founders of International House in New Orleans.
"Daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Hecht are Mrs. Evans Farwell (Lynne Hecht) and Mrs. Asabel Cooper (Dorothy Hecht -- deceased). They became custodians of the silver crown, the silver epaulets, buttons, the beads, and the fragment of wool cloth to which the buttons were attached when the grave was discovered."
"A very thin silver crown is shown laid out flat, but which would be curved to fit around the brow. At each end were holes that allowed a string to be strung to fasten behind the head. The two epaulets are shown below the crown."
(The pictures were evidently taken on a Xerox copier rather than as photographs and very well could have been copied from a 1906 news article included below.)
Today, that burial site would possibly be covered by the east-most part of the shopping center building or by a portion of the service parking entrance way from Henderson Avenue.
The Shopping Mart is fronted by Hwy 90 --- between Henderson and Clarence avenues.
History Buried at Pass Christian
was a headline in the Daily Picayune, Thursday, May 17, 1906, on a news story dealing with a meeting of the Louisiana Historical Society.
It was held in the Progressive Union Hall with Professor Alcee Fortier presiding. Professor Charles G. Gill was recording secretary. W. O. Hart submitted a committee report dealing with a resolution to memorialize the late
E. B. Kruttschnitt, and General W. J. Behan introduced the lecturer for the evening, Colonel Lewis Guion.
A letter was read that had been received from J. Blanc Monroe, as follows:
“At the request of my aunt, Mrs. Edmund Glenny, I desire to submit to you the following facts in order that you may lay them before the Louisiana Historical Society:
“Some three or four months ago while some laborers were digging a trench on the property of L.H. Watkins at Pass Christian Mississippi, they came unexpectedly upon a human skull. Around the bones of the skull was what appeared to be a crown of silver filigree work. Somewhat lower down, in the position which the shoulders should have occupied, there were found two silver epaulets, and across the chest, a silver breastplate. In addition to this, there were found quite a number of bone beads and some brass buttons, apparently suitable for an officer’s uniform.
"When the digging had proceeded thus far, so much excitement had been created that the domestic servants on the place refused to stay longer, and so Mrs. Watkins ordered the digging to be discontinued and the grave to be refilled. She is, however, willing that an investigation should be made by the historical society, or others interested, and I am personally interested in the matter, because Mrs. Watkins says she can account for the ownership of her property for a large number of years, and is certain that a burial could not have taken place later than 1812 to 1820.
The crown responded to silver polish applied by Mrs. Farwell, and is undoubtedly silver.
The crown, and the epaulets, all are handcrafted, very thin. The crown is pliable, bears small perpendicular marks along the top and bottom borders, and is not a complete circle. Rather, it may be placed flat like a band. Holes at each end are some 16 inches apart. The crown is two inches wide at the trough of the wavelike top scroll and two and one-half-inches-wide from the crest of' the waves to the bottom extremity. One of the epaulets has perpendicular marks along the edge within a narrow border. The other has just the border, without the up and down marks. The buttons are unmarked on the face, but on the reverse side are the imprinted, or stamped letters that read "Warranted Rich Gilt.” They are 5/8 of an inch in diameter. The cloth to which the buttons were attached is black, wool, and of an open weave, and rough to the touch, like tweed or homespun.
Mrs. Farwell said that the spot on her grandmother’s property where the skeletons were found, near an old oak tree, was about three-quarters of the way back from the beach road, and near the eastern boundary fence.
She said the opinion had been expressed that the Old Rice Field, across Henderson Avenue from the Watkins property, had, in the very old days, been either a bay or a bayou.
Her belief is that the wearer of the crown had been a pirate and the white beads on the skeleton's coat had been decorations on the coat.
The Louisiana Historical Society referred the matter to its executive committee and nothing further happened to disturb the bones on the ground which later became the Lynne Castle hotel. (end of news release)
The Richelieu
The next most signigicant structure built on site of the Lynne Castle Hotel (before the hotel it was the Savage School for Girls), became the Richelieu Apartment Building which was completely destroyed by Hurricane Camille.
Camille figured to be another excuse for a Hurricane Party. Gerlach and her husband Fritz had stocked up on food and booze for the evening. They had worked late the previous night, so they decided to take a nap before partying with the other apartment tenants. She was awakened by the strong gusts of wind and siding boards being ripped off the complex. Jumping up, she jerked her husband from sleep. She looked up as the walls cracked open and the third floor above her was about to crumble down.
Her husband Fritz didn't want to leave because he couldn't swim. The rising waters gushed around her. Instinctively, she grabbed onto a cushion as the waves pushed her out a window. She noted that the waters were also thrashing against the top floor where the other tenants were having their Hurricane Party. She couldn't distinguish the people, but she could still see the lights, as she was being washed away. Then the lights went under water. On looking back, the third floor of the hurricane-proof apartment complex tumbled into the murky swirling waters driven by the Gulf tide. Those remaining, toppled into the angry waters.
Over the years, it has been recounted that 23 others stayed to "party the night away" at the beachfront Richelieu Apartment complex on Highway 90 (presently the site of Shopping Center). The story was mistakenly reported as such in national news media the day following Camille and continues as a myth in commemoration releases by national and even local news media.
News reports of 23 lives having been lost during the devastation of the infamous Richelieu, actually resulted in 8 victims being confirmed. Although 24 persons originally participated in the Hurricane Party, the more cautious ones had left at varying intervals during the late afternoon. The Richlieu apartment complex was totally flattened by Hurricane Camille on August 17, 1969.
A Second location is most probable Burial Site
A church-operated graveyard within the city-limits can be found north of the railroad tracks off Church Street at the end of Toleman Place — surrounded by woods. Historically, this area was known as the Indian Cemetery, probably due to the large number of Creek Indians that had made encampments in the Pass while making their westward journey during the 1835-37 “Trail of Tears.”
Through the years, these burial grounds have slowly been absorbed by the Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church where a growing number of Negro citizens have been buried. As more and more of the land has been cleared for plots, there is no sign of any but newer tomb stones and slabs that have covered the original cemetery that may have been established there in 1837. If it were so, those sacred hallowed grounds would be the oldest burial place in Pass Christian. In more recent years, the Indian Cemetery is seldom referred to as such. Today, cement borders and tomb stones and slabs cover the area with dates that are mostly of the 1980s and 1990s -- with a few dating back to 1950 and 1960.
In support of the Indian Cemetery are those Information resources that reveal that Pass Christian was a way-station for Creek Indians who were being removed from Florida and Alabama by schooners. They left from Mobile Point, Alabama to stop over at Pass Christian where they reassembled, and then traveled by boat via New Orleans to access the Mississippi River in order to reach its destination at Fort Gibson, Arkansas.
History Notes of the Time Period:
! During the War of 1812, American troops had made an encampment in 1815, at the Pass Christian area of Henderson’s Point in preparing defenses against the British attack against New Orleans.
! In 1831, under the supervision of Roger Hiern, lighthouses were built at Pass Christian and Cat Island along with the completion of the Pass Christian Hotel which was built by Charles Shipman, Hiern’s brother-in-law.
! The Roger Hiern family would have been the most active and locally prominent people in Pass Christian during the emigration of Indians and more likely would have decided where the Indian camps would have been located in the years from 1835 to 1837.
! "Thirty five hundred Indians were packed at Mobile Point waiting for the Creek Warriors returning from Florida to join them. In July (1837), two hundred Creeks arrived on board the Merchant. Pass Christian, Mississippi was selected (as a way-station). There was such a number sick that many of them died on the wharf. Just as the first load got into the Bay (of St. Louis) many began to die, and the boat had to return to bury them. After making a successful trip the boat returned for another load. Captain Page directed them to break camp and be on the wharf by night to embark. All the sick were brought to the spot, but a violent storm came up that lasted for two days. Captain Page ordered them to return to camp, but they refused. They said it would spoil their Physic. Being superstitious --- once an Indian made up his mind he would rather die than change it. On July 18 the last load reached Pass Christian. Many more died the next month, which included Samuel Moniac and David Hale. On August 21, two schooners arrived with two-hundred and sixteen friendly Creek Warriors from Florida, and on September 14, two-hundred and eight more departed Tampa Bay in route for Pass Christian."
A likely Scenario
Presumably, as the Creeks arrived by boat from Alabama, they would have landed at the wharf near the land-based lighthouse and were trekked off to Henderson Point where that ground would have already been cleared as used by Federal troops on several occasions since 1815. It would not have been conceivable for the Indians to have been placed anywhere else.
The two early prominent churches, Catholic and Episcopal, did not establish cemeteries until the 1850s. The mass grave that was necessary to provide for 84 bodies in such a short time span between March 29 to July 31, 1837, was most likely under Roger Hiern’s control. The roadway going north from the beaches was called Portage Road (now, Henderson Avenue), which would have provided access means to a hidden away burial field some few hundred yards east of the road.
Further research would prove interesting in determining exactly how many of these Creek volunteer warriors who fought the Seminole Indians in behalf of the American government under General Andrew Jackson — had died at the Pass..
Local folklore refers to Sam Moniac as Chief Moniac — perhaps because of the knowledge of the bestowal by President George Washington of a medal. However, the Muster-Roll of deceased officers and soldiers of the Mounted Regiment of Creek Indian Volunteers, refers to him simply as:
No.14 – Samuel Moniac, Rank of Private – Thlob-thlocco Tribe – Died at Pass Christian, MS, Aug. 21, 1837. Nearest relative was a son, Alexander Moniac, who
was a private, No. 2 on last rolls of Co. C, Creek Vol's.
Proof of Hiern Family Involvement
New Orleans, Lou.
5th Feby. 1839
Sir,
I have the honor, to enclose herewith a communication respecting the straggling Creek Indians left at Pass Christian on the removal of the main body of Indians in October 1837. All doubtless can be collected without much difficulty with the exception of the one mentioned as having left for Alabama. The writer of the herewith report is a person on whom reliance can be placed being also well acquainted with Pass Christian and environs.
I am Sir
Very respectfully
your obt. servant
Jno. G. Reynolds
1st Lieut. U. S. M. C.
Disbg. Agt. Ind. Dept.
T. Hartley Crawford
Comr. Ind. Affairs
Washington City.
Pass Christian
30th January 1839
My Dear Sir
Yours of the 29th inst came safe to hand, and I hasten to give you all the information that I possess or can obtain in relation to the Creek Indians that remained here after the main body were removed from this place. From what I can learn from the old Indian Bearfoot there were about twenty in number - men, women & children who remained behind, eleven of whom left this during the winter of 1837 for N. Orleans where they have remained ever since, all the rest are at this place and vicinity with the exception of one man who has left some time since for Alabama.
Tom Pigeon and family are at Wolf River consisting of himself and four others.
There are also five others who are living at this place.
I remain Sir respectfully yours
Finley B. Hain (Hiern)
(Note: Finley B Hiern became Pass Christian's first Mayor when incorporated in February 1848)
The Indians would have found relief and shelter among the French families that had settled along the rivers and bayous known as Wolf and DeLisle since the 1780s. It could even be possible that the Indians mentioned by Finley Bodam Hiern remained there and were absorbed into the community which today is called DeLisle.
Sinclair, David, The Land That Never Was: Sir Gregor Macgregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History [Paperback] Headline Book Publishing, 2003.
British and foreign state papers, Volume 6 By Great Britain. Foreign and Commonwealth Office Key words: George Woodbine Ship Amelia Island
Filibusters and expansionists: Jeffersonian manifest destiny, 1800-1821 By Frank Lawrence Owsley, Gene A. Smith
Narrative of a voyage to the Spanish Main: in the ship "Two friends"; the ...
Book Excerpt: Go Sound the Trumpet! Selections from Florida's African American History Tales of Angola: Free Blacks, Red Stick Creeks, and International Intrigue in Spanish Southwest Florida, 1812-1821
© 2005 Edited by Canter Brown, Jr. and David H. Jackson, Jr.
Black society in Spanish Florida By Jane Landers
The Southern bivouac By Southern Historical Association of Louisville “The Pocahontas of the South” 272-
Notable American Women: a biographical dictionary By Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, “Milly Francis” p. 660-661
Wasserman's A People's History of Florida. The Black Maroon Settlement of Angola: A Beacon of Freedom in Florida http://libcom.org/history/black-maroon-settlement-angola-beacon-freedom-florida
Old Hickory's war: Andrew Jackson and the quest for empire By David Stephen Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler
http://www.archive.org/stream/trialsofaarbuthn00arbu/trialsofaarbuthn00arbu_djvu.txt Trials of Arbuthnot and Armbrister.
The United States: its beginnings, progress and modern development, Volume 6, Expulsion of Aury, p. 141-By Jesse Ames Spencer
Niles' weekly register, Volume 15 By William Ogden Niles More about Josiah Francks and Red Sticks leaving . Google Arbuthnot store in Tampa
A People's History of Florida 1513-1876: How Africans, Seminoles, Women, and ...y Adam Wasserman, p. 188. (Cuban Fisheries)
Bensen, D. R., Swashbuckler, Bantam, 1976.
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Fraser, George MacDonald, The Pyrates, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, New York, New York.
Fretwell, Jacqueline K. and Susan R. Porter, editors, Clash Between Cultures: Spanish East Florida 1784-1821, St. Augustine Historical Society, El Escribano, 1988
Kaserman, James F., Gasparilla: Pirate Genius, Author House, Bloomington, Indiana, 2009,
Kaserman, James F. and Sarah Jane Kaserman, The Legend of Gasparilla, Pirate Pub. International, 2002.
Kinstam, Angus, The History of Pirates, The Lyons Press, Canada, 2002.
Knetsch, Joe, Florida’s Seminole Wars 1817-1858, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina.
LaGarde, Francois, ed., The French in Texas, University of Texas Press
Paisley, Clifton, The Red Hills of Florida: 1528-1865, University of Alabama Press, 1989.
Seitz, Don C., Under the Black Flag: Exploits of the Most Notorious Pirates, Dover Publications, Mineola, New York, 2002.
Travers, Tim, Pirates: A History, The History Press, The Mill, Branscombe Port Stroud, Gloustershire, 2007.
Vining, John Eric, The Trans Appalachian Wars 1790-1818, Trafford Publishing Company, Toronto, Canada, 2009, p. 161-178.
Zachs, Richard, The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd, Hyperion, New York, New York, 2002.
January, 1935, Hugh Young, “A Topographical Memoir on East and West Florida with Itineraries of General Jackson's Army, 1818,” The Florida Historical Society Quarterly
Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 129-164.
January, 1943, Davis, T. Frederick, “Milly Francis and Duncan McKrimmon: An Authentic Florida Pocahontas,” The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 21 number 3 Florida Historical Society pages 254-265.
October, 1937 Boyd, Mark F., Events at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River, 1808-1818: The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 16 issue 2, Florida Historical Society pages 56-97.
Oct 1926 Cubberly, Frederick, John Quincy Adams and Florida, The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 5 issue 2, Florida Historical Society, pages 89-94.
2000 De Wire, Elinor, Guide to Florida Lighthouses, Pineapple Press: Sarasota
July 1928 Davis, T. Frederick, MacGregor's Invasion of Florida, The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 7 issue 1, Florida Historical Society, pages 4-72.
July 1944 Davis, T. Frederick, Pioneer Florida, The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 23 issue 1 Florida Historical Society, pages 40-45.
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July 1926 Letters Relating to MacGregor's Attempted Conquest of East Florida, 1817, The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 5 issue 1, Florida Historical Society, pages 55-58.
July, 1966 Lowe, Richard G., American Seizure of Amelia Island, The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 45 issue 1, Florida Historical Society, pages 19-31.
April 1966. Mahon, John K., British Strategy and Southern Indians: War of 1812, The Florida Historical Quarterlyvolume 44 issue 4 Florida Historical Society, pages 286-303.
Jan 1939 The Panton, Leslie Papers: Letters of Edmund Doyle, 1815, The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 17 issue 3 Florida Historical Society pages 238-243.
April 1939 The Panton, Leslie Papers: Two letters of Edmund Doyle, Trader, 1817, The Florida Historical Quarterlyvolume 17 issue 4, Florida Historical Society, pages 313-319.
July 1939 The Panton, Leslie Papers: A letter of Edmund Doyle, Trader, 1817, The Florida Historical Quarterlyvolume 18 issue 1, Florida Historical Society, pages 62-64.
Jan 1927 The Patriot War-A Contemporaneous Letter, The Florida Historical Quarterly volume 5 issue 3, Florida Historical Society pages 163-168
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The Muscogees or Creek Indians, from 1519 to 1893;
Also an Account of the McGillivray Family and Others of Alabama
By Dr. Marion Elisah Tarvin
(or Turvin, as pronounced by some of the old settlers of Alabama.)
From tradition, this once most powerful tribe, from the succession of their Chiefs on down, say that they originally crossed over to America from Asia, landing at the Isthmus of Darien, and finally settling in the northwestern part of Mexico, forming a separate Republic from that of Montezuma. Hernando Cortez, with some Spanish troops, landed at Vera Cruz and conquered the forces under Montezuma, in which battle Montezuma was killed. The Muscogees lost many of their warriors in this conflict and were unwilling to live in a country conquered by foreign assassins, so they determined to seek another country. They took up a line of march eastward until they struck Red River, upon which they built a town. The Alabamas, a tribe who were also traveling, east from Mexico, but unknown to them before, came in contact with a hunting party of Muscogees and killed several of them. The Muscogees resolved to be revenged. After this, the Muscogees again took up their march eastward, in the direction of the Alabamas. This incident led to the final conquest of the Alabamas by the victorious Muscogees, as will be seen. The great streams were crossed by the Muscogees in the order of their grade, the more aristocratic moving first; the Wind family, followed by the Bear and Tiger, on down to the humblest of the clan. The army, led by the Tustenugee or war Chief. The Alabamas finally settled on the Yazoo where De Soto, the Spanish invader, destroyed their fortress in 1541.
From the time the Muscogees left Mexico to the time of their settling On the Ohio, fifteen years had elapsed, which was in 1535. They were delighted with their new home. Their wisdom, prowess and numbers enabled them to subjugate the other and less powerful tribes. They had learned of the mild climate of the country on the Yazoo, occupied by the Alabamas, and they determined to possess it. They crossed the Ohio and Tennessee and settled on the Yazoo. The Alabamas, hearing of the approach of their old enemy, fled to the Alabama and Tallahoosa Rivers and built their Capital at the present Montgomery, now the capital of Alabama. Here they found a charming region, rich in soil, navigation, and remote from their enemies, and made permanent homes there. The Muscogees remained some years on the Yazoo, then hearing what a delightful country the Alabamas possessed, took up a line of march for it, arriving in safety in full force with their tribe in the best plight, and without opposition took possession of it; the Alabamas fled in all directions, This is suppose to have been about 1620. Gaining a firm foothold in this new region, enjoying health, increasing population and prosperity, they advanced to the Okmulgee, Oconee and Ogechee, and established a town where now reposes the beautiful city of Augusta, Georgia. With the Indians of Georgia they had combats, but overcame them all. In 1714 the Muscogees and Alabamas, under the influence of, and in the presence of Bienville, the French Governor, became lasting friends, The Alabamas then joined the Muskogees and returned to their homes on the Alabama, Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers. The Muscogees were living on the Ohio River when De Soto and his army passed through Alabama in 1540. They had heard of him and the strange people with him, and that they were like those they had seen and fought in Mexico. The Tookabatches also joined the Muscogees confederacy. The reputation the Muscogees had acquired for strength and a warlike spirit induced other tribes who had become weak, to seek an asylum among them. The Uchees, Tuskegees, Ozeills, and the remaining band of the Natches, the Muscogees (who appear to have been a wise and hospitable race) adopted, besides a host of other smaller bands, and thus become greatly strengthened.
Tookabatcha, the Capital for their confederacy, was situated on the west bank of the Tallapoosa. The Chiefs were chosen from the Wind or mother family in early days, but since 1800 the Hickory Ground and Tookabatches have both supplied chief rulers. The Muscogee confederacy had one great chief, and subordinates. They had seventy-nine towns. The ones in Alabama were as follows: Tookabatcha, Talise or Tulsie, Ofuskie, Hilubie, Attoussee, Eufaula, Coweta, Cusseta, Hitchetee, Wetumpka, Tuskegee and Ockmulgee.
Bienville planted a colony in Ala. in 1702 and founded the present city of Mobile in 1711. When the English began to explore the country and transport goods to all parts of it, they gave all the inhabitants the name of Creeks, from the many beautiful creeks and rivers flowing through the vast domain of the Muscogees. In 1714 Bienville erected Ft. Toulouse. One hundred years afterwards, General Jackson, on the same spot, established Ft. Jackson, now Tuskege, where the notorious Chief and warrior, William Weatherford, of the Creek Confederacy, voluntarily surrendered to General Jackson, on the same spot where his Grandmother Sehoy Marchand, the daughter of Captain Marchand, of Ft. Toulouse, was born, about 1722. Her father, it will be seen later on, was killed by his own soldiers. Her mother was of. the Wind family, from whom the chief rulers were formerly chosen. Captain Marchand, the commandant of Ft. Toulouse, was married to Sehoy of the Wind family, about 1720. From this marriage they had one child, a daughter whom they named Sehoy. Capt. Marchand was killed by his own soldiers during an attack on him and his officers while at breakfast. They were afterwards shot to death. Lachlan McGillivray, a Scotch boy of sixteen summers, had read of the wonders of America. He ran away from his parents at Dunmanglass, Scotland, and took passage for Charleston, S.C., arriving there safely in 1735, with no property but a shilling in his pocket, a suit of clothes, a stout frame, an honest heart, a fearless disposition and cheerful spirits.
About this period the English were conducting an extensive commerce with the Muscogees, Cherokees and Chickasaws. McGillivray went to the extensive quarters of the packhorse traders in the suburbs of Charleston; there he saw hundreds of packhorses, pack-saddles and men ready to start to the wilderness. The keen eyes of the traders fell on this smart Scotch boy, who, they saw would be useful to them. Arriving at the Chatahoochie his master, as a reward for his activity and accommodating spirit, gave him a jack-knife which he sold in Charleston on his return. The proceeds of this adventure laid the foundation of a large fortune. In a few years he became the boldest and most enterprising trader in the whole country. He extended his commerce to Ft. Toulouse in the Muskogee or Creek nation. At the Hickory Grounds a few miles above the fort, at the present town of Wetumpka, Alabama, he found a beautiful girl by the name of Sehoy Marchand, of whose father we have already given an account. Her mother, was a full-blooded Creek woman of the Wind family. Sehoy when first seen by Lachlan McGillivray was a maiden of sixteen, cheerful in countenance, bewitching in looks and graceful in form. It was not long before Lachlan and Sehoy joined their destinies in marriage. The husband established a trading house Little Tulsa, four miles above Wetulmpka, on the east bank of the Coosa, and then took home his beautiful wife.
From this marriage they had five, children namely: Sehoy, Alexander, Sophia, Jeannet and Elizabeth. While pregnant with her second child she repeatedly said she dreamed of piles of books and papers, more than she had ever seen at the fort. She was delivered of a boy who received the name of Alexander. who, when grown to manhood, wielded a pen that commanded the admiration of Washington and his Cabinet, and which influenced the policy of all Spanish America. Lachlan McGillivray with his alliance with the most influential family in the Nation, extended his commerce. He became wealthy and owned two plantations well stocked with negroes, upon the Savannah, and at Augusta, Ga., and Little Tulsa, and at Mobile he had large stores.
When his son use fourteen he took him to Charleston and put him in school, and afterwards, in a countinghouse, but he, having no fondness for this, but a thirst for books, was put under the tutorship of a profound scholar, of his name but no kin. Alexander became master of the Latin, and Greek tongues, and a good belle lettres scholar. Alexander was now a man. He thought of his mother's house by the side of the beautiful Coosa his blow-gun, and the Indian lads of his own age with whom he had fished and bathed while young, of the old warriors who had so often recounted to him the deeds of his ancestors; he thought of the bright eyes of his sisters, Seboy, Elizabeth, Sophia, and Jeannet, so one day he turned his back upon civilization and his horse's head towards his native land.
About this time the Chiefs of the Creeks were getting into trouble with the people of Georgia, and with anxiety they awaited the time when Alexander McGillivrey could, by his descent from the Wind family, assume the affairs of their government, His arrival was most opportune. The first time we bear of him after he left Charleston, was of his presiding at a grand national Council at the town of Coweta upon the Chattahoochie, where the adventurous Leclerc Milfort of France was introduced to him; he was at this time about thirty years of age, and was in great power, for he had already become an object of attention on the part of the British authorities of the Floridas, when Col. Tate, a British officer who was stationed upon the Coosa, had conferred upon Alexander McGillivray the rank and pay of a Colonel, and he and Tate were associated together in the interests of King George. Col. Tate, according to Pickett's history of Alabama, had now become acquainted with the most gifted and remarkable man that was ever born upon the soil of Alabama. Col. Tate was a Scotchman of captivating address, and an accomplished scholar. He afterwards, in 1768 married Sehoy, the sister of Alexander McGillivray. They had one child whom they named David, who became a good, wealthy and distinguished citizen of Alabama; and was the grandfather of the writer.
Pickett of Alabama, was a reliable and truthful chronicler* going to great expense and labor in writing this history of Alabama, which is a, considered authentic, There may be some few errors, but perhaps the best history that has ever, or will ever be written of the State. He lived in the Creek nation for twenty years, understood their customs and language. In relation to the invasion of De Soto of Alabama, he said he derived much of his information in regard to the route of that earliest discoverer, from statements of General Alexander McGillivray, who was the great-great-uncle of the writer. General McGillivray ruled that country with eminent ability from 1770 to 1793. On page 75, Vol 1, Pickett's history of Alabama, he says:
"Alexander McGillivray, whose blood was Scotch, French and Indian, was made a colonel in the British service, afterwards a Spanish Commissary with the rank of Colonel, then a Brigadier General by President Washington in 1790, with full pay of that office. He was a man towering intellect and vast information. In 1784 McGillivray was induced to form an alliance with Spain, for various reasons, the chief of which was that the Whigs of Georgia had confiscated his estates banished his father, threatened him with death, and his nation with extermination, who were constantly encroaching upon Creek soil. The Spaniards wanted no lands, desired only his friendship. They offered him promotion and commercial advantages. When he had signed the treaty they made him a Spanish commissary with the rank and pay of colonel.
In 1790 Col. Alex. McGillivray was the secret agent sent out by Washington from N. Y. to the Creek nation in Ala. He, with his two nephews, David Tate and Lachlan Durant, and two negro servants, Paro and Jonah, and John Francis, a half breed Creek, and 24 warriors and chiefs, set out from Little Tulsa on the Coosa, for New York, proceeding on horse-back they arrived at Stone Mountain in Georgia, where they were joined by the Coweta and Cusseta Chiefs. Reaching the house of General Pickens, in S. C., the party received the warmest welcome; there they were joined by the Tallahassee King. They again set out, arriving at Guilford C, H., N. C., they passed on through Richmond and Fredericksburg in Virginia, where they were treated with much kindness and consideration by prominent and distinguished citizens. Arriving at Philadelphia, they were hospitably entertained for three days.
Entering a sloop at Elizabeth Point they landed at New York, where the Tammany Society received them in full dress of their order. They marched up Wall Street by the Federal Hall----congress was then In session----and next, to the house of the President, to whom they were introduced with much pomp and ceremony. They were sumptuously and elegantly entertained by the Secretary of War and Gen. Clinton, at the city Tavern, which finished the day. When it became known that McGillivray had departed for New York, great excitement prevailed In Florida and Louisiana. Correspondence began with the Capt. General at Havana, and ended by his dispatching from east Florida an agent with a large sum of money to New York, ostensibly to buy flour, but really to embarrass the negotiations with the Creeks. Washington, apprised of the presence of this officer, had his movements so closely observed that the object of his mission was defeated. Washington, communicating with the Senate, advised that the negotiations with McGillivray should be conducted Informally, as all overtures hitherto offered by the commissioners had been rejected.
Embarrassments existed because the commerce of the Creeks was In the hands of a British Company who made their importations from England into Spanish ports. It was necessary that it should be diverted Into American channels, but the McGillivray's treaty at Pensacola in 1784 could not be disregarded without a breach of faith and morals on his part, but, finding by the informal intercourse with them, that McGillivray and the Chiefs were ready to treat upon advantageous terms, Henry Knox was appointed to negotiate with them, and a treaty was concluded by him on the part of the U. S., and on the other side by McGillivray and the delegation representing the whole Creek nation. It stipulated that a permanent peace should be established between the Creeks and the citizens of the U. S.; that the Creeks and Seminoles should be under the protection solely of the American government and that they should not make treaties, with any state or the inhabitants of any State, and that the boundary line between the Creeks and Georgia was to be that claimed by the latter treaty which they had at August and Shoulderbone. Thus did Alex. McGillivray at last surrender the Oconee land about which so much blood had been shed and so much former negotiation had been wasted. It proved that after two years from date, the commerce of the Creek nation should be carried on through the ports of the U. S., and, in the meantime, through the present channel; that the Chiefs of the Ocfuskees, Tookabachas, Tallehasseas, Cowetas, and Seminoles should be paid annually one hundred dollars each, and provided handsome medals and, that Alex. McGillivray should be constituted agent of the U..S., with the rank or Brigadier General, and the pay of twelve hundred dollars per annum; that U. S. should feed, clothe and educate Creek youths at the North, not exceeding four at one time, Thus McGillivray secured to himself new, honors and a good salary by a second treaty which left him in a new position to return home. Even in the presence of Washington and his able Cabinet the Chieftain pushed hard for favorable terms, and received them, says Pickett: "I am indebted to Col. John A. Campbell, an eminent lawyer of Mobile, and Alfred Hennen, a distinguished member of the New Orleans bar, for placing in my hands papers filed in the district court of Louisana, containing the letters or Alex McGillivray to Panton, dated Little Tallassee, Ala., Sept. 20th, 1788, and Aug. l0th,1789, which have been copied in history at length.
I also found amongst the file the secret treaty written upon sheep skin, signed by Washington, Knox, McGillivray and the Chiefs. A celebrated lawsuit brought in this court by the Johnson and other claimants, with the heirs of McGillivray vs. the heirs of Panton, a wealthy Scotchman of Pensacola, and at one time a partner and great friend of McGillivray. This suit was the means of preservation of those historical papers. Pickett says he has only introduced a few of McGillivray's letters to show the strength and high order of his mind. The American State papers contain many of his ablest letters, addressed to congress and the Secretary of War. The writer has a personal recollection of Judge J. A. CampbeIl, of Mobile. It will be seen that Gen. McGillivray is a great grand uncle of the writer, I say this without egotism or the expectation of the praise of men, for which I care nothing, one way or the other. His father, Lachlan McGillivray, who had been an active and influential royalist--the Whigs of Georgia and Carolina felt his weight--when the British were forced to evacuate Savannah he sailed with them to his native country, having scraped together a vast amount of money. He took an affectionate leave of his family (1783). Mrs. Sopie Durant and her boy Lachlan were present on that sad occasion. His plantations, negroes, stock of cattle and stores, he abandoned, in the hope that his daughters, son and wife, Sehoy, then living upon the Coosa, might be suffered to inherit them, but the Whigs of Georgia confiscated the whole of this valuable property. A few negroes who had fled to the Nation, were added to those already at the residence of Sehoy; thus Alex. McGillivray and sisters were deprived of a large patrimony. He had displayed eminent ability in his dealings with these rival powers, the American, English and Spanish, who, he felt, cared nothing for the Creeks except for self aggrandizement. He was humane and generous to the distressed, whom he always sheltered and protected. He had many noble traits, not the least of which was his unbounded hospitality to friend and foe. He had good houses at the Hickory Grounds and Little Tulsa, also called "Apple Grove" (his birthplace) where he entertained distinguished government agents and persons traveling through his extensive domain, with ample grounds and all the comforts desirable. He said he prompted the Indians to defend their lands, "Although I look upon the U.S. as our most natural ally". He could not but resent the greedy encroachments of the Georgias, to say nothing of their scandalous and illiberal abuse. He also says, "If congress will form a government southward of the Altamaha, I will be the first to take the oath of allegiance," This, he said in a letter to his friend Panton at Pensacola, in relation to his treaty with Washington, "In this do you not see my cause of triumph in bringing these conquerors of the old, and the masters of the New World, as they called themselves, to bond and supplicate for peace at the feet of a people whom shortly before they had despised and marked out for destruction?" In 1792 Gen. McGillivray gave up his home to Capt. Oliver, a Frenchman, whom he has so well established in the affections of his people. He then moved to Little River, Baldwin County, Ala., where lived many wealthy and intelligent people whose blood was a mixture of white and Indian. This colony had formed at an early period for the benefit of their large stock of cattle.
His death and the bloody scenes that followed.
Gen. McGillivray continued to visit Gov. Carondelet at New Orleans. He owned a trading house at Manchac, Louisana. In returning from N. O. late in the summer of 1792 a violent fever detained him long in Mobile. Recovering, he went to Little Tallassee where he wrote his last letter to Major Seagrove. He appeared to deplore the unhappy disturbances that existed, and ascribed them to the influence of the Spaniards over affairs. He had often responded to the letters of the Secretary Of War in relation to carrying out the provisions of the N.Y. treaty, and he had explained to the Chiefs and had urged them to comply, but the Spanish influence defeated his recommendation, etc. Pickett says: "This remarkable man was fast approaching dissolution, he had long been afflicted. He spent the winter upon Little River, which divides Monroe and Baldwin counties, Ala. The account of his death will here be given in the language of the great Scotch merchant in, a letter dated Pensacola, April 10th, 1794, and addressed to Alexander's father, Lachlan McGillivray, at Dunmanglass, Scotland. I found him deserted by the British, without pay, without money, without property except sixty negroes and three hundred head of cattle, and he and his Nation threatened with destruction by the Georgians unless they agreed to cede them the better part of their country. I pointed out a mode that succeeded beyond expectations. He died Feb. l7th, 1793, of inflamed lungs, and stomach troubles; no pains no attention was spared to save the life, of my friend, but he breathed his last time in my arms. I had advised, I supported, I pushed him on to be the great man he was," Spaniards and Americans felt his weight, and this enabled him to lead me after him so as to establish this house with more solid privileges than without him. He had three children, now left without father or mother, and with no friends except you and be. Panton possessed great wealth, owned large stores and vessels in his immense trade. Gen. McGillivray was interred with Masonic honors in the splendid garden of William Panton, in the city of Pensacola.
He was a severe loss to that man and the Spanish government. His death was deeply regretted, by the Indians everywhere. The great Chieftain who had long been their pride, and who had elevated their nation, and sustained them in their trials, now lay buried in the sands of the Seminoles. Gen. McGillivray was six feet high, remarkably erect in person and carriage, and a charming entertainer. He had a bold and lofty head; his eyes were dark and piercing and he was often spoken of and looked upon with admiration. His fingers were long and tapering, and he wielded a pen with great rapidtity. His face was handsome and indicative of quick thought and much sagacity. Unless interested in conversation he was disposed to be taciturn, but he was always polite and respectful. When a British Colonel he dressed in British uniform, and when in the Spanish service lie wore the military dress of that country. When Washington appointed him Brigadier General he sometimes wore the uniform of the American Army, but never In the presence of the Spaniards. Pickett calls him the "Talleyrand of the South". Colonel Tate, a British officer, married his sister Sehoy in 1768, as mentioned before, and had one child whom they named David, born 1778 at Little Tulsa on the Coosa River at the residence of his uncle Alex. McGillivray. When a boy was taken North by his uncle, Gen. McGillivray, and placed at school under the supervision Gen. Washington, where he remained five years, and after the death of McGillivray he was sent to Inverness College, Scotland, by Panton of Pensacola, with McGillivray's son Alexander, where he finished his education.
Alexander McGillivray, Jr. died in Scotland, The other two children of Gen. McGallivray remained in the Creek Nation, and some of their descendents are now living in the Nation. David Tate returned to the Creek Nation in1800 (in Ala.) and took possession of his property which had been in the hands of Gen. McGillivray. He was a man of stern character, reserved manners and classical education, and was a most wonderful judge of human nature, and memory of men. He was possessed of an ample fortune and dispensed It with a liberal hand in the way of charity, on those who were worthy and in need. He had a remarkable influence over man whom he desired to bend to his will. The same year he returned from Scotland he married Miss Mary Randon, both of Baldwin Co., Alabama. She was a French and Creek blood; the fruits of this marriage were three daughters: Louisa,.Elizabeth and Theresa. Louisa married George Tunstall, brother of Col. Thomas Tunstall, who was Secretary of State during Gov, A.P. Bagby's administration of Alabama. From this marriage they had eight children;Thos. Tate, Mary Ann, Peyton Randolph, Lucy, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Geo. Washington and Edmund. Thos. Tate was appointed U.S. Consul to Dadiz, Spain, in 1856, returning to Ala. in 1865. In1888 he was appointed Consul to San Salvador by President Grover Cleveland, and removed by President Harrison. He was educated at The University of N. C. and speaks several languages. He resides at Mobile and married a Miss Crossland and has two sons. Mary Ann married Dr. Wm. I. Tunstall and had four children: Laura, Percy, Thomas and Arthur. Lucy married Alex. Lumsden, a nephew of Frank Lumsden, formerly editor of the N. 0. Picayune and he had several children: One son, Capt. Frank Lumsden of Mobile, who married a daughter of Gen. Can Dorm; Peyton Randolph married Miss Laura Slaughter and had four sons: Peyton and Thomas (both dentists of Mobile) and Edmund and Clay. Rebecca married William Hobbes; they had one daughter, Willie, now Mrs. Neville of Mobile. Elizabeth married Jno. D. Weatherford of Monroe County (a nephew of Wm. Weatherford the warrior), and had several children. The writer was at her wedding which was a brilliant affair.
Elizabeth Tate married Elijah Tarvin, they had seven children, two now living in the Creek Nation, Geo. W. and Eliza Douglas. Theresa Tate married Elisah Tarvin on the 26th of Dec. 1825 (he was a brother of Elijah); they had eight children: William, Virginia, Elizabeth, Richard Maiden, Marion Elisah (the writer), Victoria, Miller Tate, Edger James all born in Baldwin County, Ala. Elizabeth married Wm. H. Steadham and had three children: James Emanuel, Elisah and Rosa. Marion Elisah married Miss Sophia Frances, youngest daughter of Pleasant White of Sumpter County, Ala., and had two sons: Pleasant Floyd, and Beauregard Coats. John Coats, the grandfather of Sophia Frances White, (now Mrs. Marion E. Tarvin), moved from S. C. to Alabama at an early day and settled in Green County, representing that district in the State senate several terms. Victoria married Frank Lawson and had two daughters: Fannie and Josephine, now Mrs. Brown of Choctaw County, Ala. Marion Elisah (the writer) finished his literary studies under the Beal brothers, at Wilkens' Academyin Maury County, Tennessee, after which he studied medicine and dentistry and was graduated from Baltimore College of Dental surgery in 1867. He was 2nd Lt. in the 40th Ala. volunteer regiment, Holtzclaw's Brigade, Withers' Division, Polk's corps Confederate army. Miller Tate Tarvin was a confederate soldier in the 3rd Ala. Cavalry Ruffidragooms, F. Y. Gaines Capt., and escort Company to Gen. A. S. Johnston. He was on the battlefield when Gen. Johnston was killed, Miller came to a tragic end by being waylaid and killed by a cowardly assassin. Edgar James was a confederate soldier in the 40th Ala. Vol. regiment.
Wm. Tarvia, the father of Elijah and Elisah came from England and first settled in Burke County, Ga. and married a Miss Mary Miller, afterwards settled in Baldwin County, Ala. and died there about 1812. He had three daughters: Elizabeth, Nancy and Rene, and two sons: Elijah and Elisah. Elizabeth married Jas. Earle, S. C., and had three daughters: Nancy, Rachel, Margaret, and six sons: James, William, Richard, Alexander, John and Frank. Nancy married Edward Stidham and had sons and daughters; Margaret married Joel McDavid and had sons and daughters; Nancy Tarvin married. Thos, Puckett and had sons and daughters. The Grand-daughter, Martha E. Hotchkiss, (now Mrs. Whitton of Austin, Tex. the authoress of the "Garlands of Texas," a poetical work). Rene Tarvin married No. Boon and had seven sons and one daughter Rachel married Capt. Myles, U, S. A. and had two sons: Joseph and John, and Emily. Elijah Tarvin married Elizabeth Tate and had sons and daughters. Elisah married Theresa Tate and had sons and daughters (one daughter being the mother of the writer). Zylpha, fourth daughter of Wm. Tarvin married a Mr. Conway and had sons and daughters. David Tate having lost his wife, who was killed with her father and mother at Ft. Mims (David Tate was at Pierce's, three miles distant, at the time) married Mrs. Margaret Powell in 1819 and had one child, a daughter, Josephine, who married Jas. D. Dresbachin 1844, both now living. They had fourteen children namely: Ida, Charles Henry, Florence, Percy Webb, Arthur Carroll, Mabel, Viola Kate, Maude, Lee (physician), Bertha, Clara Lilia, Anna Moniac, Josephine Tate, Sehoy Rosannah, all born in Baldwin Co., Ala.
Sehoy Tate, the sister of Gen. McGillivray, after the death of her husband in 1779, married Chas. Weatherford, an Englishman who came to the Creek Nation some years prior to 1778, from Georgia. He was a man of means and was a government contractor, and constructed and owned the first race courses in Ala. From this marriage they.had five children; three sons and two daughters, namely: William (the warrior), John, Elizabeth, Washington and Rosannah. The Sehoy the second, sister of Alex. McGillivray, was an extraordinary woman, if only from the fact of being the mother of three very remarkable personages; David Tate (the writers grand-father), William the Chief, and Rosannah Weatherford. Rosannah married Capt. Shomo, a gallant officer of the U. S. Navy. I well recollet Aunt Rosannah and Capt. Shomo, having often been at their house. She was woman of great force of of character. She was born in the upper part of Baldwin county, Ala., near where rests the remains of her warrior brother, William the "Red Eagle". From this marriage they had five children: David, Joseph W., both, of whom were eminent physicians of Monroe and Wilcox counties, Ala., James, Frank, Virginia, William, and Fannie. Virginia now lives with her brother, Dr. Jos. W. Shomo. Dr. J. W. Shomo was twice married. His first wife was Miss Mary Wheadon, of Virginia. They had two daughters--Mr. Dr. Scott, the other, Mrs. Kingall of Monroe County, Ala.,Sophia, sister to Gen. McGillivray, was beautiful in every respect, she had an air of authority, and had great influence for good. She married Ben Durant of S. C., a Frenchman, at Little Tulsa, in 1779, on the Coosa River, Ala. They afterwards went to live on one of her father's plantations on the Savannah River. They had, by this marriage, five children: Lachlan, Sophia, Polly, Rachel, and Betsey. One of the children married James Baily who was killed at Ft. Mims; he was a brother of Capt. Dixon Baily who fought, so bravely in defence of Ft. Mims and was killed. Sophia married Dr. McCombs a Scotchman. Lachlan married Miss Polly Hall of Baldwin, County, Ala. and had five sons: Jack, Charles, Martin, William and Constance, and Sally Adams. Jack lives at Bartlett, Williamson Co., Texas. He is now 83 years of ago and a prominent citizen, and has several children. One of his sons, Arthur, lives at Abilene, Texas. One of his daughters, Milly, married Mark Minter, and has six sons. They live at Muscogee, I. T. Charles was a soldier in the Mexican war, under Gen. Taylor. Martin was twice sheriff of Baldwin county, Ala. William was engaged by the U. S. Government, with Ex-chief Ward Coachman, in carrying the last body of 65 Creeks from Alabama to the Nation in 1849. I was present and saw them get on board a steamboat at Sizemoore's wood-yard. Polly married Muslushobie (otherwise Coachman), who was half white, and of the Ala., tribe. They had one son, Ward Coachman, a well-educated and very popular man of the present Creek Nation. He was twice elected chief or governor of his Nation and is now a member of the Council. He lived in Alabama at the house of his uncle, Lachlan Durant, until he was twenty-two years of age, when he moved to the Territory. He has been married twice, and has four children: Peter, Vicey, Charles and George. Constance Durant still lives in Baldwin, co., ala., an old bachelor. Neither William or Charles were ever married. I was often at the home of Lachlan Durant, during my boyhood, and heard him talk of his uncle Alexander McGillivray. Martin Durant married a Miss Hannah Pollard, and had several children,.the eldest named Norman.
Gen. LeClere Milford, an intelligent Frenchman, mentioned above, lived in the Creek Nation from 1776 to 1796. He wrote a history of the Muscogees or Creeks, and published his work in Paris in 1802. He married Jeannet, the other sister of Gen. McGillivray of the Creek tribe. When he arrived in France with his wife; Bonaparte, who had heard of this adventureus man, honored him with an audience; he wished to engage the services of this man to help form an alliance with Alabama and. Mississippi, to strengthen his Louisiana possessions, so he made him a General of Brigade. In 1814 LeClere Milford died at his home at Rheims. His wife survived him but a short time.
John Randon, a wealthy man from Savannah, settled in Monroe Co., Ala., on the Alabama River at an early day, at the mouth of Randon Creek, now known as the Wm. Hollings Place, where the celebrated canoe fight took place with Anstill, Dale and Smith and eight warriors. He married a woman of French and Creek blood, and had four children: Peter, David, John and Mary. As already shown, Mary married David Tate and was killed in Ft. Mims with her father and mother In 1813. David married a Miss McNeil; he had only one child, Proserpine. He died in Ft. Bend County, Texas, since the confederate war. Peter, the gallant officer of Ft. Mims, commanded a citizens Company; he made his escape with 17 others, and afterwards became a citizen of New Orleans, and was a cotton factor. His second wife was an English lady by whom he had two children: Sylvester and Louise. After his death she returned to England. I have a pleasant personal recollection of them. He was my grand-uncle, and beloved by all who knew him. John married and had one child named John, who married, Miss Lottie Baldwin of Houston, Texas, and had one daughter, Libbie, now Mrs. George L. Porter of that city.
David Tate died in 1829, and was interred at one of his homes, at the beautiful spot of old Montpelier, Baldwin county, Ala., now owned by Frank Earle, a first cousin of the writer on his father's side. David Tate and Wm. Weatherford, the Chief and warrior, were half brothers. David was friendly to the U. S., and opposed the Indian war; he met his half brother in camp the night before the attack on Ft. Mims, and endeavored to persuade him (William) to desist. William made a speech to his 700 warriors; they accused him of treachery, but he assured them that he was true, he told them they must spare the women and children. He had raised the storm but could not control it.
John Weatherford married Patty Dyer, sister of David Tate's second wife, they had two children: John D. and Caroline. Caroline married Killiam and had several children. Edward was a physician who died at Muskogee, I.T., and left one child, a daughter Lita, now living with the family of Geo. W. Tarvin of Okmulgee, I. T. Norville married a man by the name of Norman, In Monroe Co. Ala. and moved to the Creek Nation in 1867.
William Moniac, a Hollander, the father of Sam who married Polly Colbert, a Tuskegee woman who was the mother of Sam Moniac who married Elizabeth Weatherford. He went to N.Y. with Alex McGillivray; there he was presented by Washington with a medal which was buried with him at Pass Christian, Miss., in 1837; they had three children; David, Alexander, and Levitia. David Moniac, under the treaty at New York, was graduated at West Point. He was made a major and commanded 600 Creeks and Choctaws against the Seminoles in the Florida war of 1836. He was killed, 13 bullets piercing his body. A braver man never lived.
Levitia or Vicey, married William Sizemore of Baldwin County, Ala. who was a son of Dixon Baily's sister, a mixture of Creek and white blood. He became a wealthy planter on the Alabama River, and has many descendants. Major David Moniac married Miss Polly Powell (or Mrs. Saunders) and had two children: David Alexander and Margaret. David Alexander was sheriff of Baldwin County, Ala. and served one or two terms, he died In 1880. Margaret married A. J. McDonald and had several children.
After finishing with Wm. Weatherford I will end with the McGillivray family, who have married and intermarried into some of the best families, and constitute some of the best citizens in the South. Many of them have made gallant soldiers and creditable citizens. Wm. Weatherford the warrior and Chief, married for his first wife, Polly Moniac, daughter of Wm. Moniac and Polly Colbert; by this marriage he had three children: Charles, William and Polly. After Polly's death he married his cousin Kanoth-Koney, daughter of John Moniac. After her death he married Mary Stiggins, by whom he had five children. Alex. McGillivray Weatherford is the only one of his five children, by his third wife, who is now living, Levitiagrew to womanhood and married Dr. Howell; she died and left four children. Weatherford's eldest son, Charles, by his first wife, is still living in the lower part of Monroe Co., Ala. He is now ninety-three years of age. He has a son Charles who married Martha Stoples and has eight children: Sherman, Sidney, Maggie, Loura, Mary, Charles and lone. I have often conversed with this noble and venerable old kinsman. He is a handsome old man with long white flowing beard. I have often heard him tell of the McGillivray family and the war of 1813 and 1814, carried on by Weatherford, of which the family were unhappily divided. His native land was being encroached upon by the whites on all sides; this was the stake to be fought for. He had another reason for fighting against the Americans which was that he would have been charged with cowardice, which he could not brook. Unlike his brother David Tate, he had no education. Col. Hawkins, the Indian Agent who lived long amongst the Creeks said a more truthful man than Weatherford never lived. It seemed as if nature had set her seal upon him in fashioning his form, for it was said you could not look upon him without being impressed with the idea that you were in the presence of no ordinary man. He was as perfect in form as nature ever made a man. As you see, he was of Indian, French, Scotch and English blood. Educated people who conversed with him were surprised to hear with what force and elegance he spoke the English language. He carried on the war from June 1813 to Dec.1814, when he surrendered to Gen. Andrew Jackson at Ft. Jackson, Ala., an account of which is here given in his own words as related to me by William Sizemore, Chas. Weatherford, Col. Robt. James of Clarke County, and Wm. Hollinger.
I also refer you to Pickett's history of Ala. and to the Historical Society at Tuscaloosa, Ala. After he had captured and destroyed Ft. Mims and its inmates, (except the17 who made their escape) he fought Gen. Jackson at E. Mukfau, Hilibia Holy Ground, Horse Shoe, and in various other battles, in which he (Weatherford) distinguished himself. He fought as long as there was hope of success. After the battle of the Horse Shoe, when one half of his warriors lay stretched in death upon the gory field, and the women and children of his tribe were starving and hiding in the forest, when ruin and want spread throughout the land, he determined to make a sacrifice of himself In order to save the remnant of his tribe. This greater hero than ancient or modern times ever produced, went boldly forward to give his life to mitigate the sufferings of his people. Mounted on the noble steed that had carried him through all the perils of war, he started for Ft. Jackson. As he approached the Fort he met some officers and privates near the Fort who directed him to Jackson's headquarters. He rode up to Jacksons tent, in front of which stood Col. Hawkins, the Indian Agent, reading a newspaper. As Hawkins raised his head and saw Weatherford, he exclaimed in startled surprise, "By Heaven here Is Weatherford", Gen. Jackson stepped out quickly and, after looking sharply at Weatherford, exclaimed, "And what do you come here for, Sir?" Weatherford said, "I come to surrender myself to you. You can kill me if you wish to do so. I have fought you as long as I could, and did you all the harm I could, and had I warriors I would still fight you but you have destroyed them, I can fight no longer I come to ask for peace, not for myself, but for my people--the women and children who are starving in the forest, without shelter. If you think I deserve death you can take my life; I am a Creek warrior and not afraid to die. My talk is ended." At the conclusion of these words, many who had surrounded him, said, "Kill him, kill him, kill him". Gen. Jackson commanded silence and said in an emphatic tone, "Any man who would kill as brave a man as this, would rob the dead." He then invited Weatherford to alight, and drank a glass of brandy with him, and entered into cheerful conversation under his hospitable marquee, Weatherford took no further part in the war except to Influence his warriors to surrender. He went to his former residence on the Little River, but soon had to leave it as his life was constantly in danger. Gen. Jackson sent him to a secret place of safety, and remained there several months. His half brother, David Tate, (The writer's Grand-father) was the only man in Ala. who knew where Weatherford was during his stay at the Hermitage. He afterwards returned to the lower part of Monroe Co., Ala, where he owned a fine plantation and large number of slaves. He was generous and kind to all, was highly esteemed and respected by every one for his strict Integrity and manly qualities. He died in 1824 and sleeps by his mother, Sehoy, in the northern part of Baldwin County, Ala., near the residence of Col J. D. Driesbach, who married his half niece, Josephine Tate, (my aunt) both of whom are now living, upon the same spot where he made his speech to his warriors on the night before he attacked Ft. Mims, on the day following Aug, 30th, 1813. Though fierce his deeds; and rad his hand, he battled for his native land.
I have had conversations with the following persons concerning the McGillivray family: Old negro Tom, who escaped from the massacre at Ft. Mims. Jonah, a body servant of Gen. McGillivray, who even remembered Lachlan McGillivray. This negro died at the house of my aunt, Mrs, Josephine Driesbach, in Baldwin County, since the war, at a very old age. Mrs. Sizemore, mother of Wm. Sizemore, William Hollinger, Col. J. Anstil of Mobile; Linn Maghee, (my grandfather`s ranch man). I was personally acquainted with the following old and distinguished citizens of Alabama: Gen. Geo. S. Gaines, he told me about the arrest of Ex-vice president Aaron Burr, by his brother, Capt. E. P. Gaines, and his soldiers, in company with Nicholas Perkins, Tom Malone, and others. He was at Ft. Stoddard when Burr was brought there, he became fascinated with him, and regretted the down-fall of this brilliant and distinguished man. Aaron Burr remained in the Fort two weeks when he was taken in a boat up the river to Tensaw Lake where they landed within a quarter of a mile of where Ft. Mims afterwards stood he was taken on horseback through Baldwin Co., stopping at the comfortable residence of my grandfather, David Tate, for dinner. They continued their line of march through the wilderness north. I was well acquainted with Judge A. B. Meek of Mobile, who wrote the "RED EAGLE" (Weatherford), Ex Gov. A. P. Bagby, S. P. Hopkins, E. S. Dargon, Reuben Chamberlain, Burwell Boykin, Judge Jno. A. Campbell, G. N. Stewart, Dr. Mordecei (a son of Abram Mordecai) a Jew who lived in the Creek Nation many years, Ned and Jesse Stidham, and Dr. J. G. Holmes, of Baldwin Co. The three latter escaped from Ft. Mims the time of the battle when all was lost.1813. Ned Stidham had a finger shot off. He married my first cousin, Nancy Earls, on my father's side. His sons and I were schoolmates.
I cannot close without saying something of another remarkable family--- the McIntosh family of Alabama. McIntosh Bluff on the Tombigby River, was the first place where the first American court was held.
Alabama has the honor of being the birthplace of Geo. M. Troup of Georgia. His grandfather, Capt. John McIntosh, Chief ot the McIntosh Clan, of Scotland, was rewarded by the King of England, for his valuable service with the grant of McIntosh Bluff. He had a daughter who, while on a visit to England, married an officer named Troup. She sailed from England to Mobile, and went up to McIntosh Bluff to her father's residence where, in 1780 she gave birth to a son, Geo. M. Troup, once governor of Georgia. Roderick McIntosh, grand uncle of Gov. Troup, was often in the Creek Nation and was the father of Co. William McIntosh, a half blood Creek of high character, whom the upper Creeks killed on account of his friendship to the Georgians, and his treaty with them. They afterwards regretted it. He was fearless in spirit, and wanted to raise his people, the Creeks, to a higher degree of civilization. He did his best to put down the hostiles, as he know it would result in their ultimate ruin. He wanted them to emigrate west, to got away from whiskey, and the bad influence of white men. He has been instrumental in making a treaty by which was surrendered a large tract of land that Georgia claimed. He was doing what he thought was best for his people, in securing permanent homes and peace, but they took a wrong view of it and resolved to put him to death. About fifty of the conspirators surrounded his house at daylight. David Tate, his friend, and my grandfather, had heard of the intended assassination, and sent a trusty servant to warn McIntosh. The messenger arrived at McIntosh's residence just before the hostile band. Gen. McIntosh immediately sent off his son, Chilly, to seek aid to defend his home. His son had been gone but a short time when his house was set on fire; he then resigned himself to his fate. More than fifty rifles broke forth at daybreak, and the noble Chief fell from the door a lifeless corpse.The above facts were narrated to my uncle by an eye witness, and he told them to me.
The first emigration to the present Creek Nation was made under Chilly Mclntosh, the son of Gen. Wm. McIntosh in 1827 and still another; until finally nearly all were settled in the new Territory, with the exception of a few scattering families who remained in Alabama. A goodly number of their descendants still live there. The Creeks exchanged their lands in Ala. for those they now occupy with the U. S., these were patented to them by the government, and to their descendents, as long as water runs and grass grows. They are in a prosperous condition, have a good government, towns, Capitol buildings, school, colleges, asylums, etc. They are Intelligent and very hospitable. Their Nation contains 14,000 Creek citizens, 5,000 negroes and 10,000 whites. Chilly McIntosh raised a regiment during the war, and joined the confederate army. He has two sons who now live in the Territory; Lucien, and the Rev. W. F., a Baptist preacher, of education and refinement, and much respected by all the people in the Territory.
I have written this in answer to a letter from Prof. W. S. Wyman, of the University of Alabama, dated July 20th,1893. He is engaged in writing a history of Alabama, and wished more information of the McGillivray family, of the Creeks of Alabama. In conclusion I will say that Maj. James D. Driesbach, my uncle, of Baldwin County, Ala., to whom I am indebted for valuable information in writing this history of the McGillivray, Tates, Durants and Weatherfords, served in the State senate of Ala., was born at Dayton, Ohio, married my aunt, Josephine Tate In 1844, is of German descent, and one of the best and truest men I ever had the good fortune to know. He is now school superintendent of his county, but nearly blind from old age. His wife is a large fine looking old lady, very intelligent, and most estimable.
Galveston, Texas, Sept. 1893.
Emathla (Phillip). Important information for later books. Osceola, Billy
(for other info on Indian villages see also: https://books.google.com/books?id=cPZSZ6zedDkC&pg=PA407&lpg=PA407&dq=location+of+long+swamp+east+of+Big+Hammock&source=bl&ots=d_qk1FsxCy&sig=ujzZo9JUnYq-Quya5MBPnTAttYI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iTW8VJb2BpDlgwSd1oPYDw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=location%20of%20long%20swamp%20east%20of%20Big%20Hammock&f=false
Early history of the Creek Indians and their neighbors
By John Reed Swanton
The chief known to the Seminoles as Emathla but better known to the U.S. Army as King Philip would have liked that.
The site, after all, was his hiding place, his sanctuary.
Philip, a powerful leader among the Seminoles of the St. Johns River valley, called the lake ''Tohopekaliga,'' a word that meant ''fort site.'' Philip built a stockade-like settlement on an isolated island surrounded by thick foliage.
The spelling ''Topkoliky'' and also ''Tohopkeliky'' appear in the journal of Myer M. Cohen, an officer during the Seminole wars.
''There is a large lake, containing a number of islands, upon the largest of which Philip is established,'' according to Cohen's Notices of Florida: The Campaigns.
In 1836 Cohen, a lawyer and former teacher from Charleston, S.C., was in Florida for four months as a staff officer of Gen. Abraham Eustis.
''This island is surrounded with water so deep, that it cannot be forded, except in one place, nor can it be approached from any point without discovery,'' Cohen writes. ''Here the old chief resides, with his women, children, old men and negroes, attending to the cultivation of his crops, whilst his warriors are marauding about the country.''
Philip and a black ally named John Caesar had raided coastal and St. Johns River sugar plantations in what then was called Mosquito County, which included all of what today is Osceola County and a lot more.
Only days after Seminoles ambushed Maj. Francis Dade, slaughtering nearly all of his 108 soldiers near Bushnell, and Seminole leader Osceola murdered federal agent Wiley Thompson, Philip led raiding parties on attacks of plantations east of the St. Johns to St. Augustine.
Afterwards, his bands slipped back to the safety of their Lake Toho island. In the years to come, Philip's son, Coacoochee, who was born on the island, carried on his father's battle. Coacoochee, a fierce warrior known to the Army as Wildcat, led the Feb. 8, 1837, attack by more than 200 Seminoles on the army camp on Lake Monroe. His battle cry, according to Dr. Jacob Motte's war journal, was ''tohopeka,'' which he said was their term for a fort or strong place.
Fort footnote: Cohen lists a battle at ''Tohopka'' as one of the ''forts of Indian allies'' where Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the Creeks of the Southeast before invading Spanish Florida, an act that set off the first of the three Seminole wars and led to Spain's decision to let the United States take Florida in 1821.
Wild Cat, born Coacoochee or Cowacoochee (c. 1807/1810–1857), was a leading Seminole chieftain during the later stages of the Second Seminole War as well as the nephew of Micanopy.
Wild Cat's exact place year and place of birth is not agreed upon. Many local scholars believe he was born in 1807 on an island in big Lake Tohopekaliga, south of Orlando.[1][2][3]Some scholars say Wild Cat was born to King Philip (or Ee-mat-la) in Yulaka, a Seminole village along the St. Johns River in northern Florida around 1810. Still others suggest that he was born near present day Apopka, Florida.[4] Wild Cat may have had a twin sister who died at birth and, having been born a twin, he was regarded by the tribe as being particularly gifted. As tensions mounted between Seminoles and local settlers following the purchase of Florida by the United States in 1821, Seminole tribes encouraged the escape of slaves in neighboring Georgia in reaction to encroaching settlers who began settling on the Florida coast previously occupied by Seminoles.
At the start of the Second Seminole War, the nineteen-year-old Wild Cat gained prominence leading a band of Seminoles and Black Seminoles until his father's capture and imprisonment in Fort Marion in 1837. Although some of the Black Seminoles had fled to Florida to escape slavery, most of the Black Seminoles were free descendants of Black Seminoles who had lived in Florida for more than a century.
In October 1837, Wild Cat appeared before American forces in a ceremonial peace headdress claiming to be an emissary of Osceola and, after negotiations with Colonel Thomas S. Jesup, American authorities agreed to peace talks. However, after the arrival of the Seminoles, Jesup ordered their arrest. While imprisoned at Fort Marion, Wild Cat would escape with nineteen other Seminoles, reportedly fasting for six days before they were able to slide through the bars of their jail cell and drop into the moat on the outside of the fort.
With the imprisonment of Osceola, Wild Cat emerged as the leading commander of the war fighting with Alligator and Arpeika against Colonel Zachary Taylor at the inconclusive Battle of Lake Okeechobee on December 25, 1837 before retreating to the Everglades. In 1841, only two years after his father's death while being transported to Indian Territory, Wild Cat agreed to meet American authorities for peace negotiations. After negotiating with Lieutenant William T. Sherman at the Indian River post of Fort Pierce, Wild Cat agreed to be transported to Fort Gibson in Oklahoma's Indian Territory along with his remaining two hundred followers. Growing depressed over his forced surrender, he was said to have stated, "I was in hopes I would be killed in battle, but a bullet never reached me."'
Traveling to Washington, D.C. with Alligator as part of a Seminole delegation in 1843, Wild Cat failed to gain financial aid for the Seminoles as the tribe suffered a series of floods and raids by neighboring Creeks (capturing free blacks and Indians and selling them to southern slave holders). This devastated the black and Indian Seminoles. Conditions continued to worsen until 1849 when Wild Cat left the reservation with about one hundred followers, consisting of Seminoles and black Seminoles, which included some former slaves, and escaped to Texas. Joined by about one thousand Kickapoos, Wild Cat's band eventually were able to establish a new community in Mexico where the government awarded the tribe an area of land in recognition for their service against Apache and Comanche raiders. Earning a commission of Colonel in the Mexican army, Wild Cat would live with the Seminoles until his death of smallpox in Alto, Mexico in 1857. He was succeeded by his son Gato Chiquito or Young Wild Cat.
On May 29, 2012 an application was registered at the US Bureau of Geographic Names to name a stretch of unnamed barrier islands on the Florida East Coast for this chief.
WEATHER PLAYS A PART IN HISTORY AND PARTICULARLY THE YEAR THERE WAS NO SUMMER. I owe my bridge partners Dr. Joe and Cheryl Budd whose offhand remark alerted me to this fact--an important fact when writing historical fiction about this era.
Year without a Summer
Alabama
1816 — This is known as the year without a summer. On 16th of April spray blown from the waves would freeze in the rigging of vessels at Mobile. June 8th there was a killing frost south to latitude 33 degrees, and frost every month of the year north of latitude 34 degrees. Corn meal sold at $5.00 a bushel in Tuscumbia the following winter and spring.
1817 — A year of constant rains.
Though the northeastern section of the continent was hardest hit, southern states still experienced their share of the cold. On July 4th of that year, for instance, the high temperature in Savannah, Georgia, was a chilly 46° F. As far south as Pennsylvania, lakes and rivers were frozen over during July and August.
As a result of the series of volcanic eruptions, crops in the above-mentioned areas had been poor for several years; the final blow came in 1815 with the eruption of Tambora. Europe, still recuperating from the Napoleonic Wars, suffered from food shortages. Food riots broke out in the United Kingdom and France, and grain warehouses were looted. The violence was worst in landlocked Switzerland, where famine caused the government to declare a national emergency. Huge storms and abnormal rainfall with floodings of the major rivers of Europe (including the Rhine) are attributed to the event, as was the frost setting in during August 1816. A major typhus epidemic occurred in Ireland between 1816 and 1819, precipitated by the famine caused by "The Year Without a Summer". It is estimated that 100,000 Irish perished during this period. A BBC documentary using figures compiled in Switzerland estimated that fatality rates in 1816 were twice that of average years, giving an approximate European fatality total of 200,000 deaths.
New England also experienced great consequences from the eruption of Tambora. The corn crop was grown significantly in New England and the eruption caused the crop to fail. It was reported that in the summer of 1816 corn ripened so badly that no more than a quarter of it was usable for food. The crop failures in New England, Canada and parts of Europe also caused the price of wheat, grains, meat, vegetables, butter, milk and flour to rise sharply.
The eruption of Tambora also caused Hungary to experience brown snow. Italy experienced something similar, with red snow falling throughout the year. The cause of this is believed to have been volcanic ash in the atmosphere.
In China, unusually low temperatures in summer and fall devastated rice production in Yunnan province in the southwest, resulting in widespread famine. Fort Shuangcheng, now in Heilongjiang province, reported fields disrupted by frost and conscripts deserting as a result. Summer snowfall was reported in various locations in Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, both in the south of the country. In Taiwan, which has a tropical climate, snow was reported in Hsinchu and Miaoli, while frost was reported in Changhua.[17]
On 10 March 1817 around 5,000 marchers, mainly spinners and weavers, met in St. Peter's Field, near Manchester, along with a large crowd of onlookers, perhaps as many as 25,000 people in total.[1] Each marcher had a blanket or rolled overcoat on his back, to sleep under at night and to serve as a sign that the man was a textile worker, giving the march its eventual nickname. The plan was for the marchers to walk in separate groups of ten, in order to avoid any accusation of illegal mass assembly.[4] Each group of ten carried a petition bearing twenty names, appealing directly to the Prince Regent to take urgent steps to improve the Lancashire cotton trade.[1] The organisers stressed the importance of lawful behaviour during the march, and Drummond was quoted as declaring: "We will let them see it is not riot and disturbance we want, it is bread we want and we will apply to our noble Prince as a child would to its Father for bread."[5]Nevertheless, magistrates had the Riot Act read, the meeting was broken up by the King's Dragoon Guards, and 27 people were arrested including Bagguley and Drummond. Plans for the march were thus in confusion, but several hundred men set off. The cavalry pursued and attacked them, in Ardwick on the outskirts of Manchester and elsewhere, including an incident at Stockport that left several marchers with sabre wounds and one local resident shot dead. Many dropped out or were taken into custody by police and the yeomanry between Manchester and Stockport, and the majority were turned back or arrested under vagrancy laws before they reached Derbyshire. There were unconfirmed stories that just one marcher, variously named as "Abel Couldwell" or "Jonathan Cowgill"[4][6], reached London and handed over his petition.
"Ardwick Bridge conspiracy" and aftermath
Some concern was expressed over the harsh suppression of the march, but the Manchester magistrates quickly provided justification for the authorities' actions. On 28 March a private meeting of reformers was broken up in the Ardwick Bridge area of Manchester, and the following day it was announced that a major conspiracy had been discovered. According to the official story, deputies in Manchester and other northern towns had been planning an uprising in which the army and local officials would be attacked, mills burned, and imprisoned Blanketeers liberated. It was said that up to fifty thousand people were expected to take part. Many suspected insurrectionists were arrested immediately, including Samuel Bamford, whose memoirs contain a detailed description of his arrest and detention[7]. The prisoners were taken to London in irons for personal interrogation by a secret tribunal including the Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh and the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth. In some cases they were held without trial for months before their eventual release. No sign of the uprising was seen on the appointed day, but the event was used to support the government's case for the continued emergency measures. Parliament renewed the suspension of Habeas Corpus again in June and it was not reinstated until the following March, at which time legislation indemnifying officials for any unlawful actions during the period of suspension was also passed. Meanwhile, the Pentridge or Pentrich Rising in Derbyshire in June 1817 continued the trend of insurrection among the working classes in the name of social and political reform.
The government also clamped down on press comment and radical writing. It had already passed the Power of Imprisonment Bill in February 1817, prompting the journalist William Cobbett to leave for America for fear of arrest for his pro-reform writing and publishing, and the Seditious Meetings Act in March of that year, as a direct response to the Blanketeers' march. On 12 May Sidmouth circulated instructions to the Lords Lieutenant that magistrates could use their own judgement on what constituted "seditious or blasphemous libel" and could arrest and bail anyone caught selling it. The Six Acts, which followed the Peterloo massacre, would include further restrictions designed to limit the freedom of the press.
The Blanketeers March and the subsequent conspiracy alarms led the Manchester magistrates to form the short-lived Manchester and Salford Yeomanry cavalry, intended to combat any future attempts at insurrection. It became infamous two years later for its role in the Peterloo Massacre.
The "Year without a Summer"
In 1816, Savannah, Georgia, celebrated the 4th of July with a high temperature of 46°F! Because it was so cold across the eastern U.S., crops were ruined as the growing season was shortened. Snow even fell in June, the heaviest in New England between June 6th and 11th, creating snow drifts 18 to 20 inches in parts of Vermont.
This cooler than normal weather also contributed to crop failure in Canada and Western Europe. There was also sunspots on the sun visible to the naked eyes. This combined with the unusual amount of volcanic dust in the stratosphere might have lead to global cooling.
It has been theorized that a series of volcanic eruptions in earlier in the decade ejected billions of cubic yards of fine volcanic dust high into the atmosphere. On St. Vincent Island in the Caribbean, Soufrière erupted in 1812. In the Philippines, the Mayon Volcano erupted in 1814, and Mount Tambora, located in Indonesia, erupted in 1815.