CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE: HOW ‘BOUT THEM ‘NOLES?

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE:  HOW ‘BOUT THEM ‘NOLES?

Here’s our history lesson for Ft. Myers, according to a little sign posted on First Street in Old Town Ft. Myers: The Caloosa Native Americans are the first known settlers of this area. A fort was first built in this vicinity during the Seminole War of 1841-1842. The fort was named for Lieutenant John Harvie (Fort Harvie, I presume). Something happened between that time and 1850, when the fort was “re-established” and renamed Ft. Myers to recognize Lieutenant Abraham C. Myers. The Seminole War ended in 1858. Okay, that’s what the little historic sign in downtown Ft. Myers says. It glosses over the fact that there were three separate “Seminole Wars”, also known as “Florida Wars”. It also fails to mention that the “Seminoles” were actually groups of Native Americans and Black people who settled in Florida in the early 18^th century. The Blacks who had settled in this part of Florida had been enslaved in Georgia and other southern slave States, but had escaped to Florida where they were free of slavery.

Battling these groups of Native American and free Black settlers was the United States Army. I know, it sounds pretty unfair to me too. The first Seminole War was from 1814 to 1819 (apparently not conducted in the Ft. Myers area). The second Seminole War was from 1835 to 1842, and the third Seminole War was from 1855 to 1858. That brings us right up to the Civil War, almost. But before we get there, let’s explore that first Seminole War a little bit and see what was really behind General Andrew Jackson’s 1816 assault on what was then called Fort Negro in the Florida Panhandle (now Fort Gadsden in Apalachicola, Franklin County).

A Black man named Garson and an unnamed Choctaw chief led the settlers at Fort Negro to conduct raids across the Georgia border to help free enslaved Native Americans and Blacks. Their actions, and their fort, were seen as a threat to Southern slavery. Here we go again. The U.S. Government was at that time predisposed to protect the institution of slavery and to put the full muscle of the U.S. Army behind destroying Fort Negro and killing its inhabitants. At the time the Savannah Journal wrote the following about the “evil” of Fort Negro:

“It was not to be expected, that an establishment so pernicious to the Southern States, holding out to a part of their population temptations to insubordination, would have been suffered to exist after the close of the war. In the course of last winter, several slaves from this neighborhood fled to that fort; others have lately gone from Tennessee and the Mississippi Territory. How long shall this evil, requiring immediate remedy, be permitted to exist?”

What a tragically ironic twist: the evil was not slavery; the evil was the effort to help people flee from slavery. While slavery crops up everywhere as the reason for killing people in the history of the South, it should be noted that one source reports that General Andrew Jackson attacked and killed almost all of the 320 settlers inside Fort Negro (yes, women and children were among them), only after a “garrison” of Fort Negro killed a “group of American sailors”. That’s as detailed as the explanation gets. It is clearly a fact that General Jackson entered Spanish Territory to attack Fort Negro and that he wiped it out. It is also a fact that the settlers of Fort Negro were a thorn in the sides of slave owners in the adjoining states.

Several years later, in March of 1818, General Jackson returned to the site of Fort Negro and established Fort Gadsden at the same location. From there he and his troops cut a wide swath of destruction heading south from Tallahassee, destroying settlements of Native Americans and free Blacks as they progressed. This area was still “owned” by Spain, so this war effort was designed to wrest Florida from Spanish control. The Native Americans and Black settlers were collateral damage during this land grab. At the same time, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was peacefully negotiating with Spain for the acquisition of Florida. Guess what? Jackson’s invasion of Florida strengthened Adams’ diplomatic efforts, and eventually Spain ceded most of Florida to the United States. The only thing Jackson got in hot water for was the execution of two British subjects, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Armbrister, but it didn’t cost him the Presidency. Nor did his killing of hundreds of Native Americans and Blacks in his march through Florida in 1818 have any negative consequences for him.

We got Florida the way we got most of our States – by killing the people who lived there (either in violent conflicts or with European diseases). But why were there two more Seminole Wars, after we got what we wanted? We didn’t kill all of the Native Americans (as of 1822, there were around 22,000 remaining), so we had to devise some sort of plan to “contain” them. Does the word “reservation” come to mind? Generous to a fault, our government in Florida offered 4 million acres in central Florida from Ocala to South Tampa Bay to the Seminoles. And they could have this land so long as they didn’t cause any problems. Plus, they would be “protected” by the government if they were “law abiding”. That was in the 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek. Somehow, many of the 22,000 Native Americans were not grateful to the government for herding them into an internment camp/reservation, while taking all the other land they had claimed in Florida away from them. And things did not settle down. The State of Florida got a great boost from the election of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency in 1828 and two years later, 1830 Congress passed and he signed the Indian Removal Act. Now that’s a clear title for a piece of legislation, which dictated that the “Indians”, including those in Florida who had been “given” 4 million acres, were to be removed to a location west of the Mississippi River. Out of sight, out of mind.

Government officials asked to meet with the chiefs of the Native American tribes in Florida to discuss their departure from Florida. This meeting resulted in the Treaty of Payne’s Landing, which wasn’t ratified by the Senate until 1834. In that Treaty, the Native Americans were given three years to get out of Florida and move to designated land west of the Mississippi. The land that was designated for them was also identified as the new “home” of the Creek Indian tribe, a long time enemy of the Seminole tribes. Why not add insult to injury, if you’re the U.S. Government dealing with the indigenous population? Not surprisingly, this Treaty, while signed by certain chiefs, was not accepted by many of the Seminoles in Florida, including five of their most influential chiefs. When the Seminoles refused to be removed, the government resorted to force to expel them from Florida and move them to their new “homeland”. This led us to the second Seminole War starting in 1835 and lasting until to 1842. (And we think the war in Afghanistan has dragged on!)

One of the young Turks of the Seminole tribe in Florida, Osceola, was particularly adamant about not leaving Florida. He felt that he and his fellow Native Americans were being treated like slaves. He used the following colorful language:

"The white man shall not make me black. I will make the white man red with blood; and then blacken him in the sun and rain ... and the buzzard live upon his flesh."

There was a lot of blood shed in the second Seminole War. In December 1835, a group of Seminoles ambushed two companies of soldiers under Major Francis L. Dade, 110 men in all. All but two were killed in the ambush, and one of the two survivors died of his wounds. In late1836 Major General Thomas Jesup was put in command of the forces to drive out the Seminoles. He amassed over 9000 soldiers, half volunteers and militia, and he relied on a war of attrition to destroy the Seminoles. For the rest of the 1830’s Jesup and his successors, among them Zachary Taylor, burned the Seminoles’ crops and drove away their cattle and horses, causing them to starve to death or surrender. The officers also used bribes to get chiefs to surrender and turn in their tribal members. And they were not above offering a peaceful surrender to their enemy, but betraying them by seizing them and imprisoning them upon surrender. Since the Seminoles were proving to be such stubborn opponents, in August 1842 the Armed Occupation Act was enacted, giving free land to any settlers who agreed to fight off the Seminole Indians in their area.  That is the month that Colonel Worth declared an end to the war, satisfied that all of the Seminoles had been killed or driven out of northern Florida and that only a few remained on the reservation lands in southwest Florida.

And then there was peace, at the mere cost of $40,000,000 (real money in the 1800’s) and the lives of 1500 government soldiers and thousands of Seminoles and civilians. The federal government withdrew all troops, and the remaining Seminoles just tried to stay under the radar, so that they would not be expelled. Four years later in 1846 Captain John T. Sprague was put in charge of Indian affairs in Florida, and in 1847 he met with some of the remaining Seminole chiefs, Billy Bowlegs, Sam Jones and Chipco. At that time he estimated there were about 120 “warriors”, 100 women and 140 children. For reasons not given in Wikipedia, a band of Seminoles in Chipco’s group attacked a farm, killing one individual and then attacked a trading post, killing a Captain Payne. Billy Bowlegs met with the powers that be and told them he would bring in the killers. He did that, expecting to be left alone after that. But no, the Army was so grateful that it told him and the other Seminoles they were going to be removed from Florida. Some Seminoles left peacefully, but other still remained. And in 1850 when a boy on a farm in north central Florida was “apparently” killed by a Native American, the Secretary of  War said “Enough!” An ultimatum was issued that the persons responsible for killing the boy should be turned over to the government, or all of the Native Americans would be held responsible for this killing. Chipco turned over three members of his group, who proclaimed their innocence. Once in custody, they were found hanging from the bars in the jail. The jailer had a connection to one of the persons wounded at the trading post in 1849.

In 1854 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (yep, that one), devised a plan that was destined to lead to another war with the remaining Seminoles. He placed an embargo on their goods, gave their land to European setters, and beefed up the military presence in the areas where they still remained. Finally, he said that if the Seminoles did not leave Florida, he would use force to remove them. Troops went in search of the Seminoles, who started to fight back. In December 1855 Billy Bowlegs and 40 warriors attacked a small camp of soldiers and killed and scalped four of them, while seven soldiers made it back to Fort Myers. In 1856 small groups of Seminoles attacked various farms and settlements in the central Florida area, including what is now Tampa. Federal troops returned to Florida and worked with the state militia to search for Seminole settlements, destroy their crops and kill the ones who had remained in Florida. The third Seminole War continued until 1858. Billy Bowlegs and Sam Jones were still actively trying to protect their settlements. However, a group of representatives from “Indian Territory” came to meet with Bowlegs and somehow he and his warriors were convinced (starvation and death are particularly strong convincers) to accept cash payments to move to their very own reservation (separate from the Creeks). In May 1858 163 Seminoles were shipped to the Big Easy, and the third Seminole War was declared over. Some members of Sam Jones’ band and of Chipco’s band remained in Florida, but the federal government withdrew its troops, declared victory and left.

I’m not sure what happened to the remaining Seminoles during the Civil War, but they were not forgotten by the Republican run legislature which adopted the 1868 Florida Constitution. The Seminole tribe was give one seat in the house and one seat in the senate of the state legislature. These positions were never filled. And in 1885, when Democrats regained political power, they passed a new constitution, which removed the Seminole seats. Furthermore, they established barriers to voter registration that effectively disenfranchised most Blacks, Native Americans and other minorities. These groups were essentially denied the right to vote until passage of the federal civil rights and voting rights laws in the mid-1960’s.

Whew! I learned a lot as I delved into the history of the Seminoles in Florida, particularly in the area known today as Ft. Myers. That little sign in the center of Old Town left a lot out. One more thing: the world “Seminole” is supposedly derived from the Spanish word “cimarron”, meaning “runaway” or “wild one”. They started out as part of the Creek tribe, but either decided to leave or were exiled. They described themselves as “yat’siminole” or “free people”. True to that phrase, they strongly resisted every effort by a foreign power to conquer them or convert them. They were not dominated by the Spanish and they fought against the English who tried to take their lands. They were one of the last Native American groups to sign a treaty with the United States. Theirs is a very long, proud history of resistance. Blacks who had been enslaved and who escaped from their “owners” fled to Florida and were accepted by the Seminoles. They were called Black Seminoles.

I have not done a thorough exploration of Ft. Myers, but so far the only sign I see of the Seminole heritage in this area is a Seminole casino, which will have a big fireworks show on January 26. I hope there is more to the Seminole people than those who sponsor the casino. I’m sure there is. However, if you come to the United States from another country not knowing the history of our decimation of native American groups over the centuries, you might think that gambling is what the native Americans know best, as you travel from the East Coast to the West Coast and see one gaudy casino sign after another, each announcing an “Indian” gambling mecca.

And that would be a shame. As we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. today, January 21, we should be mindful of the titanic struggles of the Seminoles and other native Americans to maintain their identity, to hold on to their land (mostly a lost cause), and to assert their sovereignty against a government that has relentlessly pursued its “manifest destiny” to control all the land west of the original colonies to the Pacific Ocean. Keeping this history of our own country in mind, we may also develop a better understanding of deep schisms in other countries, like Iraq, between groups like the Kurds, the Shiites, and the Sunnis, each of whom fears losing their identities to a central government determined to elevate one group (like the Sunnis) over all other ethnic and religious groups. How many Native Americans did we have to kill in order to set up our state governments and our federal government? And how many more have we forced into dependency on “reservations”? When we start to get all full of ourselves and extol the virtues of our democracy, let’s remember that we were not always so “democratic” in our treatment of many groups in this country, particularly Native Americans. That’s all.

This history lesson is over. Time to eat. The Admiral is cooking something up, and I can’t wait to enjoy his latest concoction