USA > Florida > The purchase of Florida; its history and diplomacy > Part 26
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From the last mentioned correspondence the Spanish govern- ment must likewise have been satisfied that the occupation of these places in Spanish Florida by the commander of the Amer- ican forces was not by virtue of any orders received by him from
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this government to that effect with any view of wresting the prov- ince from Spain nor in any spirit of hostility to the Spanish gov- ernment. That it arose from incidents which occurred in the pros- ecution of the war against the Indians, from the imminent danger in which the Fort of St. Marks was of being seized by the Indians themselves; and from the manifestations of hostility to the United States by the commandant of St. Marks, and the governor of Pensacola, the proofs of which were made known to General Jackson and impelled him from the necessities of self defense to the steps of which the Spanish government complains.
It might be sufficient to leave the vindication of these measures upon those grounds and to furnish, in the enclosed copies of General Jackson's letters and the vouchers by which they are supported, the evidence of that hostile spirit on the part of the Spanish commanders, but for the terms in which Mr. Pizarro speaks of the execution of a British subject taken, one at the Fort of St. Marks and the other at Suwany and the inti- mation that these transactions may lead to a change in the re- lations between the two nations which is doubtless to be under- stood as a menace of war. It may be therefore proper to remind the government of his Catholic Majesty of the incidents in which this Seminole war originated: as well as of the circumstances connected with it in the relations between Spain and her ally, whom she supposes to have been injured by the proceedings of General Jackson: and to give the Spanish cabinet some precise information of the nature of the business peculiarly interesting to Spain in which these subjects of her allies, in whose favor she takes this interest, were engaged, when their projects of every kind were terminated in consequence of their falling into the hands of General Jackson.
' In the month of August, 1814, while a war existed between the United States and Great Britain to which Spain had formally declared herself neutral, a British force-not in the fresh pursuit of a defeated and flying enemy, not overstepping an imaginary and equivocal boundary between their own territories and those belonging in some sort as much to their enemy as to Spain, but approaching by sea and by a broad and open invasion of the Spanish province, at a thousand miles or an ocean's dis- tance from any British territory - landed in Florida; took pos- session of Pensacola and the Fort of Barrancas and invited by public proclamations all the runaway negroes, all the savage Indians, all the pirates and all the traitors to their country whom .
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they knew or imagined to exist within reach of their summons to join their standard and wage an exterminating war against the portion of the United States immediately bordering upon this neutral and thus violated territory of Spain. . . . The land com- mander of the British forces was a certain Colonel Nicholls who, driven from Pensacola by the approach of General Jackson, actually left to be blown up the Spanish Fort of Barrancas when he found it could not afford him protection, and evacuating that part of the province landed at another, established himself on the Appalachicola River, and there erected a fort from which to sally forth with his motley tribe of black, white, and red com- batants against the defenseless borders of the United States in that vicinity. A part of this force consisted of a corps of colonial marines, levied in the British colonies, in which George Woodbine was a captain and Robert Chrystie Ambrister was a lieutenant. As between the United States and Great Britain we should be willing to bury this transaction in the same grave of oblivion with other transactions of that war, had the hostilities of Colonel Nicholls terminated with the war. But he did not consider the peace which ensued between the United States and Great Britain as having put an end either to his military occupations or to his negotiations with the Indians against the United States. Several months after the ratification of the treaty of Ghent he retained his post and his party-colored forces in military array. By the ninth article of that treaty the United States had stipulated to put an end to hotilities immediately after its ratification with all the tribes or nations of Indians with whom they might be at war at the time of the ratification and to restore to them all the possessions which they had enjoyed in the year 1811. This article had no application to the Creek nation with whom the United States had already made peace by a treaty concluded August 9, 1814, more than four months before the treaty of Ghent was signed. Yet Colonel Nicholls not only affected to consider it as applying to the Seminoles of Florida and the outlawed Red Sticks whom he had induced to join him there, but actually persuaded them that they were entitled, by virtue of the treaty of Ghent, to all the lands which had belonged to the Creek nation within the United States in the year of 1811, and that the government of Great Britain would support them in that pretension. He asserted also this doctrine in a correspond- ence with Colonel Hawkins, then the agent of the United States with the Creeks, and gave him notice in their name, with a
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mockery of solemnity, that they had concluded a treaty of alli- ance offensive and defensive and a treaty of navigation and commerce with Great Britain of which more was to be heard after it should be ratified in England. Colonel Nicholls then evacuated his fort which in some of the enclosed papers is called the Fort of Prospect Bluff, but which he had denominated the British post on the Appalachicola, took with him the white portion of his force, and embarked for England with several of the wretched savages whom he was thus deluding to their fate: among whom was the Prophet Francis or Hillis Hadjo, and left the fort, amply supplied with military forces and ammunition, to the negro department of his allies. It afterwards was known by the name of the Negro Fort.
Colonel Hawkins immediately communicated to this govern- ment the correspondence between him and Colonel Nicholls . . . upon which Mr. Monroe, then secretary of state, addressed a letter to Mr. Baker, the British chargé d'affaires at Washington complaining of Nicholls's conduct and showing that his pretence that the ninth article of the treaty of Ghent could have any appli- cation to his Indians was utterly destitute of foundation. Copies of the same correspondence were transmitted to the minister of the United States then in England with instructions to remon- strate with the British government against these proceedings of
Nicholls and to show how incompatible they were with the peace which had been concluded between the two nations. These remonstrances were accordingly made. First, in personal in- terview with Earl Bathurst and Lord Castlereagh and afterwards in written notes addressed successively to them. . . . Lord Bath- urst in the most unequivocal manner confirmed the facts and dis- avowed the misconduct of Nicholls and declared his disappro- bation of the pretended treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, which he had made: assured the American minister that the British government had refused to ratify that treaty: and would send back the Indians whom Nicholls had brought with him, with advice to make their peace on such terms as they could obtain. Lord Castlereagh confirmed the assurance that the treaty would not be ratified: and if at the same time that these assurances were given certain distinctions of public notoriety were shown to the Prophet Hillis Hadjo and he was actually honored with a commission as a British officer, it is to be presumed that these favors were granted him as rewards of past services and not as encouragement to expect any sup-
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port from Great Britain in a continuance of savage hostilities against the United States; all intention of giving any such sup- port having been repeatedly and earnestly disavowed.
The Negro Fort however, abandoned by Colonel Nicholls, remained on the Spanish territory, occupied by the banditti to whom he had left it and held by them as a post from whence to commit depredations, outrages, murders, and as a receptacle for fugitive slaves and malefactors to the great annoyance both of the United States and of Spanish Florida. In April, 1816, General Jackson wrote a letter to the governor of Pensacola calling upon him to put down this common nuisance to the peaceable inhabitants of both countries. That letter with the answer of the governor of Pensacola have been already com- municated to the Spanish minister here and by him doubtless to his government. Copies are nevertheless now again enclosed; par- ticularly as the letter from the governor explicitly admits that this fort constructed by Nicholls in violation both of the terri- tory and neutrality of Spain was still no less obnoxious to his government than to the United States: but that he had neither sufficient force nor authority without orders from the governor general of the Havanna to destroy it. It was afterwards, July 27, 1816, destroyed by a cannon shot from a gun vessel of the United States which in its passage up the river was fired upon from it. It was blown up with an English flag still flying at its standard: and immediately after the barbarous murder of the boat's crew, belonging to the navy of the United States by the banditti left in it by Nicholls.
In the year 1817 Alexander Arbuthnot of the island of New Providence, a British subject, first appeared as an Indian trader in Spanish Florida: and as the successor of Colonel Nicholls in the employment of instigating the Seminole and outlawed Red Stick Indians to hostilities against the United States by re- viving the pretence that they were entitled to all the lands which had been ceded by the Creek nation to the United States in August, 1814. As a mere Indian trader the intrusion of this man into a Spanish province was contrary to the policy observed by all the European powers in this hemisphere, and by none more rigorously than by Spain, of excluding all foreigners from intercourse with the Indians within their territories. It must be known to the Spanish government whether Arbuthnot had a Spanish license for trading with the Indians in Spanish Florida or not, but they also knew that Spain was bound by treaty
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to restrain by force all hostilities on the part of those Indians against the citizens of the United States: and it is for them to explain how, consistently with those engagements, Spain could, contrary to all the maxims of her ordinary policy, grant such a license to a foreign incendiary whose principal if not his only object appears to have been to stimulate those hostilities which Spain had expressly stipulated by force to restrain. In his in- fernal instigations he was but too successful. No sooner did he make his appearance among the Indians accompanied by the Prophet Hillis Hadjo, returned from his expedition to England, than the peaceful inhabitants on the borders of the United States were visited with all the horrors of savage war - the robbery of their property and the barbarous and indiscriminate murder of women, infancy, and age.
After the repeated expostulations, warnings, and offers of peace through the summer and autumn of 1817, on the part of the United States, had been answered only by renewed outrages and after a detachment of forty men under Lieutenant Scott accompanied by seven women had been waylaid and murdered by the Indians, orders were given to General Jackson and an ade- quate force was placed at his disposal to terminate the war. It was ascertained that the Spanish force in Florida was inade- quate for the protection even of the Spanish territory itself against this mingled horde of lawless Indians and negroes, and although their devastations were committed within the limits of the United States they immediately sought refuge within the Florida line and there only were overtaken. The necessity of crossing the line was indispensable: for it was from beyond the line that the Indians made their murderous incursions within that of the United States. It was there that they had their abode: and the territory belonged in fact to them though within the borders of the Spanish jurisdiction. There it was that the American commander met the principal resistance from them: there it was that they found still bleeding scalps of our citizens, freshly butchered by them: there it was, that he released the only woman who had been suffered to survive the massacre of the party under Lieutenant Scott. But it was not anticipated by this government that the commanding officers of Spain in Florida, whose especial duty it was, in conformity to the solemn engagements contracted by their nation, to restrain by force those Indians from hostilities against the United States, would - be found encouraging, aiding, and abetting them and furnishing
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them supplies for carrying on such hostilities. The officer in command immediately before General Jackson, was therefore specially instructed to respect as far as possible the Spanish authority, wherever it was maintained, and copies of those orders were also furnished to General Jackson upon his taking command.
In the course of his pursuit as he approached St. Marks he was informed, direct from the governor of Pensacola, that a party of the hostile Indians had threatened to seize that fort and that he apprehended the Spanish garrison was not in strength sufficient to defend it against them. This information was con- firmed from other sources and by the evidence produced upon the trial of Ambrister is proved to have been exactly true. By all the laws of neutrality and of war as well as of prudence and humanity, he was warranted in anticipating his enemy by the amicable, and that being refused, by the forcible occupation of the fort. It will need no citations from printed treatises on international law, to prove the correctness of this principle. It is engraved in adamant on the common sense of mankind, no writer upon the laws of nations ever pretended to contradict it. None of any reputation or authority ever omitted to assert it.
. At Fort St. Marks, Alexander Arbuthnot, the British Indian trader from beyond the sea, the firebrand, by whose touch this negro Indian war against our borders had been rekindled, was found an inmate of the commandant's family. And it was also found that by the commandant, himself, councils of war had been permitted to be held within it by the savage chiefs and warriors: that it was an open market for cattle known to have been robbed by them from citizens of the United States and which had been contracted for and purchased by the officers of the gar- rison: that information had been afforded from this fort by Ar- buthnot to the enemy of the strength and movements of the American army: that the date of departure of express had been noted by the Spanish commissary and ammunition, munitions of war, and all necessary supplies furnished to the Indians.
The conduct of the governor of Pensacola was not less marked by a disposition of enmity to the United States and by an utter disregard to the obligations of the treaty by which he was bound to restrain by force the Indians from hostilities against them. When called upon to vindicate the territorial rights and authority of Spain by the destruction of the Negro Fort, his predecessor had declared it to be not less annoying and pernicious to the Spanish subjects in Florida than to the United States, but had
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pleaded his inability to subdue it. He himself had expressed his ap- prehensions that Fort St. Marks would be forcibly taken by the savages from the Spanish garrison; yet at the same time he had refused the passage up the Escambia River, unless upon the pay- ment of excessive duties, to provisions destined as supplies for the American army which by the detention of them was subjected to the most distressing privations. He had permitted free ingress and egress at Pensacola to the avowed savage enemies of the United States. Supplies of ammunition, munitions of war, and provisions had been received by them from thence. They had been received and sheltered there, from the pursuit of the American forces, and suffered again to sally thence to enter upon the American territory and commit new murders. Finally on the approach of General Jackson to Pensacola the governor sent him a letter denouncing his entry upon the territory of Florida as a violent outrage upon the rights of Spain, commanding him to depart and withdraw from the same, and threatening, in case of his non-compliance, to employ force to expel him.
It became therefore, in the opinion of General Jackson, in- dispensably necessary to take from the governor of Pensacola the means of carrying his threat into execution. Before the forces under his command the savage enemies of his country had disappeared. But he knew that the moment those forces should be disbanded, if sheltered by Spanish fortresses, if furnished with ammunition and supplies by Spanish officers and if aided and supported by the instigation of Spanish encouragement, as he had every reason to expect they would be, they would reappear and, fired, in addition to their ordinary ferociousness, with re- venge for the chastisement they had so recently received, would again rush with the war-hatchet and scalping knife into the borders of the United States and mark every footstep with the blood of their defenseless citizens. So far as all the native re- sources of the savage extended, the war was at an end and Gen- eral Jackson was about to restore to their families and their homes the brave volunteers who had followed his standard and who had constituted the principal part of his force. This could be done with safety leaving the regular portion of his troops to garrison his line of forts and two small detachments of volun- teer cavalry to scour the country round Pensacola and sweep off the lurking remnant of savages who had been scattered and dis- persed before him. This was sufficient to keep in check the remnant of the banditti against whom he had marched so long
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as they should be destitute of other aid and support. It was in his judgment not sufficient, if they should be suffered to rally their numbers under the protection of Spanish forts and to derive new strength from the impotence or the ill will against the United States of the Spanish authorities.
He took possession therefore of Pensacola and of the fort of Barrancas as he had done of St. Marks, not in a spirit of hostility to Spain but as a necessary measure of self defense: giving notice that they should be restored whenever Spain should place com- manders and a force there able and willing to fulfill the engage- ments of Spain towards the United States of restraining by force the Florida Indians from hostilities against their citizens. The president of the United States, to give a signal manifestation of his confidence in the disposition of the king of Spain to perform with good faith this indispensable engagement and to demonstrate to the world that neither the desire of conquest nor hostility to Spain had any influence in the councils of the United States, has directed the unconditional restoration to any Spanish officer, duly authorized to receive them, of Pensacola and the Barrancas, and that of St. Marks to any Spanish force adequate for its de- , fense against the attack of the savages. But the president will neither inflict punishment nor pass a censure upon General Jack- son for that conduct for which he had the most immediate and effectual means of forming a judgment: and the vindication of which is written in every page of the law of nations as well as in the first law of nature, self defense. He thinks it, on the con- trary, due to the justice which the United States have a right claim from Spain, and you are accordingly instructed to demand of the Spanish government, that inquiry shall be instituted in the conduct of Don José Mazot, governor of Pensacola, and of Don Francisco C. Luengo, commandant of St. Marks, and 1 suitable punishment inflicted upon them for having, in defiance and violation of the engagements of Spain with the United States, aided and assisted these hordes of savages in those very hostilities against the United States which it was their official duty to restrain. This inquiry is due to the character of those officers themselves and to the honor of the Spanish government. The obligation by Spain to restrain by force the Indians of Florida from hostilities against the United States and their citizens is explicit, is positive, is unqualified. The fact, that for a series of years, they have received shelter, assistance, supplies, and protection, in the practice of such hostilities, from the
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Spanish commander in Florida is clear and unequivocal. If, as the commanders both at Pensacola and . St. Marks, have alleged, this has been the result of their weakness rather than of their will, if they have assisted the Indians against the United States, to avert their hostilities from the province which they had not sufficient force to defend against them, it may serve in some measure to exculpate, individually those officers; but it must carry demonstration irresistible to the Spanish government, that the right of the United States can as little compound with im- potence as with perfidy and that Spain must immediately make her election either to place a force in Florida adequate at once to the protection of her territory and to the fulfilment of her en- gagements or cede to the United States a province of which she retains nothing but the nominal possession, but which is in fact a derelict, open to the occupancy of every enemy, civilized or savage, of the United States and serving no other earthly pur- pose, than as a post of annoyance to them.
That the purposes, as well of the Negro-Indian banditti with whom we have been contending, as of the British invaders of Florida who first assembled and employed them, and of the British intruding and pretended traders, since the peace, who have instigated and betrayed them to destruction, have not been less hostile to Spain than to the United States, the proofs con- tained in the documents herewith enclosed are conclusive. Mr. Pizarro's note of the 29th of August speaks of his Catholic Majesty's profound indignation at the "sanguinary executions on the Spanish soil of the subjects of powers in amity with the king" - meaning Arbuthnot and Ambrister. Let Mr. Pizarro's successor take the trouble of reading the enclosed documents and he will discover who Arbuthnot and Ambrister were and what were their purposes, that Arbuthnot was only the successor of Nicholls, and Ambrister the agent of Woodbine and the sub- altern of MacGregor. Mr. Pizarro qualifies General Jackson's necessary pursuit of a defeated savage enemy beyond the Span- ish Florida line as a shameful invasion of his Majesty's territory. Yet that territory was the territory also of the savage enemy and Spain was bound to restrain them by force from hostilities against the United States; and it was the failure of Spain to fulfill this engagement which had made it necessary for General Jackson to pursue the savage across the line. What was the character of Nicholls's invasion of his Majesty's territory and where was his Majesty's profound indignation at that? Mr. Pizarro says, his
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Majesty's forts and places have been violently seized on by Gen- eral Jackson. Had they not been seized on, nay had not the principal of his forts been blown up by Nicholls and a British fort on the same Spanish territory been erected during the war and left standing as a negro fort in defiance of Spanish authority after the peace? Where was his Majesty's indignation at that? Has his Majesty given solemn warning to the British government that these were incidents "of transcendent moment capable of producing an essential and thorough change in the political relations of the two countries?" Nicholls and Woodbine in their invitations and promises to the slaves to run away from their masters and join them did not confine themselves to the slaves of the United States. They received with as hearty a welcome and employed with equal readiness the fugitives from their masters in Florida and Georgia. Against this special injury the governor of Pensacola did earnestly remonstrate with the British Admiral Cockburn, but against the shameful invasion of the territory; against the blowing up of the Barrancas, and the erection and maintenance under British banners of the Negro Fort on Spanish soil; against the negotiation by a British officer in the midst of peace, of pretended treaties, offensive and defen- sive, and of navigation and commerce, upon Spanish territory between Great Britain and Spanish Indians whom Spain was bound to control and restrain; if a whisper of expostulation was ever wafted from Madrid to London it was not loud enough to be heard across the Atlantic nor energetic enough to transpire beyond the palaces from which it issued and to which it was borne.
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