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previous: Chapter 19 This webpage reproduces a chapter of The Five Civilized Tribes by Grant Foreman University of Oklahoma Press Norman, Oklahoma, 1934 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 21

[ Seminole ]

 p267  Chapter twenty
Justice to the Indians

More than a decade had now passed since the removal of the great body of Seminole Indians; they were far behind the other four immigrant tribes in the scale of progress and adaptation to their new environment. There were several reasons for this situation, none of which reflected on the character of the Seminole who were its innocent and helpless victims.

The country they left in Florida encouraged a life of idleness, for abounding in fish, game and fruits much of the time, it gave little incentive to labor, and most of the Seminoles' work was done by their slaves. The climate required little clothing and shelter. The change therefore was most difficult for these people. Removed to a colder climate, obliged to clothe themselves, build houses and till the soil it was harder for them to adapt themselves to their new environment than for the other tribes. They did not all apply themselves to farming and were restless and discontented, some of them pushing farther west where there was better hunting.

The principal reason for their tardy recovery was the stupid and vicious policy conceived by the Government to force these people to become subjects to the Creeks. The latter outnumbered them ten to one, yet with no thought of their history or of the consequences, it was proposed to amalgamate the tribes, an obviously impossible thing. Fear of this scheme kept nearly half of the tribe hanging around Fort Gibson for years, idle, purposeless, destitute and deteriorating; and other hundreds remained secreted in the Everglades of Florida rather than submit to the domination of their traditional and only enemies, the Creeks.

It was this foolish and unjust policy more than all other influences  p268 that prevented the Seminole tribe from settling down and taking root as the other tribes had done, retarding their development many years and inflicting damage from which as a tribe they never recovered. But a better day was coming to them. Even officers of the Government after unhappy, futile years of coercion began to understand and appreciate the feelings of these friendless and helpless Seminole people, their high spirited and unyielding resistance to Creek domination.

The Seminole felt denationalized and humiliated by subjection to the laws of the Creeks, which discouraged them from efforts at improvement and engendered a reckless attitude threatening serious consequences. Because the Creeks had stringent laws against the introduction of liquor into their country, some of the Seminole entered with whole-hearted enthusiasm into persistent and success­ful violation of that law; and in flat boats and large canoes they brought from Fort Smith up the Arkansas and Canadian rivers to North Fork Town large quantities of liquor which they retailed throughout the Creek country. In this and various other ways they made the anomalous relation of the tribes difficult and obnoxious to the Creeks as well as to themselves.⁠2

 p269  Finally their agent, J. W. Washbourne, reached the conclusion that there must be a separation of the tribes and in the summer of 1855 convened the Seminole in council where they formulated a statement of their complaints, demands, and desires to be communicated in a friendly letter to the Creek council. They declared that they were a separate and independent people; that the Government unjustly and arbitrarily compelled them to merge their tribal organization into that of the Creeks; that the Creek laws over them were oppressive and unjust; that they were passed by councils in which they had no voice, the Seminole refusing to participate in the Creek councils and thus admit the right of the Creeks to govern them. Some Seminole who had merged themselves with the Creeks renounced them and rejoined their tribe.

They said that though they were induced to pledge themselves to abide the Treaty of Fort Gibson in 1845 and to conform to all its provisions, yet they unanimously protested against that treaty as operating unjustly and injuriously to their people; that there was no prospect of their ever becoming an amicable, integral part of the Creek tribe, and consequently no improvement could be achieved among them while that condition and feeling lasted. And they earnestly prayed for a separation from that tribe, and that they might be permitted to send a delegation to Washington during the succeeding session of Congress so that all their grievances, claims and desires could be presented to the Government. The agent in communicating these proceedings to his superiors in Washington testified to the reasonableness of the request of the Indians.

The Seminole people were sadly neglected by the Government, said their agent, and there was no indication of improvement during the year, but nothing else could be expected.

An enlightened Indian administration under the newly created department of the interior had at last recognized the necessity of undoing the great mistake of trying of unite the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes and had effected that measure of reparation by the Treaty of 1855.⁠4 It now realized the justice and greater necessity of doing as much for the Creeks and Seminole. Though behind that gesture of restitution was the bargain for the assistance of the western Seminole in effecting the removal of their people remaining in Florida. A treaty was thereupon entered into in Washington, August 7, 1856,⁠5 by and between the delegations of the Creek and Seminole tribes and the United States, by which the Seminole Indians were given a separate tract of land lying west of and adjoining the country secured to the Creeks; the latter making a formal cession to the Seminole of the lands described, and the United States guaranteeing the title. The land conveyed to the Seminole was a long narrow strip lying between the Canadian River and the North Fork of the Canadian River and extending from about the middle of what is now Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, northwestward to the One Hundredth meridian, or the present western boundary of Oklahoma, and estimated to embrace 2,169,000 acres.

It was provided that as soon as the Seminole should remove from the Creek lands where they were then living to the country conveyed to them, the laws of the Creek Nation should have no further effect within those boundaries. Separation of the Creeks and Seminole was thus made effective by the terms of the treaty and the Government agreed further that payment would be made to the Seminole for the improvements they would be obliged to abandon in the Creek country on their removal; and that as soon as they had removed to their new  p271  home necessary buildings for an agency⁠6 and for a tribal council house would be erected. The Government expressed its solicitude for the removal of the Seminole in Florida to the new Seminole country and liberal inducements were made to them to leave Florida. Rifles, blankets, ammunition, hunting shirts, shoes, and tobacco were promised them; $20,000 for improvements and other sums for plows, axes, seed, looms, cards, and wheels.

The leaders of the western Seminole saw in the embarrassment of the Government in its efforts to remove the Florida Indians an opportunity for profitable bargaining. They knew that forcible removal of the Seminole was out of the question and that the Government must have their assistance to bring about what it so ardently desired. Astute to learn how much the Government needed their help and knowing that large sums of money vainly had been offered to the Florida Seminole to remove, beside the vast sums expended in the war for their conquest, they adroitly held the Government to terms highly advantageous and just to themselves; severed the bonds with which a foolish governmental policy sought to hold them in subjection to the Creeks; located them where they could live in peace by themselves, under their own laws;⁠7 where they and the Creeks would be at peace with each other; made provision for the education of their children, and for the encouragement of agriculture. The wonder is that a government so long could have ignored the evils of this situation, and continued a stupid unjust policy towards these people.

The Seminole agreed in the treaty to send to Florida a large delegation under an agent of the Government to render such service as they could in securing the consent of the members of the tribe there to emigrate. Besides the separation from the Creeks, the Government agreed to pay the Seminole $90,000 in lieu of their improvements, and to defray the expense of their removal; to pay them $3,000 annually for ten years for the support of their schools; other sums for agriculture and blacksmiths; and to set aside the sum of $250,000 the interest of  p272 which at 5 per cent annually was to be paid them as an annuity, and as much more when they were joined in their new home by the Seminole of Florida.

And thus at this very late day the Government for the first time appeared to give thought to the welfare of this tribe of Indians; neglected as to schools and everything else necessary to their development and progress, retarded by the inertia of their own backwardness, they had been allowed to drop far behind the other immigrant tribes, the Government making little effort to improve their condition. And what they had accomplished had been largely in spite of, and not by the help of, the Government.

The Seminole Indians were well satisfied with the terms of the new treaty but when some of them went to their new country to select sites for their homes they found themselves menaced by the roving tribes of the prairies. To meet these Indians on their trading and hunting expeditions was one thing, but the prospect of trespass and depredations by these restless freebooters on the homes and herds of the immigrants was disquieting and they asked that the Government give them some protection. Only a few located in their western home for more than a year after the execution of the treaty. The Government postponed the payment of the funds promised until the emigration of the Florida Indians and the immigrants anxiously looked forward to the realization of these terms. The population of the tribe had now diminished to 1907 of which 1,000 were females.⁠8 The immigrants were anxious to engage in the emigration of their people in Florida in order not only to receive the consideration promised them; but they very much desired to add to their population now much depleted by deaths, so as to increase their importance and influence.

On March 17, 1857, Elias Rector was commissioned superintendent of Indian affairs for the Southern Superintendency and in November S. M. Rutherford, the Seminole agent, notified the tribe to select the delegation that was to go to Florida. An abortive effort had been made the preceding winter by the officers at Fort Gibson to handle the matter. Second-lieut. Edgar O'Connor of the Seventh Infantry, had been selected to accompany and take charge of the delegation consisting of both Seminole and Creeks; but when the Indians arrived at Fort Gibson  p273 they learned that no provision had been made for paying them and they refused to go. They said also that if the military had anything to do with the removal it was doomed to failure. The first of the January following, Rector and Rutherford and W. H. Garrett, Creek agent, left Fort Smith for Florida with a delegation of forty Seminole and six Creeks.

On their arrival in Florida, they spent nearly three months in coöperation with the Federal troops searching through the Everglades, counselling with Indians they could reach, and endeavoring to persuade them to emigrate. All was not peaceful negotiation however if one may judge from Colonel Rector's letter from Fort Myers: "Col. Rutherford has taken with him a niece of Billy Bowlegs who was a prisoner at Egmont Key, as a guide; she says that Bowlegs is disposed to negotiate, which statement is confirmed by the last prisoner taken, who is an Indian of Bowleg's Band, and now in the hospital at this place, having been shot in the leg in being captured."⁠9 It was several weeks later (March 15) that Rector succeeded in holding a council thirty-five miles southwest of Fort Myers, with representatives of the bands in Florida. Upon offering them large sums of money and other inducements, Bowlegs and his principal men agreed to emigrate their families; and soon after, Nocus Hadjo reported that his chief Assoouwah (Assunwha) had already begun moving his women and children out of the swamp to a point where wagons could be sent to assist them in reaching Rector's camp. Bowlegs brought the twenty-three members of his family to the camp of the delegation from the West and then went in search of a part of his band who were living in boats whom he agreed to remove. Rutherford and Jumper had gone to look for a small remnant of Tallahassee Indians seventy miles back of Tampa Bay.

Rector was enthusiastic over the prospect of bringing to an end the "war" in Florida. The only doubt he entertained was based upon an almost incredible situation in that state: the sordid interest of the people in continuing the "war." "The greatest obstacle in the way of success­ful removal of the Indians is to be apprehended from the volunteers and disapointed citizens of Florida, who, I am sorry to say would dislike this war to be ended."⁠10 Hunting and killing the Indians was  p274 more than a sport for these people. For years the provisioning of expensive and usually futile expeditions into the retreats of the Indians brought financial returns to those who had supplies for sale, and the "volunteers" enjoyed employment and subsistence at public expense. This shameful and cruel motive mentioned also by other Federal officials, contributed not only to the misery of these unhappy people but to the ineffective character of the campaigns waged against them.

At last Colonel Rector, Rutherford, and Garrett sailed from Fort Myers May 4, on the steamer Grey Cloud, with 125 Indians and proceeded to Egmont Key where they took on board forty more who had been captured by the Florida volunteers. Of the total of 165 hostiles, thirty-nine were warriors and 126 women and children. The warriors included Billy Bowlegs,⁠11 principal chief of the Florida Indians, Assoonwah second chief, Nocose Emathla, Foos Hadjo, subchiefs, Nokus Hadjo, inspector general, and Fushutchee Emathla. This contingent included ten of the Mikasuki or Sam Jones band, leaving with Sam Jones twelve warriors who refused to desert their venerable and implacable chief then 108 years old. They said they would stay until his death and then they also would emigrate. There remained in Florida two small parties of "Boatmen" Indians who included twelve warriors, and a small party of Tallahassee. But these Indians were so success­fully concealed in the Everglades, the Indian guides themselves had been unable in several months search to find them. Rector had promised five of the chiefs $1,000 each in addition to large sums paid Billy Bowlegs and the warriors, women and children.

Rector and his people transferred at New Orleans on the Steamer Quapaw, and arrived at Fort Smith May 26. The Creek and Seminole delegations in charge of Agent Garrett left New Orleans on the steamer Arkansas, and arrived at Fort Smith May 28. On June 1, Bowlegs and his party of 164 Seminole Indians were placed in charge of Colonel Rutherford who started with them for their new home on the third. They were thirteen days on the road contending with bad weather, worse roads and high water. Many of his people were sick, four of them died on the road and more died after their arrival at their  p275 destination from an ailment that assumed the character of typhoid fever, said Rutherford.

There was more work for Rector in Florida and in the autumn he sought another delegation to accompany him. He was obliged to agree to Bowlegs's demand for $200 for his service as head of a party of eight Seminole Indians. They set out from Fort Smith in December 1858. Of the remnant of the tribe left in Florida many were now willing and anxious to leave and join their friends and relatives in the West, though influences were at work to interfere with the movement, said Rector:

Rector arrived on the steam Magnolia with seventy-five Seminole warriors, women and children off St. Marks February 15 ready to depart for New Orleans. The remainder of these wretched people he consigned to the "mercies of the Florida troops which Governor Perry in his recent message proposed to visit them with."⁠12

 p276  Agent Rutherford urged that the Government comply with its promise to erect buildings for an agency and a council house and blacksmith shops for the Seminole immigrants. The Indians said that as soon as these buildings were started they would select sites for their homes.⁠13 By 1859 only about a third of the tribe had removed to the land set apart for them in the Treaty of 1856, but others were preparing to remove as soon as their crops were gathered. The Florida immigrants lately brought as prisoners were much dissatisfied and restless and showed little inclination to settle down and build homes. The number in the tribe, according to a recent census was 2,254 of which 1,009 were females. The Seminole Indians had been reduced in population nearly 40 per cent in thirty years, by the war of extermination waged against them and the fugitive manner in which they had lived in the swamps to escape capture. As usual, none of the $2,000 promised in the Treaty of 1856 for agricultural assistance had been advanced to the Indians who were becoming restless for a fulfillment of that engagement; and Rutherford urged that the Government comply with this promise. There was no school in the Seminole Nation but a few of the leading members of the tribe were anxious that the treaty stipulation on the subject be carried into effect.

The Seminole people held a general council in the summer of 1859 where they discussed the project of setting up a government such as was enjoyed by the other immigrant tribes. They desired the Federal officials to withhold from their annuities and turn over to the officers of the nation a sum sufficient to meet the expenses of their proposed government. They wished to create a light-horse to execute their laws, and to set up other officials for the administration of their national government. Their chiefs and law makers expected to be paid for their services also.

The Seminole agency building was erected in 1859 about sixty miles west of the former agency one mile west of the eastern boundary of the Seminole country and two miles north of the California road laid out by Lieutenant Beale. And the next year a council house thirty-six by twenty feet containing two rooms with a fire place in each, had been constructed for them eight miles northwest of the agency.⁠14

The Civil War had now begun. Agent Rutherford and the Indians  p277 were still urging that schools be set up in the Seminole country as promised in the treaty.

Before the surveyors could run the boundaries of the new grant to the Seminole tribe, they were compelled to abandon their work  p278 by the hostilities of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne Indians in the vicinity. They committed depredations also on the immigrant Seminole who complained for several years of the loss of their live stock.

The Indians were slowly improving; moving on to the land assigned them, adapting themselves to the change from their former home in Florida, building homes and making their little farms. They were still crying in vain for the schools promised them years before when the Civil War began and they were obliged to flee from the country. After the war most of them were for a time again located near Fort Gibson, all of their improvements and stock having been swept away by that conflict. A new treaty was made in 1866⁠16 by which the Seminole tribe ceded their land back to the United States and received in place of it the very much diminished tract of 200,000 acres that has since been their home, co-extensive with the present county of Seminole, Oklahoma. And thus nearly thirty-five years after the Government by devious means secured the execution of the so‑called treaty with the Seminole which drove them from their homes in Florida, they became fixed upon a tract of land of their own. Here they applied themselves industriously to farming, built cabins and fenced their lands; schools were erected, and these neglected Indians though much behind, caught step with the other tribes, and exhibited a commendable zeal for improvement.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 Report of commissioner of Indian affairs for 1851.

2 Drennan to Lea, October 13, 1852; ibid. for 1852; ibid. for 1856.

3 Ibid. for 1855.

4 Kappler, II, 531. The department of the interior was created in 1849.

5 Idem, II, 569.

6 A contract was made with Henry Pope of Sebastian County, Arkansas, October 30, 1858, for a Seminole agency building, thirty-two by forty-four feet in size and a log kitchen sixteen feet square (OIA).

7 The Seminole Indians were practically penniless, having no tribal funds or annuities as the other emigrant tribes had; they had received nothing on their removal to the West.

8 Report of commissioner of Indian affairs for 1857.

9 Rector to Mix, February 10, 1858, OIA, Seminole R 481.

10 Ibid., March 29, 1859, OIA, Seminole R 526.

11 Bowlegs died in the West and his remains are interred in the National cemetery at Fort Gibson. "Bowlegs" was a corruption of "Bolek." His death was reported in Report of commissioner of Indian affairs for 1859, p529.

12 Rector to Denver, November 22, 1858, January 22, 1859, February 15, 1859, OIA.

13 Report of commissioner of Indian affairs for 1858.

14 Ibid., 1860.

15 Rutherford to Rector, August 15, 1860, report of commissioner of Indian affairs, for 1860.

16 Kappler, op. cit.

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