USA > Georgia > Colquitt County > History of Colquitt County > Part 2
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GENERAL JACKSON CAUSES TROUBLE
popularity which had grown up around him on account of his victory over the British, at New Orleans, three years be- fore the Seminole War. The remark of Calhoun greatly excited the General; who, however much he was in favor of hangings generally, was decidedly opposed to them when it involved his own neck.
Finally, Spain took the sensible view that it was im- practicable for two nations, speaking different lan- guages, whose capitals were ANDREW JAUKSUN so far removed as were ANDREW JACKSON Madrid and Washington from the frictions arising along an international boundary line, to attempt to maintain peace; and so they suggested bluntly the sale of the Floridas, both east and west, to the United States for the sum of $5,000,000 which being accepted, they pulled down their flags, and went home.
In the meantime, white settlers at once commenced to come into the Jackson Cession, rendering the Seminole ques- tion more acute than it had ever been. In 1804, on the Geor- gia side of the Chattahoochee River, a boy child was born to a daughter of a Creek chief, by a white trader named Powell. The child was named "Osceola" by its mother, who took him when he was four years old across the Jackson Ces- sion into Florida, and joined the Seminoles who adopted her and the child. When he grew up, he became the chief of that tribe. Of course, Spain, in ceding Florida to the United States, stipulated for the safe-guarding of the lives and prop- erty of her nationals; but this did not include the Seminoles,
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
whose condition was thus rendered more precarious. In the meantime, pressure was increased by the Gulf States, and by Washington, on the Seminole leaders to consent to the re- moval of their people beyond the Mississippi River. The young chief Osceola set his face like flint against removal; and notified General Thompson, Indian Commissioner for the Florida territory, that he would himself kill any Seminole leader undertaking to bind his people by a treaty of removal. One Seminole chief did sign such a treaty, whereupon Osceola kept his word and killed him. About that time, the wife of Osceola, who was the daughter of a runaway Negro slave, was seized and carried away to Georgia by a white man who claimed to be the owner of the runaway mother of his wife; and when Osceola went to Thompson with his grievance, that functionary threw him in irons for four days. Shortly after he was released, he raided Thompson, accom- panied by a few men, and killed him with his own hands. Soon after this, he duplicated the "Custer Massacre" by am- bushing Colonel Dade, and killing every one of his force of six hundred men. This incident is referred to in Florida history as the "Dade Massacre."
Presently, the Washington Government had three generals, Scott, Wiley and Gaines warring with Osceola for a year. They finally turned the war over to General Thos. S. Jessup, who invited Osceola into his tent under a flag of truce, under the ostensible purpose of arranging terms of peace, and then ordered him arrested, and sent to Saint Augustine. Escaping from this, he was captured and confined at Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor, where he died in 1838, of a broken heart. This conduct on the part of General Jessup has been gen- erally denounced by historians as perfidious, which, in fact, it is; but Martin Van Buren, alter ego of President Jackson, was at the head of the Nation; and there can be no doubt that Osceola's continued imprisonment was directed from Washington.
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GENERAL JACKSON CAUSES TROUBLE
However, this treatment is on the whole not quite as bad as that accorded to the ten-year-old child of King Philip by the New England Puritans in the preceding century. This child narrowly escaped hanging; but, upon second thought, the Puritans shipped him along with a few other Indians to the West Indies and sold him into slavery. His father's crime was exactly the crime of Osceola, an armed defense of the lands which had been occupied by his progenitors from time immemorial. Both Osceola and Philip, considering the smallness of their resources, rank in history as military chieftains of the first order. The United States expended $60,000,000 in this second war with the Seminoles, and some 1500 lives.
During the progress of this war, a company of cadets from the United States War College at West Point was stationed at Fort Meade, in Florida. This company contained a young lieutenant who wrote frequent letters home. In one of these letters, he says he "thinks, this so-called war against a help- less people is not very creditable to us." Again, he writes,
"Our company made a surprise attack on the Seminoles yester- day; and captured thirty prisoners, mostly women and children. One little girl, shot through the cheek, made scarcely a murmur. Another-a woman-shot through and through with a buckshot; conducted herself with all the fortitude of a veteran soldier."
In other letters, he expresses his disgust at finding his first duties as a soldier confined to cutting and slashing with swords among roasting-ears and pumpkins; never foreseeing that as the years should run by, he would attain some fame in that kind of warfare himself. The name of this lieuten- ant was William Tecumseh Sherman.
As late as 1856, the birth year of Colquitt County, Captain Casey, Indian agent for Florida, published in the Thomas- ville newspaper a reward for live Indians, as follows:
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
For each warrior, 250-500 dollars.
For each woman, 150-200 dollars.
For boys over ten years old, 100 to 200 dollars.
These, when captured and delivered would be shipped to Indian Territory. As late as 1860, a carload of these cap- tured people passed through Thomasville en route to Indian Territory. There remain in the Everglades of Florida, near Miami, today, some three hundred and fifty of this in- domitable people, occupying a reservation in their ancient fastnesses, where they live in pretty much the same primitive manner their ancestors did a hundred years ago in Colquitt County.
In the second Seminole War, numerous raids were made by the Seminoles into the white settlements in Early County, Georgia, and perhaps into Decatur County. We have talked to aged residents of these coun- ties, who remembered such raids. Remembered, too some of the women who were scalped on such raids, wearing ever afterwards, caps to conceal such disfig- urement. We have, however, Osceola never heard of such raids into what is now known as Colquitt County. In White's Collections of Georgia appears a rather lengthy account of a "great battle" fought in what is now east Colquitt, and in western Cook County, between a band of Creek Indians and two or three companies of militia, led by Col. Michael Young, of Thomasville, with Captains Newman, Tucker and Sharp, all of Thomas County, and Captain Pike, of Lowndes County. There were about a hundred and twenty
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GENERAL JACKSON CAUSES TROUBLE
of the militia, and about a hundred and fifty of the Indians. The valiant Col. Young first sighted the Indians in the fork of Little River and Warrior Creek, and raised the alarm. The Indians got across the river and entered a swamp about four miles down. The "battle" lasted a matter of a day and night. The militia lost two killed and eight wounded-none of them mortally. The Indians escaped, leaving twenty-two dead and two Negroes. Nine squaws and nine children were captured. It is easy to see that this was in no sense a hostile raid; but simply a trek by some Alabama Creeks across the Jackson Cession, in an effort to reach the Seminoles in Flor- ida. The battles happened in July, 1836.
It is only just to say that the methods of the Indians in making war were not different from the methods employed by the whites against them all the way from Quebec to Argentina. Scalping itself was introduced into the Western Hemisphere by colonists from Europe. Alexander H. Stephens in his "History of the United States," speaking of all North American Indians, and especially of those who in- habited Georgia at any time, says, "The Indians were a simple, kindly and child-like race"; and he says that there seems to be no record of any Quaker ever killed by an Indian. He further says that the fact that General Oglethorpe marched entirely across the State of Georgia to a conference of Creek and Seminole chieftains, accompanied by only three armed men, which conference was held on the Chattahoochee River, near Columbus, remained at this conference till his business was transacted, surrounded by fifteen thousand braves, who knew that the Spaniards had a reward for his head, delivered either in Pensacola or Saint Marks, and then returned in perfect safety to Savannah, is a very wonderful tribute to their character and good faith. In this connection,
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
Mr. Stephens quotes Osceola as saying, after he was captured, "The whites had the newspapers, and therefore, everything they did was right, and everything we did was wrong."
Grave of Osceola. Outside Fort Moultrie, Charleston, S. C.
CHAPTER IV Colquitt Land Titles
AFTER GENERAL JACKSON fought the unofficial ex-parte war against the Spaniards and Indians, he had the Creeks and Seminole Indians cede to the State of Georgia, by the Treaty of 1818, an area about seventy-five miles wide from north to south, lying immediately north of the Florida territory, and extending east and west from the Chattahoochee River to the Okefenokee Swamp. This he did for the purpose of creating a barrier against either permanent or temporary combinations of the Creeks and the Seminoles, and for no other purpose, he having no idea that the area so ceded had any value for any other purpose to the State of Georgia, or to the nation as a whole.
Two or three years later, when it was sought in the legis- lature of Georgia to create three counties, Early, Irwin and Appling, from the territory thus "wished on" the State of Georgia, certain gentlemen in the legislature are said to have opposed the expenditure of funds for building roads in this territory, because "they were opposed to spending the State's money in the effort to develop a section which God Almighty had gone off and left half finished."
On an old map, of the date of 1818, no town is shown in the vicinity of what is now known as Colquitt County, except Micosoukie, Florida, and the words "pine barrens" are writ- ten over the area now known as southwest Georgia.
Finally, the Jackson Cession was made into three counties -Early, Irwin and Appling. Next, Decatur County was created in 1823 from Early and Irwin counties. Hon. Martin Hardin was its first representative in the Georgia House of Representatives. In 1825, the Hon. Thomas J. Johnson, who lived six miles south of what is now known as Thomasville
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
on the Tallahassee Road, became representative of Decatur County, and immediately introduced a bill, creating two coun- ties: Thomas and Lowndes. The bill provided that the 17th and 18th Districts, and all of the 19th and 23rd Districts, ly- ing east of the "Oaklockny" River, all in Decatur County, and the 13th and 14th Districts of Irwin County constitute the new County of Thomas; and that the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 15th and 16th Districts of Irwin County constitute the new County of Lowndes.
The next year, 1826, the legislature changed the 8th District of Irwin County from Lowndes to Thomas County; and it remained a part of Thomas till it became a part of Colquitt County, at the creation of Colquitt County, in 1856. Hence it is, that the description in many a land deed in Col- quitt County reads "land lot No. .... , in the 8th land dis- trict of originally Irwin, then Thomas, and now Colquitt County, Georgia."
The following bill was introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives, at the session of the General Assembly of 1856, by the Hon. J. C. Browning, representative from Thomas County :
"An Act To Lay Out and Organize a New County. From the Counties of Thomas and Lowndes, and For Other Purposes.
"1. Section I. Be it enacted by authority of the General As- sembly of Georgia that from and after the passage of this Act, a new county shall be laid out and organized, from the coun- ties of Thomas and Lowndes, including the 8th Dist. of orig- inally Irwin, now Thomas County, and all that portion of the 9th Dist., of originally Irwin, now Lowndes, lying west of Little River, to where the river crosses the dividing line be- tween Lots of Land Nos. 443 and 444, in the 9th Dist .. thence south to the Dist. line between the 9th and 12th Districts.
"2. Section II. And be it further enacted, That the new county described in the preceding section of this Act shall be known by the name of Colquitt County, and shall be attached to the Southern Judicial District, and to the First Congres-
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COLQUITT LAND TITLES
sional District, and Second Brigade, and Sixth Division, Geor- gia Militia.
"3. Section III. And be it further enacted, That the per- sons included within the said new county legally entitled to vote shall on the first Monday in March next elect five Justices of the Inferior Court, a Clerk of the Superior and Inferior Court each, a Sheriff and Coroner, a Tax-Collector and Re- ceiver of Tax Returns, a County Surveyor, and an Ordinary for said county, and that the election of said county officers shall be held at the house of Elijah English, now in the County of Thomas, and superintended as now prescribed by law, and such persons as shall be elected shall be commissioned by the Governor as now prescribed by law.
"4. Section IV. And be it further enacted, That the Justices of the Inferior Court, after they shall have been commissioned, shall proceed to lay off said county into militia districts, and advertise for the election of the requisite number of Justices of the Peace in such districts, which shall likewise be commis- sioned by the Governor.
"5. Section V. And be it further enacted, That the Justices of the Inferior Court of said county, after they shall have been commissioned, shall have power and authority to select and locate a site for the public buildings in said county; and the Justices, or a majority of them, are hereby authorized to pur- chase a tract of land for the location of the county site, to lay off town lots, and sell them at public outcry, for the benefit of said county, or to make such other arrangements of contracts concerning the county site and location and erection of public buildings.
"6. Section VI. That all officers now in commission who shall be included in the limits of said county shall hold their commissions, and exercise the duties thereof, until the several officers for the new county are elected and commissioned.
"7. Section VII. That all the cases now pending in either of the counties of Thomas and Lowndes, and the papers con- nected therewith between persons residing within the limits of said county of Colquitt shall be transferred to said county for trial, and everything done which shall be necessary for trial, and any defect that may happen shall be amended instanter.
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
"8. Section VIII. And be it further enacted, That the Su- perior Courts for said county shall be held on the Mondays before the first Monday in June and December of each and every year, and the Inferior Courts on the first Monday in January and July.
"9. Section IX. And be it further enacted, That the county taxes paid by the persons within the limits of the said new county the present year, shall be refunded and paid to the Inferior Court of said new county, to aid them in erecting pub- lic buildings.
"10. Section X. And be it further enacted, That all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed."
Approved February 25, 1856.
This Act was approved by David J. Bailey, President of the Georgia State Senate, and by the Hon. William H. Stiles, Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, and by the Hon. Herschel V. Johnson, Governor of the State of Georgia. More than eighty years have passed since then. Victoria was Queen of Great Britain; Napoleon III was Emperor of the French; and Franklin Pierce was President of the United States.
The English Home
CHAPTER V Slavery and Secession
THE COLONY OF GEORGIA organizing itself as such, in 1732, passed two prohibition laws. First, they forever prohibited the making and selling of intoxicating liquors; and, second, they forever prohibited human slavery. This was more than a century after a New England ship had brought a cargo of Negroes to Jamestown, Va., this being the first cargo of Negro slaves ever brought to America. These prohibitions, how- ever, were repealed at the behest of the "Money Power" of that time; and, by the end of the Revolution, African slavery was fairly general throughout the Colonies.
However, by the end of the Eighteenth Century, there was perceptible a growing feeling against slavery. The sect of Quakers started organized opposition to it, and maintained it consistently to the end. Washington freed all his slaves under the terms of his will, explaining his failure to do this sooner. Jefferson gave entire freedom to all his slaves, long before he died, in 1826, saying, on one occasion, "When I contemplate slavery, I tremble for the fate of my country, knowing that God is a just God, and that His justice will not always sleep." Under the influence of such generous impulses, slavery in America seemed doomed; and there is no doubt it would have completely perished in all the states in another generation, but for the invention of the cotton gin, by Eli Whitney, in 1820. This placed the Southern States in possession of a monopoly in the production of the leading material for cloth- ing in the world; this rendered big plantations necessary; and Negro slavery was peculiarly adapted to this. In fact, it was impracticable to maintain slavery on small farms.
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
Court records now in the Thomas County courthouse, show that for the purpose of valuation in the administration of estates, Negro slaves, about 1826, were appraised at around $450 for adults; while other records, in 1855, show the same character of slaves appraised at about $1800 each.
In 1857, when there were 928 poll tax payers in Thomas County, slaves were returned for taxation at $3,773,634.00; while the value of all real estate was $2,438,800.47.
The census of 1860 shows that in Thomas County there were, in that year, 4488 white people, and 5985 slaves, and thirteen free Negroes. Brooks County had that year 3272 whites, and 3282 slaves, and two free persons of color. Leon County, Florida, had 3194 whites, and 9089 slaves, and sixty free Negroes. Jefferson County, Florida, had 3498 whites, and 6374 slaves, and forty-three free Negroes.
The 1860 census of Colquitt County, Georgia, showed 1152 whites, and only 110 slaves, divided among twenty-seven slave-holders. And this, perhaps, because agriculture had not become an industry in Colquitt County at that time. There were not a half dozen hundred-acre clearings in the county. But this is not the only reason for the scarcity of slaves. There is not wanting evidence that the overwhelming ma- jority of Colquitt's citizens pitied the condition of these wretched people, and feared results, remembering the history of the Chosen People in Egypt. This writer recalls a vivid description by a son of one of the pioneers of Colquitt County who died here nearly twenty years ago. He was a boy in the 1850's, and he told me of living near a slave plantation; and of constantly hearing in the early nights the cries of slaves under the strokes of the lash of the whipping boss- "sometimes," as he expressed it, "his whip would cry for half an hour," and at every stroke of the whip, following it so closely as to seem a part of it was the cry of the sufferer to
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SLAVERY AND SECESSION
the Lord. "And," said the aged man, "Judge, He heered 'em."
By the time the census of 1860 was taken, the "irrepressible conflict" had come into sight. The question of Negro slavery had thrust itself to the front, over the protests of a great race of statesmen. Compromisers like Clay, Benton and Webster cried "Peace, Peace!", as the clouds gathered, portending the storm. The Whigs in their Boston Convention, in 1848, ignored the slavery question in their platform; and under leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Alexander H. Stephens placed in nomination for President, General Zachary Taylor, who had never voted, and who was the owner of twenty slaves. Taylor was elected, but the Whig party died that year. The Democrats won with Franklin Pierce, in 1852, and again with James Buchanan, in 1856-Colquitt's birth year. Then, in 1860, the Democratic party itself was destroyed on the rock of slavery, at the Charleston Convention. Afterward, three sets of electors were put out by the three divisions, thus mak- ing it possible for the Republicans to elect Lincoln and Ham- lin. The three divisions of the Democratic party put out sets of electors, as follows: The fire-eaters, as the extreme defenders of slavery were called, nominated Breckenridge and Lane at the head of electors as follows:
C. S. McDonald
H. Buchannon
H. R. Jackson
L. Tumlin
Peter Cone
H. Strickland
W. A. Lofton
W. M. Slaughter O. C. Gibson
W. M. McIntosh
The regulars, at the Charleston Convention nominated Stephen A. Douglas for President and Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia, for Vice-President, heading a set of electors, as follows:
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HISTORY OF COLQUITT COUNTY
A. H. Stephens
H. Warner
A. C. Wright
J. W. Harris
J. L. Seward
J. P. Simmons
B. Y. Martin
J. S. Hook
Nathan Bass
J. Cumming
That element of the party disposed to compromise and professing to be deaf to the rumblings of the approaching storm, put in nomination Bell and Everett over a set of electors as follows:
Wm. Low
W. F. Wright
Ben H. Hill
J. R. Parrot
S. B. Spencer
J. E. Dupree
M. Douglas
L. Lamar
L. T. Doyal
The Republicans put out no ticket in Georgia.
As has been said, the Breckenridge and Lane ticket was put out by the extreme Southern Rights wing of the party. The Douglas and Johnson ticket represented the views of Douglas on the slavery question, namely-that each terri- tory and new state should be allowed to decide for itself whether or not it would have slavery; and the Bell and Everett ticket had the shortest platform ever put out by a political group in America, namely: "The Union, The Con- stitution, and The Laws."
It was Colquitt's first presidential election. One hundred and eighty-three votes were polled in all. The Breckenridge and Lane electors receiving 115 each. The Bell and Everett electors got 67 each, while the Douglas and Johnson electors got only 1 each, a remarkable circumstance con- sidering the fact that the second name on this ticket was Governor Herschel Johnson, one of the most distinguished sons of Georgia. Jeremiah Bryant Norman, Sr., managed for the Bell and Everett ticket, while Henry Gay led the fight for the fire-eaters, Breckenridge and Lane. One won- ders who cast the solitary ballot for Douglas and Johnson.
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SLAVERY AND SECESSION
This election was held throughout the Union on November 6, 1860, and the Breckenridge and Lane ticket carried Geor- gia, easily triumphing over Douglas and Johnson, although the fight for it in the State was led by Alexander Stephens and Governor Johnson. Neither ticket received a majority of the votes cast in Georgia, and the Republicans did not put out a ticket in this State. Joseph E. Brown, who at that time was Governor of Georgia, although sprung from a "poor white family," like Lincoln, had already allied himself with the slave-holding aristocracy, and so on the 20th of No- vember, he wrote the General Assembly, which was in ses- sion, saying that considering the fact that it was a certainty that the "Black Republican" ticket had been elected, he sug- gested that the election be not carried into the legislature for the purpose of determining Georgia's electors. On the very day of the election he had written to the legislature ex- pressing his opinion that the Republican ticket would win; and that if it should be shown that such was the case, he recommended that Georgia secede from the Union.
As soon as the result of the election was generally known, South Carolina did secede from the Union, being swiftly fol- lowed by Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
In the meantime, Governor Brown had seized the United States Arsenals at Augusta and Savannah, and was hurrying the State of Georgia along toward secession. Finally, the matter was submitted to a referendum in which delegates were selected to meet at Milledgeville, then the capital, on January 16, 1861, for the purpose of considering "the state of the Union." It was a red hot election, in which the advocates of secession were led by brothers, Howell Cobb and Thomas R. R. Cobb, Robert Toombs and Governor Brown; while the conservatives, or opponents of secession
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