Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 65

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020

USA > Mississippi > Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II > Part 65

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The apprehension of the explosion of the mine is generally regarded as the cause of the surrender. Even to this day the tradition is preserved among the Choctaws, who yet enjoy the ruse practiced upon the commandant."

The garrison is spoken of as Spanish, but like as not was French, even to the commandant, whose name is not available. The troops were escorted southward by Winfrey and a detachment of the Natchez soldiery, but they had hardly reached Loftus Heights when five barges, carrying the flag of Spain and well loaded with troops, were espied going up the river. This was a detachment of French militia from Opelousas, and a body of western Indians, in all about three hundred, under the command of Major Mulligan, an Irish "Spaniard." Winfrey released his prisoners and retreated. Mulligan landed most of his force and started in pursuit, and at daylight next morning, surprising the insurgent party pounding corn and roasting beef at Winfrey's 'plantation, near the Homo- chitto, attacked without warning. Fourteen of the Natchez people were killed and nearly all the survivors made prisoners:

When news of this disaster reached Natchez, "the inhabitants were forced to retire into forts, of which there were two between the French meadows and Natchez (as well as Fort Panmure) ; but being greatly harassed, aroused themselves to resistance, and the Spanish party was forced to retire and take a position at the White Cliffs," now known as Ellis Cliffs, twelve miles below Natchez. "About the middle of June the Natchez inhabitants had assembled a force of about two hundred men to attack them, when they were filled with consternation by the arrival of an express from Pensacola, bringing intelligence of the fall of that place," probably also of the surrender of the province to Spain and the ar- rangement that it should be evacuated by the subjects of the British king.

The little band of Natchez insurgents, left alone in the midst of a hostile continent, with no friends nearer than Savannah, unless the Choctaws remained faithful, scattered in dismay. Mulligan occupied Fort Panmure, and his men ravaged the district. "For thirty days plundering parties roamed through the country, seiz- ing the property and destroying the houses of the inhabitants, until Col. Grand Pré arrived with a battalion of troops, and took regular possession of the country."-(Wailes.)

Some of the men concerned in the uprising took refuge among the friendly Indians, others saw no safety short of the Atlantic coast. A party of more than 100, including the Lyman family, made the trip to Savannah in 149 days without the loss of a life. When that city was evacuated by the British they were again with- out a country, and scattered to the various British possessions. Of the three brothers, all died of a broken heart, says the ancient chronicle. Some, like Col. Anthony Hutchins, concealed them- selves in the canebrakes, waiting for some light as to their fate, for Alexander McIntosh, lately in great disfavor, went to New Orleans to intercede for the "rebels." Hutchins' home was visited

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by the enemy, either in the Mulligan period or later, and Tony, the colonel's body servant, was run up on a rope a few times to force him to betray his master's retreat. He was faithful, however, and Hutchins managed to escape. Wailes suggests that it was not known at first that he was implicated in the revolt. Leaving his plantation in the hands of his wife, he started out, with a few companions, on the trail for Savannah. At the first daybreak they were ambushed by Indians, and four were killed or wounded. Hutchins and a boy, John Orr, escaped, and after great hardships, reached the Chattahoochee, and were rescued by a trading party.

Colonel Grand Pré took command July 29, when, says Monette, "measures were immediately instituted for the punishment of such of the late insurgents as were within reach of the Spanish author- ities. Arrests, seizures and confiscations commenced. During the months of September and October, the goods, chattels, effects and dues of every kind, pertaining to more than twenty 'fugitive rebels,' had been siezed for confiscation. Some of these were men of wealth, especially George Rapalji and Jacob Blomart. Before the middle of November seven of the leaders were prisoners in close confinement in New Orleans, 'charged with the crime of attempt- ing to promote a general rebellion' against his Catholic Majesty's government in the district of Natchez. Seven were convicted and sentenced to death, but were subsequently reprieved by the gover- nor-general."

The Spanish records of the Natchez District on file in the Mis- sissippi Department of Archives and History preserve the names of the fugitives and the proceedings against such as were arrested. Those named as fleeing the country were Philip Alston, John Ogg, Christian Bingaman, Caleb Hansbrough, Thaddeus Lyman, John Watkins, William Case, John Turner, Thomas James, Philip Mul- key, Ebenezer Gossett, Thompson Lyman and Nathaniel Johnson. The "leaders of the rebellion," in prison November 16th, were John Alston, arrested in the Indian nation; Jacob Blomart, called the chief of the rebels; John Smith, "lieutenant of rebels;" Jacob Winfrey, "captain of rebels;" William Eason, Parker Carradine, and George Rapalji. "Bingaman was spared through the inter- cession of McIntosh," says Wailes, and "it is believed that Blomart was subsequently sent to Spain for trial."

The offering of a premium for the arrest of the fugitives gave license to marauding parties that kept the district in terror. "Numerous outrages and several murders were perpetrated. Many settlers, who had taken no part in the revolt, for security abandoned their farms and got temporary homes in the immediate vicinity of Fort Rosalie." (Claiborne, p. 123, note.) One of the homes visited was that on Cole's Creek, where lived Felt, the slayer of Lieutenant Pentacost in the previous troubles with the British. Summoned to surrender, Felt made defense and killed two of his assailants. They then set fire to the house, in which his wife and three children were consumed. Escaping himself, with his hired man, they kept up the fight with clubbed muskets until overpow-

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ered and killed. Negroes were run away, certainly twelve from the Hutchins plantation, before the departure of the colonel, Tony among them, who long afterward related that they were carried to Pensacola and sold to the Spaniards by "a wicked old man," whose "granchillen is great folks here now, and not sponsible for what dere granfadder did." (Sparks, Memories of Fifty Years, p. 306.) When Tony heard from an Indian that his "missus" was alone, he ran away and returned through the wilderness to the old plan- tation home.

"Many of the insurgents," according to Butler's account, joined the Colberts, Scotch Indians among the Chickasaws, and like ex- patriated people in all times, indulged in piracy. Their post at Chickasaw bluffs became quite formidable, and passing boats were stopped and plundered at pleasure. To end such disorder, all the refugees among the Indians were invited by proclamation, later, to return to their homes in peace.

"All sales executed at the time the rebels were in possession of the fort at Natchez were declared invalid. In the confiscation of the estates of Parker Carradine and John Smith, the rights of their wives to a separate property in their estates were recognized.

The families of all the fugitives, it seems, were regarded with indulgence, and the part of the property held by them at least was assigned for their support. The large British grant to Ly- man of 20,000 acres was confiscated, but upon application to Grand Pré the sale of one-half of the tract was arrested and it was granted to Salome, daughter of Thaddeus Lyman, left destitute in the country with her grandfather, Waterman Crane."-(Wailes.)

Claiborne says that the property of Col. Hutchins, "consisting of extensive bodies of land, numerous slaves, one thousand head of cattle and five hundred horses, was not molested." According to Pickett, it was all confiscated save a bare subsistence for his wife. It appears from Claiborne that Grand Pré was "an old friend of the family" and sent Mrs. Hutchins, with an escort to New Or- leans. She returned with a letter from the "chivalric" Piernas sustaining Grand Pré in his action. "We war not on women or for plunder. She has already been robbed by American brigands, and our forbearance will contrast honorably with theirs." Wailes ascribes this to the exertion of "some unknown influence," and says that "subsequently, his extensive British grants were con- firmed to his children, and in the end Colonel Hutchins was per- mitted himself to return to the country." In fact. the land grants he had from the British government at the time of the revolt, were insignificant, compared with the grants made him by the Spanish, in 1789 and 1790. He was again prominent in affairs in 1792, and representative of a British trading house.

Revolution, American. The revolutionary movement had its beginning, perceptibly, in the years following the French and In- dian war, which was concluded bv the treaty of Paris in 1763. The reservation of western lands from settlement, and the effort to divert western emigration to the Floridas are evidences of royal

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distrust of the thirteen colonies. It was plainly announced that the colonial policy was to prevent extension of the old colonies beyond easy control by British troops and traders.

It is likely that the sense of approaching conflict had some in- fluence upon the natural selection of Baton Rouge and Natchez settlers, even as early as 1772. The Connecticut "adventurers" came before the bitterness of the conflict was apparent, and there were no more devoted friends of the king than they.

The spirit of the revolution was manifested among the people of West Florida, despite their loyalty to the king, as early as 1773, when the older colonies were protesting against taxation without representation. The issue was made on the term of office of mem- bers of the legislature, just as it was in East Florida. There Gov- ernor Moultrie was willing to have a popular assembly, if the members were elected for three years. The inhabitants demanded one year terms, and consequently there was no assembly. Will- iam Drayton, chief justice, was suspended from office because of sympathy with the popular movement. So, in West Florida, in 1772, the freeholders of Mobile town and Charlotte county elected eight representatives to the provincial assembly, but insisted on the condition that the election was for one year only. Pensacola elected the other six members, and though that town was more closely connected with the government, four of the six refused to sit in the assembly unless the Mobile condition was granted. After twice proroguing the assembly, in hope that Mobile would give in, Governor Chester was compelled to dissolve it. This ac- tion was approved at London, and the governor was instructed to omit Mobile entirely from representation. To avoid further trou- ble Chester did not call an election again until 1778, when it became necessary to pass militia and Indian bills. Then the dis- tricts of Mobile, Manchac and Natchez were assigned four mem- bers each, but Mobile was omitted from the writ of election, and Pensacola was authorized to elect eight members. "As a result the assembly was cantankerous, as Chester called it, sat thirty- four days without passing the bills, and otherwise obstructed business in order to force the reenfranchisement of Mobile."

In May, 1779, there was a general memorial to the king against the administration of Governor Chester. But then the day of Gal- vez was close at hand.

"As the trouble in the North increased, the loyalty of Florida permitted the withdrawal of troops, and in January, 1774, a regi- ment was ordered from Pensacola to Massachusetts, on account of the threatening condition manifested in the famous 'tea-party' at Boston harbor." Patrick Tonyn, a newly appointed governor at St. Augustine, upon his arrival in March, 1774, invited the roy- alists of the colonies northward to take refuge in Florida. The Pensacola regiment at Boston was reinforced from England, and in April, 1775, there was an expendition to Lexington that pro- voked "the shot that echoed round the world." Next year came the declaration of independence, which provoked the loyal refu-

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gees at St. Augustine to burn the effigies of Adams and Hancock on the plaza. (Memoirs of Florida.)

"Tories driven from Georgia and South Carolina," says Ham- ilton, in "Colonial Mobile," "were the first white settlers of what are now Washington, Clarke and Baldwin counties, the ancestors of the half-breed McIntosh, Manac, McQueen, McGirk, and other families to be of note." Other prominent settlers about Mobile in this period are named, among them Moses Kirkland, who set- tled on the west side of Tombigbee. He was lately a colonel of militia and justice of the peace in District Ninety-six, of South Carolina, and had embodied 4,000 volunteers to serve the king on the outbreak of the rebellion. After imprisonment by the rebels he escaped to Dunmore's fleet, and brought General Howe's dis- patches to the Floridas.

Over the borders of East Florida in the following years, little armies marched back and forth, of Patriots and Tories, in counter invasions, and terrible devastation and the most bitter alienation of neighbors was the common lot in the Southern colonies, as in- deed, was characteristic of the North also. It was a struggle that set father against son and brother against brother, not an united uprising.

Even in the frontier settlements there was the same division, and it extended among the Indians. "The revolutionary struggle had the unfortunate result of somewhat dividing the whites" of Watauga, says Hamilton, and "almost totally alienating the Cher- okees from the Americans." The Chickasaws, on the other hand, were friendly to the revolution, like the Delawares of the North, and their influence upon the result is not easy to estimate. The Creeks became allies of Great Brittain.

John Stuart, the Indian agent, planned, when the Revolution began, that a British army should land in West Florida, march through the land of the Four Nations, gather an army of the red men, and attack the colonies in the rear while naval attacks were delivered at Charleston and Boston. Letters were sent to the roy- alists in South Carolina to prepare to rise when the royal standard was unfurled in the Cherokee country. Stuart was among the Indians in the interest of this scheme in 1776. But it failed through the energy of the frontiersmen, who were aided with money and military supplies by the Spanish at New Orleans, and the vigorous policy of Governor Galvez, who exhorted the Four Nations to remain neutral and prevent the passage of troops to or from Florida. Stuart abandoned his scheme in 1779, the year of the Spanish invasion, and returned to Europe.

In the winter of 1777-78, it will be remembered that the British army passed a gay winter at Philadelphia, and George Washing- ton and his ragged Continentals had huts in the snow at Valley Forge. As spring approached Capt. James Willing started down the rivers to negotiate with the settlers of West Florida, and George Rogers Clark made his famous expedition to the Illinois. France, about this time, recognized the independence of the United

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States, but West Florida hardly assumed that attitude. The cir- cumstances of Willing's visit make a conclusion as to the pre- dominant sentiment in the Natchez district difficult to guess at. The Royalist party, however, retained the ascendancy. Willing also visited the Tensas settlements, and probably found no friends in Major Farmer and his tenants. He dared to go to Mobile even, perhaps encouraged by prospects of interesting the French popu- lation, and it is said that Pollock accompanied him, with copies of the declaration of independence. But Willing was arrested and kept in rigorous confinement at Fort Charlotte. (Hamilton and Monette.) Early in 1779 Col. Hamilton, the British commandant at Detroit, was captured at Vincennes by George Rogers Clark, and upon Hamilton was visited retaliatory hardships until he and Willing were exchanged. In 1779 also, another American expedi- tion was sent down to renew the effort at Natchez, but it was then too late. Spain occupied the region, and though her occu- pancy put an end to all fear of a British and Indian invasion of the western frontier, Spain occupied with the full intention of holding as far as possible, all that Spain or France had formerly possessed, as the price of Bourbon intervention.

Revolution of 1797. Francis Baily, a young Londoner seeking adventure and some profit in the Indian trade, arrived at Natchez May 11, 1797, and recorded his understanding of the trouble in his "Journal of a Tour in North America." From his experience he concluded that the Spanish government must have been intol- erable to people of American rearing, who must "depend in all their civil and criminal affairs upon the whim or caprice, favor or folly" of the governor set over them, "who, through pique or malice, or in a fit of drunkenness or insanity, has it in his power to sport with the lives and property" of inhabitants. The people heard of the prospect of American government with pleasure, and viewed the disposition of Spain to ignore the treaty with resentment. "This just resentment was carried to a great pitch whilst I was here, and broke out in open acts of violence several times; and at last pro- ceeded so far as to induce the governor to retire into the fort and to call upon all the people attached to his person to come to him.

There were about a dozen flocked to his standard; as to the rest of the district, they surrounded the fort, and kept his Ex- cellency prisoner there near a fortnight, and would not let him come out at last, till he had signed articles of capitulation."

Preliminary events of 1797 are treated in the articles "Advent of the Flag" and "Ellicott and Gavoso."

The proclamation of Maj .- Gen., Baron de Carondelet, governor of Louisiana and West Florida, May 24, 1797, recited, as a whereas, "that some evil disposed persons, who have nothing to lose, have been endeavoring to draw the inhabitants of Natchez into improper measures, whose disagreeable consequences would only fall on those possessed of property. whilst the perturbators would screen themselves by flight." This was the diplomatic misconstruction of the impatience of the inhabitants toward the

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Spanish delay in leaving the territory of the United States. There were then about 4,000 inhabitants of the district, mainly immi- grants from the States, of the active and restless frontier type that were characteristic of the period when the West of that day was opened to civilization-not essentially different from the pioneer type of any age. The old British colonial or loyalist population mainly remained and was very influential because of character and property both, but had lost preponderance in numbers. The settlements reached as far north as Colonel Bruin's home on Bayou Pierre and inland to the headwaters of the creeks. The only cause of excitement was Spanish reinforcement, as if to hold the Nat- chez district by force of arms, which the greater part of the people did not propose to submit to. Carondelet shrewdly sought, as Gayoso had previously done, to create a division between the land and slave owners and those not so well-to-do, and used the uni- versal argument against revolution, the appeal to property. To explain "the suspension of the demarcation of the limits and the evacuation of the forts," he declared "authentically," that it was "at present only occasioned by the imperious necessity of secur- ing Lower Louisiana from the hostilities of the English," who, he said, had set on foot an expedition against New Orleans, and were expected to occupy the Illinois country, when they could avail themselves of the last treaty of Great Britain with the United States, to use the Mississippi river for their invasion. (See Jay treaty.) He had thought proper to put the fort at Walnut Hills" "in a respectable but provisional state of defense," until the United States was informed of the projects of the English, by the minis- ter of Spain, to whom Carondelet had communicated them, so that by taking proper steps to cause the territory to be respected, it would be in the power of Spain "to fulfill without danger the articles of the treaty concerning limits." In conclusion he ex- horted the inhabitants of Natchez to continue in tranquillity and affection towards the Spanish government, which would be pained if forced to "compel the insubordinate minds to hear the dictates of national gratitude."

A week later another address was issued by Carondelet, in which he again urged the British invasion as the reason for sus- pending the evacuation of the forts at Natchez and Walnut Hills, as those posts covered lower Louisiana: especially because the United States had made a treaty with Great Britain apparently annulling the treaty with Spain, in which "the United States ac- knowledge that no other nation can navigate upon the Mississippi without the consent of Spain. We are now informed that a detachment of the army of the United States cantoned on the Ohio are on their way by Holston towards Natchez, while the militia of Cumberland are intimated to hold themselves ready to march at the first notice.

These hostile dispositions can naturally only concern these provinces, because the United States are in peace with all the savages. The anterior menaces of the commissary of limits and

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the commandant of the detachment of Americans now at Natchez, and (if the American gazettes are to be believed) the imminent rupture between France, our intimate ally, and the United States, engage us to be on our guard, to defend our property with that valor and energy, which the inhabitants of these provinces have manifested on all occasions, with the advantage and superiority which a knowledge of our local situation will procure and with that confidence which right and justice inspire. If the Congress of the United States have no hostile intention against these prov- inces, they will either leave the post of Natchez or the Walnut Hills, the only bulwarks of Lower Louisiana, to stop the course of the British, or give us security against the article of the treaty with Great Britain, which exposes Lower Louisiana to be pil- laged and destroyed down to the capital, we will then deliver up the said posts and lay down our arms, which they have forced us to take up by arming their militia in time of peace and sending a considerable body of troops by roundabout ways to surprise us."

(The military activity in East Tennessee, which was the basis of Carondelet's complaint, was for the police purpose of keeping peace between the Cherokees and aggressive settlers.)

The proclamation of May 24 confirmed the suspicions of the Natchez people that the real purpose of the Spanish was not yet revealed, and the forcible suggestion that England and the United States were in a sort of alliance against Spain tended to alienate from Carondelet the strongest element upon which he must de- pend, namely, as Ellicott said, that "large class of the inhabitants who had formerly been British subjects and to which government many of them were still attached both from principle and habit," and to whom "no intelligence could have been so pleasing as that of the British preparing to reposses that country."

"After the appearance of the Baron's proclamation," Ellicott says, "the public mind might be compared to inflammable gas; it wanted but a spark to produce an explosion! A country in this situation presents to the reflecting and inquisitive mind one of the most interesting and awful spectacles which concerns the hu- man race." Ellicott did not supply the spark, as the Spanish asserted, as it was his policy to turn the people away from actual hostilities toward some plan of organization that could be used in case of necessity to resist any attempt of the Spanish to subdue them by force of arms. In brief, he wished to plant the seed of an independent, self-governing community of the United States.

The spark was supplied by another source, one more vitally concerning the people than even allegiance to the United States or His Catholic Majesty ; namely, religion. It is evident from the earlier proclamation of Gayoso, that the question of freedom of worship had agitated the inhabitants before this date. Many of them had suffered patiently for years, and could no longer wear "the mask of duplicity," as Narsworthy expressed it. A frontier Baptist preacher, one of a class of people theretofore strictly for- bidden to enter the country, came through the wilderness to Nat-

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Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 65

Author: Dunbar Rowland Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant Number of Pages: 1020

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020