Jackson & Indians July-December 1816
Jackson & Indians January-June 1817
Jackson & Indians July-December 1817
General Jackson January-June 1818
General Jackson July-December 1818
Jackson & Choctaws in 1819
Jackson & Indians in 1820
On 21 January 1816 Brigadier-General John Coffee from Fort Strother wrote
to Major-General Andrew Jackson about his efforts to draw the lines for borders
with Cherokees even though the other Commissioners had not joined him,
and Coffee from Camp Coffee did that again in a letter to Jackson
on February 8 in which he also wrote,
I have the statement of Chinabie, Spoke Hajah, and all
the Cherokee nation to justify the principal part of this line,
and if supported I intend running it in that way, am told
the Chickasaws and Choctaws, or perhaps some of
their disorderly young men will oppose me; I am not
afraid of a body of them coming against me, but think
it likely if no guard they may offer insult or at least
they would steal our horses, as such would judge it
right to have 20 or 30 armed men to accompany me.
I can run and mark that line, which will form our whole
western boundary in two weeks, and seeing the probable
delay that would result from waiting the arrival of regular
troops, and their tardy mode of movements I have thought
it would be justifiable to call on mounted Volunteers;
the service would be so short, and the lines completed
so much earlier by such course, that I think the
government would be benefited thereby—
in the event such can be admitted, I have the offer
of men at a minutes warning in Madison County.
Mr. John M. Armstrong has offered to furnish them
and supply them at contract price, and as there is no
contractors here, presume no injury could arise therefrom….
I have determined to act alone believing
it important to finish the business.1
Major General Jackson on February 9 wrote this letter
to South Carolina’s Governor David R. Williams:
The resolution of the Legislature of the State of South
Carolina, enclosed under cover of your very friendly letter
of the 22nd of December last was received by me last mail.
The very flattering and kind manner in which that
respectable body as well as yourself, has been
pleased to speak of my exertions in the late war
with Great Britain and her Indian allies, merits
and receives a return of my sincere thanks.
The approbation of his country is certainly
the richest reward for the exertions, toils,
and privations of a soldier and patriot.
This approbation so kindly expressed by the
unanimous voice of the representation of that state
which gave me birth, and to which you as the chief
magistrate are pleased to add yours, heightens my
gratification on the present occasion, and calls forth
the most lively sensations towards a grateful country.
The situation of our common country at the
time alluded to called for the best exertions
of myself and brave associates in arms.
These exertions were attended with extraordinary success,
but no more than may always be looked for
when our cause is just, and heaven is on our side.
Whenever the independence of a nation is endangered
by foreign invasion “The highest military results”
may be expected from a people who, like the
brave Americans, will themselves to be free.”2
On 13 February 1816 General Jackson wrote this in a letter to John Coffee:
I have said, write to the other Commissioners,
inform them of the information and your intended route,
have either their unqualified approbation or disapprobation.
But do you progress with the line.
I have enclosed you an order to have raised
25 mounted gunmen as a guard, and I have
also enclosed you a letter to Mr. J. M. Armstrong.
If you have confidence in him
(for I have none) send it to him.
If not, you can raise the men in one day,
and any person who is able will furnish the supplies,
and notwithstanding I am not legally authorized
to call for such a force, they will be
as punctually paid as any others.3
The Secretary of War Crawford wrote in a letter to General Jackson on March 15:
It appears from the representations of colonel Hawkins,
that the Negro fort erected during the war at the junction
of the Chatachouchie and Flint rivers has been
strengthened since that period and is now occupied by
between two hundred and fifty and three hundred blacks,
who are well armed, clothed, and disciplined.
Secret practices to inveigle negroes from the frontiers of
Georgia, as well as from the Cherokees and Creek nations,
are still continued by the negroes and hostile Creeks.
This is a state of things which cannot fail to produce much
injury to the neighboring settlements, and excite irritations
which may ultimately endanger the peace of the nation.
The President therefore directed me to instruct you
to call the attention of the governor or military
commander of Pensacola to this subject.
The principles of good neighborhood require
the interference of the Spanish authority,
to put an end to an evil of so serious a nature.
Should he decline this interference, it will be
incumbent on the Executive to determine what
course shall be adopted in relation to this banditti.
Should it be determined that the destruction of this fort
does not require the sanction of the legislature,
measures will be promptly taken for its reduction.
From the representations of its strength
heavy cannon will be necessary to batter it.
It is presumed that a cooperation of the naval force
may be useful at least in transporting the battering train.4
Major General Jackson from New Orleans on 8 April 1816 wrote
this letter to Brigadier-General Edmund P. Gaines:
The growing hostile dispositions of the Indians must
be checked by prompt and energetic movements:
half peace half war is a state of things which must not exist.
The Murderers of Johnston and Mcglaskey
must be had and punished.
No retreat must provide an asylum for them.
Any town or village affording them protection if refused
to be surrendered when demanded, must be destroyed.
I regret much that the statement made by a free man
of color respecting the negro fort and referred to in yours
of the 20th February did not accompany your dispatches.
I therefore can only repeat that you possess
the power of acting on your Discretion,
which I hope you will exorcise on this.
If the conduct of these people is such as to encourage
the Indian war, if the fort harbors the Negroes of our
citizens or friendly Indians living within our Territory,
or hold out Inducements to the Slaves of our
Citizens to desert from their owner’s service,
this fort must be destroyed.
Under whose authority has this fort been established?
Whose subjects do they profess to be?
Who occupy it? will be necessary enquiries for you to make.
If they profess to be the subjects of a power
with whom we are at peace, then their acts are
acts of war and ought to be made the subject
of demand for redress by our government.
If they are a Banditti assembled on the Territory
of Spain or claim to be the subjects of any other
power and are stealing and enticing away our negroes,
they ought to be viewed as a band of outlaws—
land pirates, and ought to be destroyed.
Notify the Governor of Pensacola of your advance
into his Territory and for the express purpose
of destroying these lawless Banditti.
I have very little doubt of the fact that this fort
has been established by some villains for the
purpose of murder, rapine and plunder, and that
it ought to be blown up regardless of the ground it
stands on, and from the facts and knowledge you
possess regarding this negro fort if your mind should
have formed the same condition, destroy it and restore
the stolen negroes and property to their rightful owners.5
On April 23 General Jackson from Washington in the Mississippi Territory
wrote this letter to Mauricio de Zuñiga, the Commandant of Pensacola:
I am charged by my government to make known to
you that a negro fort erected during our late war with
Britain at or near the Junction of the Chatahouchee and
Flint rivers has been strengthened since that period
and is now occupied by upwards of two hundred and fifty
negroes many of whom have been enticed away from
the service of their masters—citizens of the United States;
all of whom are well clothed and disciplined.
Secret practices to inveigle negroes from the
citizens of Georgia, as well as from the Cherokee
and Creek nations of Indians, are still continued
by this Banditti and the Hostile Creeks.
This is a state of things which cannot fail to produce
much injury to the neighboring settlements, and excite
Irritations which eventually may endanger the peace
of the Nation; and interrupt that good understanding
which so happily exists between our Governments.
The principles of good faith which always ensure
good neighborhood between nations require the
immediate and prompt interference of the Spanish
Authority to destroy or remove from our frontier this
Banditti, put an end to an evil of so serious a nature
and return to our citizens and the friendly Indians
inhabiting our territory those negroes now in the said
fort and which have been stolen and enticed from them.
I cannot permit myself to indulge a Belief that the
governor of Pensacola or the military commander
of that place will hesitate a moment in giving orders
for this Banditti to be dispersed and the property of
the Citizens of the United States forthwith restored to them,
and our friendly Indians: particularly when I reflect that
the conduct of this Banditti is such as will not be tolerated
by our government, and if not put down by Spanish
Authority will compel us in self Defense to destroy them.
This communication is entrusted to Captain Amelung
of the 1st Regiment U. S. who is charged to bring back
such answer as you may be pleased to make to this letter.
In your answer you will be pleased to state whether
that fort has been built by the government of Spain
and whether those negroes who garrison it are
considered as the subjects of his Catholic Majesty,
and if not by his catholic Majesty by whom and
under whose orders it has been erected.6
General Jackson from his Hermitage on 12 May 1816
wrote this letter to President James Monroe:
Since I write you on the 8th instant, I have
had the pleasure of seeing General Coffee.
The General has shown me the whole correspondence
between him & the other commissioners.
The whole evidence of the right of Territory ceded by
the Creeks, which he included in the lines ran by him.
The evidence of right in the Creeks to the
Territory thus included in the lines ran by
General Coffee appear clear & conclusive.
From a view of the whole correspondence, I am
amazed at the conduct of the other commissioners,
and particularly at that of General Gaines in forming
a board after the commission filled up for General Coffee
by the President, had been forwarded by him to General
Coffee with a request that he should immediately as
commissioner enter on the duties as such, and proceed
to run the line between the Cherokees & Creeks &c &c.
General Coffee’s feelings under these circumstances
are not altogether at ease, and it would afford him
some satisfaction to be informed whether the
surveyor chain carriers &c, have or will be
ordered to be paid by the Government, will you
sir have the goodness to give this information.
The late hasty convention with the Cherokees
is much regretted & deprecated in this quarter.
It is believed that the President has been badly advised on
this subject; and the Instrument obtained by the Cherokees
from Major McIntosh after the Creeks had concluded, signed
& fully executed with me the treaty, had been held forth to
him as an instrument executed in full council of the Creeks.
I hope this has not been the fact.
Col. Meiggs knew this Instrument was of no avail,
that the Creeks had positively refused to do anything
on the subject of the boundary with the Cherokees,
and this paper was merely given to McIntosh who
had married a Cherokee woman to please the
Cherokees for the moment, and not as a national
act of the Creeks, and being subsequent to the
execution of the treaty with the United States
could have no binding effect upon the United States.
The Territory ceded contains between four and
five millions of acres, to which it is believed the
Cherokees never had the least semblance of claim.
The Territory ceded was of incalculable value to the
United States, as it opened a free communication to the
lower country through our own soil, strengthened that
frontier, cut off all communication & intercourse between the
southern & northwestern Indians, gave us roads unshackled
by Indian claims & supplies for our army on these roads
from the certain industry of our own citizens, and hardy
soldiers to meet an invading enemy at the threshold.
By this convention all these benefits are lost
and as is believed wantonly surrendered—
a free communication is restored between the
northern & southern tribes of Indians, which again
exposes our frontier to savage murders & depredation.
The intercourse with the lower country closed except
through an Indian country, our citizens as at present
& heretofore, subjected to every contribution that Indian
avarice can suggest supplies of the worst kind and at all
times scarce & precarious, and never can be calculated
on for the supply of an army—when you open roads,
as at present, they will be stopped and turned at the
pleasure of the Indians, your bridges destroyed, others
marked & opened to lead to their turnpikes, to which you
cannot pass without endangering the legs or neck of the
horse and rider—and what is still worse, the minds of your
citizens irritated & disgusted, that so much blood has flown,
& privations suffered, to give security to our country which
is wantonly surrendered to an Indian tribe, that never had
a claim to it, and which the Creeks inhabited until they were
driven from it & destroyed by the exertions of those very
citizens who now complain—and if their services are again
wanted will have a baneful effect upon their former spirit
of patriotism—and I am fearful that this thing in the end
will involve our Government in much trouble & perplexity.
It affords your friends here much pleasure that
you are not involved in the general deprecation
that this act has brought upon the Government.
I sincerely regret that the administration of the best
of men should be deprecated by the citizens for this act;
but neither upon the grounds of right Justice or national
policy can his best friends step forward to Justify—
as to right the Cherokees never had any to the soil,
and national policy forbade the surrender to them—
be it right or wrong, the whole is ascribed to the Secretary
of War, and he has forever forfeited in this act the
confidence of the people of this section of the country.7
On 4 June 1816 Captain Ferdinand Amelung wrote in a letter to Jackson,
The fort was constructed by Nichols and Woodbine,
and the British occasionally resorted thither but on their
final evacuation of this country, left it in possession of a
Garrison composed of Negroes and Indians with 4 heavy
pieces of ordnance and 10,000 weight of Powder etc.
About 20 Choctaws, a number of Seminoles and a great
number of runaway negroes are supposed to have been
there some time ago, but a great part of these Brigands
abandoned the Fort on account of scarcity of provisions
and have gone to Savannah River in East Florida….
Panzacola itself is, I can assure you, entirely defenseless;
the Garrison consists of from 80 to 100 effective men
exclusive of a Battalion of colored troops say
about 150 men of whom the Inhabitants
themselves stand in constant dread.
They have about 150 serviceable muskets,
about 500 musket cartridges and not
enough Gunpowder to fire a salute….
The Governor also, on my mentioning in conversation
that I was persuaded you would willingly assist in destroying
the Fort, said that if the object was sufficiently important
to require the presence of General Jackson, he would be
proud to be commanded by you, and that if the Captain
General of Cuba could not furnish him with the necessary
means, he might perhaps apply to you for assistance.8
On June 10 General Jackson from Nashville wrote a long letter
to Secretary of War William Crawford mostly about the
Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Cherokees.
Jackson concluded,
You are mistaken in supposing an army can
so readily pass this section of country; it could not
be passed in two or three days, as you suppose.
There is no point on the Tennessee where a road
to New Orleans and Natchez will cross that is less than
eighty miles from the Creek village on the Black Warrior
burnt by General Coffee, below which the line is to cross.
A road leading through this country will make
the distance not less than one hundred miles.
The Flat Rock spoken of in the conversation nobody
knows anything about, unless it be the southeast and
northeast corner of where the Choctaw and Chickasaw
tribes claim, which is south of the Cotton Gin Port on Mobile.
Should the Choctaw claim prevail, as the Cherokee
has done, the country below will contain a very
narrow strip of good land, not sufficient to afford
supplies adequate to the support of an army
necessary for the defense of the lower country.
I have now done; political discussion is
not the province of a military officer.
As a man I am entitled to my opinion
and have given it freely.9
Three days later Jackson wrote another letter just as long
to Crawford that concluded with this paragraph:
I hope it may be believed that I am seldom alarmed
at bubbles, but that in all my acts, and all my expressions
and information to the government I am swayed alone
from the disinterested motive, public good.
I enclose you a copy of a letter written to Col. Meigs on the
subject of the enclosed paper, as I am determined that in
no instance shall my name be used unfairly to aggrandize
Indian tribes or private Individuals or to work an injury
to my country, or be made the means of my Government
closing an act that may bring upon them the indignation
of their country without investigation and detection.10
In a third letter to Crawford on June 16 Jackson concluded:
I enclose for your information a copy of a letter from
Col. Barnett to General Coffee from which you will discover
more particularly how the Cherokees have been tampering
with the Creeks to filch the United States out of the land
which they well knew had been ceded by the Creek treaty.
I should have noticed your concluding sentence,
but I cannot believe you to be serious; no man who
possesses honorable feelings and brought up in a country
where the laws punish vice and applaud virtue, can
believe that the characters of the West Tennesseans
are not implicated, when they are recorded as the
worst kind of robbers, taking from the poor Indian.
I shall here close the subject, resting an appeal for Justice
to a source who may appreciate virtuous conduct of
the American officers and soldiers more than you
appear to do and who I hope will think it Justice, that the
innocent should not suffer for the crimes of the guilty.11
Andrew Jackson from Nashville on 8 July 1816 wrote
this letter to the Secretary of State James Monroe:
I have just received your friendly letter
of the 18th of June last.
The Justice done General Coffee is truly
gratifying to me, and will be duly appreciated.
The feeling you express towards the patriotic citizen
and soldier who have fought the battles of their
country will endear you to them, and in case of
emergency ensure their services to the Government.
I feel it a duty I owe to my country to undertake any
service wherein it may be thought I can be useful,
this consideration alone will induce me to enter on the
duties assigned me as commissioner, but unless my
instructions will authorize a full investigation and
adjustment of the territory ceded by the Creeks
with the Cherokees as well as the Chickasaws
no benefit can result to the United States,
for in this convention exists all the evil and difficulty.
If a delegation should be authorized from the Cherokees
with full powers to investigate their and the Creek boundary,
I have no doubt but all things could be adjusted to the
satisfaction of all on the broad principles of Justice,
and that security to the lower country and our frontier
regained, that has been surrendered by the convention
with the Cherokees; but until this convention is got rid of,
every foot of land obtained from the Chickasaws, that could
be useful to the United States are invested with a right to it;
it invests in the Cherokees, hence the necessity by this
convention all that portion of Territory belonging to the
Chickasaw, that could be useful to the United States
are invested with a right to it; it vests in the Cherokees.
Hence the necessity of getting clear of this convention,
which I think could be easily effected by proper
management if another convention with that tribe was
ordered, the Cherokees know they never had a right to this
land; they see the irritation of the whites on this subject,
and they begin to dread what is really to be feared,
that is, their own destruction by an irritated people.
Col. Meiggs ought to exert himself on this occasion;
I fear he has not acted with his usual candor with
the government, or this hasty convention with the
Cherokees would not have been entered into.
He as agent can still cause justice to be done by a
surrender of this Territory for a small annuity, and candor
compels me to say to you that from the present feelings of
the people they will never permit the Cherokees to inhabit
the country from which the Creeks have been expelled.
What follows, treaties are the supreme law of the land,
must be executed, and the consequences may be that
the Cherokees will be annihilated, which will compel
the arm of government to be raised against her own
citizens for this violent infraction of the treaty.
This subject has caused me much reflection
and has filled me with sincere regret.
I hope a remedy will and may be found in another
convention with this nation, and that shortly.
P. S. a whiteman has been lately killed by the Cherokees
on the Georgia road, as soon as it was known Major Russell
raised four hundred men to penetrate their nation,
was prevented from it by the speedy surrender
of the Cherokees who committed the murder.
From this you can see what may result to that nation.
From the contents of letters of Col. Lowry to Major Russell,
as I am informed, I have little doubt if a proper application
was made to the Cherokees, they would yield up all
pretensions to this Territory for a very small compensation.
In fact they had agreed on a boundary with General Coffee,
in case nothing had been done at the city.
You will see from the remonstrance of the citizens, their
feelings on the subject, and this feeling is unanimous.12
Jackson, David Meriwether and Jesse Franklin had been appointed
Commissioners to negotiate with the Cherokees and the Chickasaws.
General Jackson from Nashville on 19 July 1816 wrote
in a letter to Brigadier-General John Coffee wrote:
I have this moment received the instructions
from the President of the United States by which
we are to be governed in holding the treaty
with the Chickasaws; they are ample.
A delegation of Cherokees are to be present,
and I have a hope with proper management,
we can obtain a recession from the Cherokees
and fully establish with the other tribes your lines.
Preparatory to this interesting object an interview
with some of the principle chiefs by you and
Col. Barnett will have a very good effect.
You can impress on their minds the Chickasaw claim.
The Whites having settled on this land as the territory
of the Creeks, the irritation that their removal will create,
and the injury that may be done their nation by these
whites, and the determination of the Chickasaws that they
shall never settle on it, that they can now get from the
United States a fair consideration for this doubtful claim
of theirs in money, that will give them schools to educate
their children and money to buy negroes to work the their
land, that by selling they will live in peace with these whites
and red brethren, which is all important to them as a nation.
That they know they have a right to this land, and they now
can get paid for it, and that the whites that have settled on it
as Creek land will never permit them to live on it in peace;
that under all these circumstances, every real friend
of the nation will advise them to take the price
offered for this doubtful title and live in peace.
There is no game on this land, and the Cherokees
have more land than they can cultivate without this….
But every advice ought to be afforded them by the late
convention the Government is pledged, and better
to give a just compensation to get clear of this thing,
than an act should be done to tarnish the Government
or bring one rash and imprudent citizen into difficulty.
The treaty as long as it exists is the supreme law
and must be executed, and every exertion ought
to be made to get clear of this hateful instrument.13
In the battle at the Negro Fort on 27 July 1816 Generals Jackson and Gaines
led 267 U. S. troops and Creek allies with two gunboats,
and they defeated 334 fugitive slaves and Choctaws.
The U. S. forces and Creeks had only three killed and one captured
while all those Choctaws and blacks were either killed, wounded or captured.
General Jackson from the Chickasaw Council House on
19 September 1816 wrote in this letter to Brigadier-General John Coffee:
On the 14th instant we concluded a treaty with the
Cherokee delegation for all the land south of the Tennessee
subject to the ratification of a full council of the nation
as Turkey Town on the 28th instant, for the sum of six
thousand dollars per annum, five thousand dollars for
Meltons and other improvements and some small presents
to the fifteen chiefs that attended here with this variation
from your line, Beginning at camp Coffee, south to the ridge,
then eastwardly along the ridge is opposed by the west fork
of Wills Creek, thence down the east side of said fork and
Wills Creek to the Coosee then down the Coosee, all south
of the Tennessee and west of that line is ceded to the U.S.
On tomorrow we are to have an answer from the
Chickasaws, and we are told by their chiefs,
that a cession will be made of all lands north
of the Tennessee and all southeast of your line.
We have had much to encounter;
we were obliged to take firm & decided stands.
We took the evidence of the Chickasaws, then produced
the Creek claim with all evidence in its support, then made
them the proposition as a peace offering telling them the
Creek claim was the best, but their father the President
of the United States hearing they had a claim offered the
compensation as a peace offering, that from the evidence
he had a right to hold it as a conquered country & sell it to
pay to their nations & the Choctaws the expense of the war,
that it was demanded for this purpose from the Creeks,
ceded for this purpose & our citizens being in possession
could not be removed, nor would they be taxed to pay the
expense of the war until this land was sold for that purpose.
That they must clearly see not only the Justice but the
generosity of their father the President in the offer.
He first proposed to pay each nation a fair price for their
claim, that the land might be sold for the benefit of all,
to pay the debt due to the Cherokees, the Chickasaws &
the Choctaws and the balance to pay their white brothers.
In this stand I was well supported by General Meriweather
who is a fine old fellow, and this stand was what has
& will procure us success, & the Choctaws are
prepared to receive the offer of the Government.
But an Indian is fickle, & you will have to take the same
firm stand, & support it, and you are sure of success….
I should have postponed writing you until we had finally
closed, but our time is so short & after we hear their
answer if favorable as I now expect, will be so much
hurried that I am fearful I would not have time.
I therefore give you the outlines of the course we
have steered—a firm stand, & you will be successful.
All the chiefs said they had listened & the talk
of their father the President was a good talk.
You must tell them to lay aside all ideas of hunting
& become farmers like us, and for this purpose the
annuity is offered, and that this land being disputed
no reservation to the nation can be granted.14
On September 20 General Jackson completed a treaty
with the Chickasaws with seven articles and this preamble:
To settle all territorial controversies, and to perpetuate
that peace and harmony which has long happily
subsisted between the United States and Chickasaw nation,
the president of the United States of America, by
major general Andrew Jackson, general David Meriwether,
and Jesse Franklin, esq. on the one part, and the whole
Chickasaw nation, in council assembled, on the other,
have agreed on the following articles, which when
ratified by the president, with the advice and consent
of the Senate of the United States,
shall be binding on all parties:15
On 23 October 1816 General Jackson began in a series of letters to
the U. S. Secretary of State James Monroe urging him to work with Federalists,
and in this letter he also wrote,
The fact was that both President Washington and the
present Secretary of War were imposed on by false
representations, as neither the Chickasaws or Cherokees
had any right to the territory as the Testimony will show
it being in the possession of the Creeks at that time
and continued to be possessed by them until we
conquered the country in the fall 1813 and Spring 1814.
But all these conflicting claims are happily accommodated
by the late treaties with those tribes at the moderate
premium of 180,000 dollars payable in ten years—
in which is included the cession from the Chickasaws of that
extensive and fertile country lying north of the Tennessee.
This territory added to the Creek cession,
opens an avenue to the defense of the lower country
in a political point of view incalculable.
We will now have good roads, well supplied
by the industry of our own citizens, and our
frontier defended by a strong population.16
On 14 December 1816 the Secretary of State James Monroe
wrote a 5-page letter to General Jackson, that included these highlights:
It is very gratifying to me to receive your opinions
on all subjects on which you will have the goodness
to communicate them, because I have the utmost
confidence in the soundness of your judgement,
and purity of your intentions.
I will give you my sentiments on the interesting
subject in question, likewise without reserve.
I agree with you decidedly in the principle,
that the chief magistrate of the country ought not
to be the head of a party, but of the nation itself….
This letter you will perceive is highly confidential,
a relation which I wish always to exist between us.
Write me as you have done, without reserve, and the more
so, the more gratifying your communications will be.17
General Jackson in a letter to Brigadier-General John Coffee wrote,
I am directed to remove all intruders north of the
Tennessee to lay off a site for an armory and foundery
near the shoals with a reservation of thirty thousand
acres of land below the shoals will (you see)
become a great and important place.18
On December 27 George W. Campbell in a letter to General Jackson:
The Treaties made with the Indian tribes during
last summer have all been ratified in the Senate.
No material change has lately taken place
of our foreign relations.
Our affairs with Spain remain in Status-quo.19
Major-General Andrew Jackson on 14 January 1817 wrote this letter
to the Acting Secretary of War George Graham:
A report from Major Long, Topographical Engineer,
has just reached me through the medium of the
Adjutant General’s office, and I enclose a copy
by which you will perceive, he has by orders
from the Dept. of War left the duties assigned him
and is now on duty in the Northern Division.
If this report be correct, it at once shows the
impropriety of ordering and transferring an officer
from one division to another, except through the
medium of the coming General thereof:
it is inconsistent with all military rule and subversive of the
first principles of that subordination which ought and must
be maintained, either to make an Army useful or efficient.
This Officer has been ordered on a special duty by the
Commandant of the 9th Dept. and that at a time when
his prompt execution of the order and report thereon
was deemed all important, and would so have been,
provided a war with the Indians, which was highly
probable at that time, had to have ensued.
Instead of completing the duty assigned him by furnishing
a perfect sketch of the topography of the country,
he is without any notice thereof to the Officer Commanding
the Division, “ordered to Washington by the Secretary
of War” and thence to New York; and that too without
any notice to the Officer Commanding the Division,
who is held responsible for its safety and Defense.
Without Topographical Engineers being kept at
duty within their Division in time of peace we cannot
expect but little benefit from them in time of War,
and they might as well be stricken from the rolls of
the Staff; for as yet, as far as my information extends
they have rendered no beneficial service in my Division,
and Major Long is the only one who has made the
least effort under orders from the Division of the South.
I have to request an explanation how it has happened
that Major Long has been ordered from duty in my
division to the Northern without due notice thereof
to me; and if any, what T. Engineer has been
transferred to the Southern Division in his stead.
And I have further to request that, if Major Long
has not been transferred to the North, he ordered
to report himself without delay at the
Head Quarters of the Southern Division.20
Andrew Jackson Donelson (1799-1871) was the nephew of Jackson’s wife
and had lived with them at the Hermitage from the age of five.
Jackson helped educate him, and Donelson was
admitted to the Military Academy at West Point in 1817.
On 24 February 1817 his Uncle Andrew advised him with this letter:
You are now entered on the theatre of the world among
Strangers, where it behooves you to be guarded at all
points in your intercourse with the world, you ought to be
courteous to all, but make confidents with few; a young
mind is too apt to form opinions on specious shows,
and polite attention by others and to bestow confidence,
before it has had proof of it being well founded, when often,
very often, they will be deceived, and when too late find
to their Sorrow and regret that those specious shows of
proffered friendship, are merely to obtain confidence the
better to deceive, you therefore must be careful on forming
new acquaintances, how and where you repose confidence.
I have full confidence in your Judgment, when
ripened with experience, I well know, you will part
with existence, before you will tarnish your honor,
or depart from the paths of virtue and honesty.
But you must recollect, how many snares will be laid
for the inexperienced youth to draw him into dissipation,
vice and folly, against these snares I wish to guard you.
This will be attempted first by obtaining your confidence,
by specious display of sacred regard to virtue, honor and
honesty, and deriding morality and religion as empty
hypocritical shows, endeavoring to draw you into little vices
and dissipation, and step by step into those of a more
destructive kind, from all which I wish you to be guarded.
I do not mean by these observations that you should
shut yourself up from the world or deprive yourself
from proper relaxation, or innocent amusement
but only, that you should alone intermix with the
better class of society, whose characters are well
established for their virtue and upright conduct.
Among the virtuous females, you ought to cultivate
an acquaintance and shun the intercourse of the others
as you would the society of the viper or base character—
it is an intercourse with the latter description that engenders
corruption and contaminates the morals, and fits the young
mind for any act of unguarded baseness, when on the other
hand, the society of the virtuous female ennobles the mind,
cultivates your manners, and prepares the mind for the
achievement of everything great, virtuous, and honorable,
and shrinks from everything base or ignoble.
You will find General Swift in New York, when you reach
there, wait upon him and deliver the letter I gave you
for him, take his instructions for your guide; I have
requested his patronage for you under his admonitions
you are safe; from them I hope you will not depart.
I have barely to add while I recommend economy to you
as a virtue, on the other hand shun parsimony, never
spend money uselessly nor never withhold it when
necessary to spend it; I have notified General Swift that
you are authorized to draw on me for what sum of money
may be necessary for your education and support.21
On 4 March 1817 General Jackson wrote a letter
congratulating the new President James Monroe.
Then he wrote:
Your Predecessor accomplished much for his Country.
None could have served with more virtuous zeal;
yet there still remains undone much for you to perform.
The safety of the country has its first claim upon your
attention; next its general welfare, and I am convinced
that you will pardon me and ascribe to its proper motions
my having, at so early a period, after your instalment to
the Executive chair, brought to your notice the defenseless
situation of New Orleans, Mobile, and their dependencies,
in consequence of the want of repairs to the old
Fortifications and the erection of others which are
absolutely necessary for their safety and defense.
On file in the War Department you will find the result
of the examination of that Country, which was made by
Lieutenant Gadsden and myself, contained in his report;
which met with approbation of the then Secretary of War;
yet so far as I am informed nothing has been done
either to the old Fortifications nor preparations
made towards the erection of new ones.
Next to the completion of the Fortifications of Defense,
I would by leave to call your attention to strengthening
that Frontier by a permanent settlement of all the
Lands acquired from the Creek Indians….
Connected with the safety and defense of the South
Western section of the union is another subject
(which although more intimately united with
the defense and safety of the North West)
I beg leave to present to your view.
It is that the Lands on the Ohio within the State of Kentucky
and on the East Bank of the Mississippi be obtained
from the Chickasaws and immediately settled.
Although it may be said that we have sufficient Territory
already, and that our settlements ought not to be extended
too far, yet everything should be done to lessen our frontier
and consolidate our settlements; this would at once have
that effect, it would not only cut off all intercourse between
the Northern Indians and the Chickasaws and Choctaws but
insure safety to our commerce on the Ohio and Mississippi,
and afford a strong defense within striking distance of
the settlements on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
I would also add another important reason why
just policy should dictate the acquirement of this
Territory within that part which lies within the chartered
limits of the State of Tennessee a great portion was sold
early in 1783 to redeem the public debt of the revolution,
and Patents have been issued for the same.
The individuals purchasing expected immediate possession.
They believed that the State of North Carolina possessed
a good title as no other was set up or acknowledged;
and by the treaty of Peace Great Britain acknowledged
it conquered and ceded it without
any kind of reservation whatever.
The policy of the Government in open violation of the
constitution which secures property from being taken
for public use without just compensation being made,
has by law prevented the individuals from taking
possession of their Lands, and reserved them
for hunting grounds for the Indians.
The game being destroyed as acknowledged by all,
the right of possession, granted to the Indians
for the purpose of hunting ceases, and justice,
sound policy and the constitutional rights of the Citizen,
would require its being resigned to him.22
General Jackson from Nashville on 18 March 1817
wrote in a letter to President Monroe:
I have no hesitation in saying you have made
the best selection to fill the Department of State
that could have been made.
Mr. Adams in the hour of difficulty will be an able helpmate,
and I am convinced, will give general satisfaction….
I am aware of the difficulties that surround you;
but the plan you have adopted of making all
considerations subservient to the general weal will
bring you to retirement with the applause of all the
virtuous, wise, and good, and if properly seconded
by the Congress of the United States
(of which I have much fear)
will enable you to place the union in a state
of security and prosperity, that cannot be
shaken by foreign convulsions.
To this end you can calculate with confidence
on all my feeble exertions so long as
my constitution may permit me to be useful.
I have looked forward to the period when under
your guidance, our government would be in the
full tide of successful experiment, when I would retire
from public life to endeavor to regain a much enfeebled
constitution, should you be properly seconded in your views.
This period will arrive as soon as the measures you adopt
for the defense of the frontier, is carried into effect—
by a completion of those fortifications that have or may be
selected for its defense founderies and armories established,
the militia organized and classed, agreeable to your
recommendation to Congress in the spring of 1815.
Then we will have peace, for then
we will be prepared for war.
Every man with a gun in his hand, all Europe combined
cannot hurt us, and all the world will be anxious to be upon
friendly terms with us, because all the world will see,
we wish peace with all, but are prepared for defense against
all those who would wantonly infringe our national rights.23
On March 20 Jackson wrote to John H. Eaton on the work he was doing
on his autobiography, and he was being aided by various people,
and on April 11 Jackson wrote a 5-page letter to
his publishers Worsley and Smith in which he wrote,
I am described as reluctantly yielding justice
to the demand of General Adair.
Such degeneracy of feeling towards any of the troops
which I have had the honor to command is false,
and to ascribe them to me could only proceed
from the most malevolent heart.24
On April 18 Cherokees by the Arkansas River in a letter to
Major General Andrew Jackson and Colonel Meigs that was
signed by seven chiefs in the presence of Joseph Severe and William Wire.
They wrote,
I am now compelled to let go the hands of the Osages
because they let mine go and the President’s also.
They are daily stealing my property and
killing my people and white people also.
You ask to know the size of the Osage purchase.
We do not wish the Government to Run it.
It will be a bad precedent if you agree
to pay their damages.25
Jackson from the Adjutant-General Robert Butler’s Office in Nashville
on 22 April 1817 issued this Division Order:
The Commanding-General considers it due to the
principles of subordination which ought and must exist in
an army to prohibit the obedience of an order emanating
from the Department of War to Officers of this division
who have been reported and been assigned to duty, unless
coming through him as the proper organ of communication.
The object of this order is to prevent the recurrence of a
circumstance which removed an important officer from the
division without the knowledge of the Commanding General,
and indeed when he supposed that officer engaged in
his official duties, and anticipated hourly the receipt of
his official reports on a subject of great importance to
his command; also to prevent the topographical reports
from being made public through the medium of the
newspapers, as was done in the case alluded to,
thereby enabling the enemy to obtain the benefit of
our topographical researches as soon as the General
commanding, who is responsible for the division.
Superior officers having commands assigned them are
held responsible to the government for the character
and conduct of that command, and it might as well be
justified in an officer senior in command to give orders
to a guard on duty without passing that order through the
officer of that guard, as that the Department of War should
countermand the arrangements of commanding generals
without giving their orders through the proper channel.
To acquiesce in such a course would be a tame surrender
of military rights and etiquette, and at once subvert the
established principles of subordination and good order.
Obedience to the lawful commands of superior officers
is constitutionally and morally required; but there is
a chain of communication that binds the military compact,
which if broken, opens the door to disobedience
and disrespect, and gives loose to the turbulent
spirits who are ever ready to excite to mutiny.
All physicians able to perform duty, who are absent on
furlough will forthwith repair to their respective posts.
Commanding officers of regiments and corps are
ordered to report specially all officers absent from
duty on the 30th of June next, and their cause of absence.
The army is too small to tolerate idlers,
and they will be dismissed from the service.26
Return J. Meigs had been a colonel in the
Continental Army during the American Revolution.
In 1801 he became the Indian Agent to the Cherokees in Tennessee,
and he held that position until his death in 1823.
On 24 May 1817 Meigs from the Cherokee Agency
wrote this letter to General Jackson:
With respect to the exchange of lands, there are
a number of the best characters who have
decidedly expressed their minds in favor of it.
But some overbearing characters still retaining
their ancient barbarous habits and customs,
have had recourse to threatening those who hold
sentiments in favor of the views of the Government;
especially when the disposition of lands is in question.
Toochalee, Colonel R. Brown, and others who
have and still favor of an exchange of land,
are under some restraint on that account.
It is undoubtedly a very interesting object
to the Cherokee nation.
It is in my opinion the only measure within their power
to preserve and perpetuate their existence; I mean
their existence as a Distinct Community, nation, or tribe.
The progress, the overflowing population of our Country
has already surrounded these people, and the pressure
on their Country here on all sides is incessant; and will
eventually circumscribe the limits of the Cherokee nation
within narrow bounds; they must either become industrious
Citizens and be incorporated with someone or with several
of the adjoining states, or remove to a Country where
they can retain their ancient customs, so dear to them, that
they cannot give them up in exchange for regular society.
If they could be made to view their past and their present
State and future national prospects: they would embrace
the present opportunity to acquire a Country where
they might perpetuate their Identity as a Distinct people.
If, say, one half of these people are disposed seriously
to become civilized, let them have distinct property here;
become citizens that themselves and property may be
protected by our laws: but let the other half who still
cherish their ancient customs and habits remove to the
Arkansas River where they will live well by a very
small portion of labor, and where to the remotest time
there will be an opening to the West and Northwest.
The domestic manufacture of Cloth may be as well
carried on there as here, and is now done there
by the women the same as is done here at this time.
The government will afford the same aid
to the emigrants as is done here.
At the approaching conference there will be
a very great assemblage of people red and white.
Liquor will be plenty; there will be disorders unless
restrained by the presence of a few troops—
a few regular troops in Uniform will do more
than a host of others to preserve respect on such
an Occasion; besides there are a great number of
Intruders on the Indian lands who have returned since
Lieutenant Houston was in this part of the Country.27
General Jackson at the Cherokee Agency on June 21 wrote letters
to Brigadier-General John Coffee and to Colonel Robert Butler.
Here is the one to Butler:
I reached this place on the 18th having got to
Highwassee Garrison on the 17th where I learned
that Col. Meigs had notified the chiefs to meet here believing
public good would result from the change.
Yesterday being the day appointed, none but the
chiefs and delegation from the Arkansas attended.
These appear very solicitous for an exchange;
in fact I believe every native of the nation left
to themselves would freely make this election.
But they appear to be overawed by the council of some
white-men and half breeds, who have been and are
fattening upon the annuities, the labors, and folly of
the native Indian, and who believe that their income
would be destroyed by the removal of the Indians.
These that I have named are like some of our bawling
politicians, who loudly exclaim we are the friends
of the people, but who, when they obtain their views,
care no more for the happiness or welfare of the
people than the Devil does—but each procure
influence through the same channel and for
the same base purpose, self-aggrandizement.
General Meriwether is with me, and it becomes
our duty to endeavor to counteract this policy and
clearly explain the true interests of the natives,
and I am of the opinion that at least one half of the nation
will relinquish their right here and go to the Arkansas;
perhaps the whole with very few exceptions, for as soon
as the native says he will go, few of the white-men or
half breeds can live under civilized laws and will follow.28
Over 3,000 Cherokees had crossed the Mississippi River
and settled north of the Arkansas River by 1817.
That year on June 28 General Andrew Jackson spoke to the
national committee of the Cherokees and alienated the
part-Cherokee John Ross by his threats and condescension.
On 4 July 1817 the Cherokees at the Council House in Open Council heard
Jackson speak for the three Commissioners who negotiated a treaty with the
Cherokees that was signed on July 8 and proclaimed on 26 December 1817.
Here is the preamble that was followed by 13 Articles:
Articles of a treaty concluded, at the Cherokee Agency,
within the Cherokee nation, between major general
Andrew Jackson, Joseph M’Minn, governor of the state
of Tennessee, and general David Meriwether,
commissioners plenipotentiary of the United States of
America, of the one part, and the chiefs, head men and
warriors, of the Cherokee nation, east of the Mississippi
River, and the chiefs, head men, and warriors, of the
Cherokees on the Arkansas river, and their deputies,
John D. Chisholm and James Rogers, duly authorized by
the chiefs of the Cherokees on the Arkansas river, in open
council, by written power of attorney, duly signed and
executed in presence of Joseph Sevier and William Ware.Preamble.
WHEREAS in the autumn of the year one thousand eight
hundred and eight, a deputation from the Upper and Lower
Cherokee towns, duly authorized by their nation, went on
to the city of Washington, the first named to declare to the
President of the United States their anxious desire to
engage in the pursuits of agriculture and civilized life in
the country they then occupied, and to make known to
the President of the United States the impracticability of
inducing the nation at large to do this, and to request the
establishment of a division line between the upper and lower
towns, so as to include all the waters of the Hiwassee River
to the upper town, that, by thus contracting their society
within narrow limits, they proposed to begin the
establishment of fixed laws and a regular government:
The deputies from the lower towns to make known their
desire to continue the hunter life, and also the scarcity
of game where they then lived, and, under those
circumstances, their wish to remove across the Mississippi
river, on some vacant lands of the United States.
And whereas the President of the United States, after
maturely considering the petitions of both parties, on the
ninth day of January, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and
nine, including other subjects, answered those petitions as
follows: "The United States, my children, are the friends of
both parties, and, as far as can be reasonably asked,
they are willing to satisfy the wishes of both.
Those who remain may be assured of our patronage,
our aid and good neighborhood.
Those who wish to remove, are permitted to send an
exploring party to reconnoiter the country on the waters of
the Arkansas and White rivers, and the higher up the better,
as they will be the longer unapproached by our settlements,
which will begin at the mouths of those rivers.
The regular districts of the government of St. Louis
are already laid off to the St. Francis.
“When this party shall have found a tract of country
suiting the emigrants, and not claimed by other Indians,
we will arrange with them and you the exchange of that
for a just portion of the country they leave, and to a part
of which, proportioned to their numbers, they have a right.
Every aid towards their removal, and what will be necessary
for them there, will then be freely administered to them;
and when established in their new settlements, we shall
still consider them as our children, give them the benefit
of exchanging their peltries for what they will want at
our factories, and always hold them firmly by the hand.”
And whereas the Cherokees, relying on the promises
of the President of the United States, as above recited,
did explore the country on the west side of the Mississippi,
and made choice of the country on the Arkansas and
White rivers, and settled themselves down upon
United States lands, to which no other tribe of Indians
have any just claim and have duly notified the President
of the United States thereof, and of their anxious desire
for the full and complete ratification of his promise, and,
to that end, as notified by the President of the United States,
have sent on their agents, with full powers to execute a
treaty, relinquishing to the United States all the right, title,
and interest, to all lands of right to them belonging,
as part of the Cherokee nation, which they have left,
and which they are about to leave, proportioned to their
numbers, including, with those now on the Arkansas,
those who are about to remove thither, and to a portion of
which they have an equal right agreeably to their numbers.
Now, know ye that the contracting parties, to carry into
full effect the before recited promises with good faith,
and to promote a continuation of friendship with their
brothers on the Arkansas river, and for that purpose to
make an equal distribution of the annuities secured to be
paid by the United States to the whole Cherokee nation,
have agreed and concluded on the following articles, viz:29
Two million acres in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama
were ceded to the United States in exchange for an equal amount of land
west of the Mississippi River, where the U. S. would be allowed
to build factories, military posts, and roads.
Jackson in a letter to Brigadier-General John Coffee
on 13 July 1817 gave this explanation of the treaty:
We were detained in council with the Cherokees 17 days,
before we concluded a treaty, which was signed
on the 8th instant; we obtained a cession of the
lands adjoining Georgia and west to the
Chattahoochee River etc. etc., and a small part north
of the Tennessee, a little more in all, than two millions.
This of itself would be unimportant, was it not for the
principle established by the treaty, which will give us the
whole country in less than two years, a few of its
provisions are first that the census is to be taken next
June by commissioners appointed by the United States,
the proportion of land agreeable to their numbers, compared
with the whole number of the nation, and the whole quantity
of land owned by the Cherokee east of the Mississippi,
and the United States bind themselves to convey to the
Cherokees on the Arkansas acre for acre so to be ceded,
including the quantity ceded by the nation by the late treaty.
This at once secures half the whole country, as at least half
is there and enrolled to go there; in short Sir my opinion is
that but few will remain, none except those prepared for
agricultural pursuits, civil life, and a government of laws.
There are but few in comparison prepared for this,
or at least will make a choice of a government of laws.
We have stipulated to furnish all with transportation
and provisions who choose to go; we have further
stipulated to give every poor man in the nation who
chooses to go a rifle gun, ammunition, a blanket,
and a brass kettle or in lieu of the latter a Beaver trap.
This is to be in full of their improvements
and will induce hundreds to go.
Those who stay and choose to come under the laws
of the United States will be laid off for each head of family
640 acres to include his improvement in the center.
To those who remove and have improvements that add
real value to the land, the possessor is to receive the value
of his improvement to be assessed by a commissioner of
the United States from the features here stated you will
easily discover the permanent happiness of the Cherokee
nation, and those who wish to become citizens of the
United States law and also, on the extinguishment of the
name of the Cherokee nation east of the Mississippi and its
perpetuation on the Arkansas, in short the happiness of the
Cherokees and the connection of the state of Georgia and
the state of Tennessee at a short day, and the country that
has long been, and now is a harbor of thieves, who has long
preyed upon the honest industry of all, become a peaceful
abode for the honest citizen protected by our laws.
This is the outlines of what we have done,
and rest assured it was not done without
considerable labor and address.
We had to counteract the machinations of a corrupt
and designing few, wielded by the counsels of
Col. Gideon Morgan, under the rose, who at one time
produced an answer to us signed by seventy-two of their
principle chiefs with the intention of giving us that answer
as the answer of the whole nation, and breaking up
as they had done the year before without doing anything.
We believing that this was not the sentiments of the nation
but a trick under the management of Morgan and others,
took it up in full council, had it read and explained to them,
when we called on each chief one by one unrobed,
the rascally imposition, and before we rose
they asked permission to reconsider their answer.
This led to the treaty which is signed by all in open council;
we had to take stronger ground than was taken by the
Commissioners last year and convince them we intended
to keep it, or we would have effected nothing.30
Jackson’s friend John Eaton in 1817 published The Life of Andrew Jackson
which was primarily a history of his military campaigns against the Creeks and the British.
In 1817 Jackson sold forty of his slaves to his friend Edward Livingston for $24,000.
While Congress was decreasing the army,
General Andrew Jackson complained and wanted it increased tenfold.
Skirmishes continued on the Florida border in 1817, and Col. Edward Nicolls
in August reported in Georgia newspapers that Seminoles were murdering people.
In the fall Secretary of War Calhoun instructed General Edmund Gaines to
remove Seminoles from ceded land, beginning the First Seminole War on December 26.
Chief King Hatchy complained to Gaines that for every American killed,
they had slaughtered several Seminoles.
When Gaines sent soldiers in November, the outnumbered Seminoles fired
on them and had a few men and one woman killed before fleeing.
On November 12 Gaines found evidence of British support, and he sent
Major David Twiggs with 250 men who killed 4 warriors and a woman
and burned the Creek village of Fowltown in Georgia territory.
On the 30th Fowltown warriors and escaped slaves attacked a hospital ship
on the Apalachicola River and killed 36 US soldiers, 6 women and 4 children,
beginning the First Seminole War.
Seminoles were the Oconee tribe affiliated with Creeks.
The Creek word simanó-li means “frontiersman” or “outcast,”
and all refugees in Florida were called Seminoles.
Jackson and his friend John Coffee planned a road that was constructed
from June 1817 to January 1819 connecting Nashville to Lake Ponchartrain
and shortening by 17 days mail service from Washington to New Orleans.
President James Monroe on 5 October 1817 in a letter
to General Jackson concluded with these two paragraphs:
I have read with great interest the observations
contained in your letters & particularly in that of the
4th of March last, on several very important subjects.
Your report with that of Lt. Gadsden respecting
the fortifications necessary for the defense
of Louisiana will be duly considered.
Your reasons for promoting the rapid settlement of
the Alabama country, the establishment of a foundry
on the Tennessee river near the muscle shoals,
and for the extinguishment of the title of the Chickasaws
on the Eastern bank of the Mississippi, have great weight.
The view which you have taken of the Indian title
to lands is new but very deserving of attention.
The hunter or savage state requires a greater extent of
territory to sustain it, than is compatible with the progress
and just claims of civilized life, and must yield to it.
Nothing is more certain, than if the Indian tribes
do not abandon that state and become civilized,
that they will decline & become extinct.
The hunter state, thought maintained by warlike spirits,
presents but a feeble resistance to the more dense,
compact, and powerful population of civilized man.
Within our limits, where the Indian title is not extinguished,
our title is good, against European powers only, and
it is by treaties with the latter, that our limits are formed.
It has been customary to purchase the title of the
Indian tribes, for a valuable consideration, though in
general that of each tribe has been vague & undefined.
A compulsory process seems to be necessary to break their
habits & to civilize them, & there is much cause to believe
that it must be resorted to civilize & to preserve them.
On these and every other subject mentioned in your letters,
I shall avail myself of the light shed on them by your
experience and judgment, on every proper occasion,
and I shall always be happy to promote your wishes
respecting individuals when circumstances will permit it.
I need not state that it is my earnest desire
that you remain in the service of your country.
Our affairs are not settled, and nothing is more
uncertain than the time we shall be permitted
to enjoy our present tranquility & peace.
The Spanish government has injured us, & shows no
disposition to repair the injury; while the revolutionary
struggle in the colonies continues to which from a variety
of important considerations, we cannot be indifferent.
Should we be involved in another war, I have no doubt,
that it will decide the fate of our free government,
and of the independence of Spanish America.
I should therefore much lament your retirement.31
Jackson wrote this letter to President James Monroe on 22 October 1817:
I have received your friendly letter of the
27th ult. and your letter of the 5th Instant.
They both reached me by this day’s mail.
I have given them as attentive a perusal as my situation
would permit, being on the eve of my departure to see
my friend and Nephew Major Hutchings, who lies very
ill and despaired of near Huntsville and has requested me
to take to him his little and only son about six years old.
Under these circumstances I have to request the
indulgence of a few days until my return
to answer your letter of the 5th inst.
However I must remark, that I can never abandon principle,
be the personal consequences what they may.
The causes which gave rise to my order of the 22nd April
being the improper interference of the Department of War
with a Topographical Engineer of my Division, after
he had reported and was ordered on duty by me in open
violation of the regulations of the army of the United States
page 91 which defines his duty and makes him subordinate
to the directions of the commanding General and also the
act of 24th of April 1816 organizing the General Staff
which I trust viewing your constitutional duty
“to see the laws faithfully executed” in connection
with your duty as “commander in chief
of the army & navy” you cannot Justify.
These being remonstrated against by me to the Secretary
of War, and fifty-four days having elapsed without receiving
an answer—and being an interference, that my duty as
a commander of a Division compelled me to resist.
These I say being withdrawn, as they were the basis
of my order, I shall have no hesitation in withdrawing
my General order—& that rules and regulations
may hereafter be adopted, which may tend to
harmonize the army and keep up subordination.
I am induced from the conciliatory features of your
letter to make these remarks—and that you may have
the causes which gave rise to my order again before you,
I enclose you a copy of my letter to the Secretary of War
of the 14th of January with the extracts of the orders and
instructions given by the Secretary of War to Major Long.
I would barely remark that cases of necessity
creates their own rule, and when really they exist,
forms an exception from the general rule—
although not expressed always implied—hence
I have never complained of any order being Issued
in cases of necessity—where I was immediately
advised thereof—nor is it a real ground of complaint.32
On 2 December 1817 Brigadier-General Edmund P. Gaines
from Fort Scott, Georgia wrote this short letter to General Jackson:
It is my painful duty to report to you an affair
of a more serious and disastrous character than
has heretofore occurred upon this frontier;
and which leaves no doubt of the deep hostility
of the Indians, or the necessity of prompt
and efficient measures on our part.
A large party of Seminole Indians on the 30th Ultimo
formed an ambuscade on the Appalachicola river a mile
below the junction of the Flint and Chattahoochee attacked
one of our boats ascending near the shore and killed,
wounded and took the greater part of the detachment
consisting of forty men commanded by Lieutenant
R. W. Scott of the 7th Infantry; there were also on board
killed or taken Seven women the wives of Soldiers.
Six men of the detachment only escaped,
four of whom were wounded.
They report that the strength of the current at the
point of attack had obliged the Lieutenant to keep
his boat near the shore; that the Indians had formed
along the Bank of the River and were not discovered
until their fire commenced, in the first volley of which
Lieutenant Scott and his most valuable men fell.33
The next day General Jackson wrote an angry letter
to Brigadier-General Winfield Scott.
On 16 December 1817 General Jackson from Nashville
wrote this short letter to the Secretary of War Calhoun:
I have the honor to enclose you copies of two letters
from General Gaines delivered me yesterday by express.
I am in hopes that this check to the Savages may incline
them to peace; should it not, and their hostility continue,
the protection of our citizens will require that the Wolf
be struck in his den; for rest assured, if ever the Indians
find out that the territorial boundary of Spain is to be a
sanctuary, their murders will be multiplied to a degree
that our citizens on the southern frontier cannot bear.
Spain is bound by treaties to keep the Indians within her
territory at peace with us; having failed to do this, necessity
will justify the measure, after giving her due notice,
to follow the marauders and punish them in their retreat.
The War Hatchet having been raised, unless the
Indians sue for peace, your frontier cannot be protected
without entering their country: from long experience
this result has been fully established.
I enclose a copy of Captain Willis’ etc. etc.34
Jackson from Nashville on December 20 wrote this letter to President Monroe:
I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt
of your favor of the 2nd instant with your message
to Congress enclosed, for which accept my thanks.
The prosperous state of our country and particularly
our finance so near the close of our expensive war,
must be a source of great gratification to every true
American, and profiting from experience will enable
the executive government with the aid of Congress
to place the whole country in a state of defense,
which will command respect and Justice from all
nations, and thereby perpetuate the blessings of peace.
I have read with great attention your letter;
the plan proposed fully meets my approbation;
for I see in it that magnanimity of conduct only
to be met with in great and good minds; and also
System that will produce subordination and harmony
without which an army cannot be beneficial or effective.
Whenever an officer is responsible for the defense
of a country or place, his means never ought to be
taken from him or directed without his knowledge.
I had determined to retire from service,
the moment I could with propriety and honor.
But I have concluded since the receipt of your letter not to
resign until I have the pleasure of seeing you, and until you
make the Southern tour you contemplated next Spring and in
which I intend doing myself the pleasure to accompany you.
It is my wish to retire from public life, for I am advancing to
that age that makes retirement advisable, but as long as
I can be really serviceable to my country, and there remains
any prospect of my services being wanted, I will not retire,
more particularly, as it is your wish that I should not.35
Secretary of War John Calhoun ordered General Edmund P. Gaines
to get reparations from the Seminoles and if necessary to cross the border
and attack them but not the Spanish forts.
Calhoun because of smuggling sent Gaines to capture Amelia Island off the east coast
of the Florida-Georgia border, and without opposition they occupied it on December 23.
Secretary of War Calhoun wrote this letter to General Jackson on 26 December 1817:
You will repair, with as little delay as practicable,
to Fort Scott and assume the immediate command
of the Forces in that section of the Southern Division.
The increasing display of hostile intentions by the
Seminole Indians, may render it necessary
to concentrate all the contiguous and disposable
force of your Division upon that quarter.
The regular force now there is about Eight hundred Strong;
and one thousand militia of the State of Georgia
are called into Service.
General Gaines estimates the Strength of the
Indians at two thousand seven hundred.
Should you be of opinion that our numbers are
too Small to beat the Enemy, you will call on the
Executives of adjacent States for such an additional
militia force as you may deem requisite.
General Gaines had been ordered early
in last month to repair to Amelia Island.
It is presumed that he has therefore
relinquished the command at Fort Scott.
Subsequent orders have been given to General Gaines
(copies of which will be furnished you) advising him that
you would be directed to take command, and directing him
to reassume, should he deem the public interest to require
it, the command at Fort Scott until you Should arrive there.
If however, the General should have progressed to Florida
before these subsequent orders may have reached him,
he was instructed to penetrate to the Seminole Towns
through the Floridas provided the Strength of his command
at Amelia would justify his engaging in offensive operations.
With this view you may be prepared to concentrate
your forces and to adopt the necessary measures to
terminate a conflict which it has ever been the desire of the
President, from considerations of humanity, to avoid; but
which is now made necessary by their Settled hostilities.36
On 6 January 1818 General Jackson from his Southern Division Head Quarters in Nashville wrote this Confidential letter to President James Monroe:
A few days since I received a Letter from the
Secretary of War the 17th Ult. with enclosures.
Your order of the 16th Ult. through him by Brevet
Major General Gaines to enter the Territory of
Spain and chastise the Ruthless Savages who have
been depredating on the property and lives of our
citizens will meet, not only the approbation of
your country but the approbation of Heaven.
Will you however permit me to suggest the
catastrophe that might ensue by General Gaines’
compliance with the last clause of your order.
Suppose the case that the Indians are beaten;
they take refuge either in Pensacola or
St. Augustine, which open their gates to them.
To profit by his victory General Gaines pursues
the fugitives and has to halt before the Garrison
until he can communicate with his Government.
In the meantime the Militia grow restless,
and he is left to defend himself by the regulars.
The enemy with the aid of their Spanish friends
and Woodbine’s British Partisans, or if you please
with Aury’s force, attacks him, what may not
be the result? defeat and massacre.
Permit me to remark that the arms of the
United States must be carried to any point
within the limits of East Florida, where an Enemy
is permitted and protected, or disgrace attends.
The Executive Government have ordered
(and as I conceive very properly) Amelia Island
to be taken possession of; this order ought to be
carried into execution at all hazards and simultaneously
the whole of East Florida seized and held as an indemnity
for the outrages of Spain upon the property of our Citizens.
This done, it puts all opposition down, secures to our
Citizens a complete indemnity, and saves us from a
war with Great Britain or some of the Continental
Powers combined with Spain; this can be done without
implicating the Government; let it be signified to me
through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that the
possessions of the Floridas would be desirable to the
United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished.
The order being given for the possession of Amelia Island,
it ought to be executed, or our enemies, internal and
external will use it to the disadvantage of our Government.
If our troops enter the Territory of Spain in pursuit of our
Indian Enemy, all opposition that they meet with must be
put down, or we will be involved in danger and disgrace.37
Jackson had sent that letter to Monroe on January 6 criticizing the limits put on Gaines,
and Jackson volunteered to seize the Floridas in 60 days.
Later Monroe would ask Jackson to alter a letter that led to the seizing of Florida.
Jackson received Calhoun’s orders on January 11,
and from Nashville on January 12 General Jackson
wrote this response to Secretary of War Calhoun:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your order
of the 26th Ulto, which reached me last night; its contents
are duly noted and will be promptly attended to.
I have received no late advice from General Gaines,
although I have for some time expected the return of
the express sent to him on the 24th of November last.
Taking into view the strength of the Seminoles and their
adherents as reported to you by General Gaines, and the
aggregate of his strength, regulars and Militia amounting
to but 1800 men, which cannot possibly afford a like
number of effectives; considering likewise that the greater
portion of his forces are drafted militia from Georgia who
may apply for their discharge at the expiration of three
months from the time they were first mustered and who
may be disposed to claim this right and abandon the
campaign about the time I could reach Fort Scott.
I have deemed it both prudent and advisable to call from
the West end of the state of Tennessee for one Thousand
Volunteer mounted Gun men to serve during the campaign.
With this force in conjunction with the Regular Troops
I can act promptly and with the smiles of heaven
successfully against any force that can be concentrated
by the Seminoles and their auxiliaries.
Viewing however the lives of our citizens as too
precious to be risked in a contest with Savages with
the odds of two to one, unless where real necessity
demands the exposure, I have therefore written to
the Governor of Georgia to continue in the field the
one thousand men required by General Gaines.
The result of the appeal I have made to the patriotism
of those brave men in West Tennessee who have so often
followed me to the field of danger will be known by the
19th instant, and I hope to leave this for Fort Scott on
the 22nd; of my movements and success in raising
the mounted volunteers you shall be advised.
It may appear to the Government on the full view
that mounted men are the most expensive;
but when we consider the rapidity of their
movements, the amount of quartermasters,
expenditures for packhorses, baggage wagons
and other means of transport indispensable to footmen,
in this instance saved; mounted Gun men as auxiliaries
in such a campaign as the one contemplated will be
found to save both blood and treasure to the United States.
The Volunteers that have been invited to the field
are of tried materials and such as can be relied
on in the day of danger and trial.
P. S. I feel myself much at loss for correct
Topographical information of the country occupied
by the Seminole Indians, and particularly of that
portion which may possibly become the seat of War.
Should there be any maps, plans, or charts of the
section of country alluded to in the secret bureau
of the War Dept., you will oblige me by having a copy
transmitted to Fort Scott as early as practicable.38
Major General Jackson from Nashville on 21 January 1818
wrote in a letter to President James Monroe:
For the want of time I must beg leave to refer you
to my letters of yesterday and today to Mr. Calhoun
which will inform you of the measures I have pursued,
and the plan I have adopted at once to crush the
hostility of the Seminoles and their adherents.
Time will only permit me to state that I made the appeal
to the Patriotism by expresses on the 13th instant
not wishing anything to appear in the papers of our
assemblage or movement until I could reach and
strike the enemy and relieve the regulars and frontier.
On the 19th my old companions in arms met me and have
given me assurances that they at the head of two regiments
on the 31st Inst. will rendezvous at Fayetteville well
equipped for six months Tour, if not sooner discharged.
I have charged my Inspector General with the
March and direction of these regiments to the
frontier of Georgia, where I will meet them.
I am off early in the morning for Fort Scott.
I have been compelled to authorize Col. Hayne to draw
on the Government for such supplies as may be needed
over and above the scanty means it was in my power
to place in his hands being only the sum of $3600.
I cannot forebear to name the conduct of the Nashville
Bank, who has been fostered and fed by the Deposits
of the Government and myself, and contrast it with
the conduct of the Branch bank of the State.
This sudden call on the contractors’ agent found him
unprepared with funds to purchase the supplies.
I told him to apply to the Banks and note on his notes
for discount the object, he would be accommodated.
He did so; the Branch Bank freely gave the
accommodation—not being discount day, called
an extra meeting of the Board and accommodated
all the officers who wanted for six months.
The Nashville Bank threw out his note for $1500
and mine for $4000 that was intended to increase
the funds in the hands of Col. Hayne, and specifically
explained to the President of the Bank, that it was
only wanted for sixty days until the Government
could make arrangements to meet the expense.
As soon as I found it not discounted, I directed
Col. Butler to call on them for the amount of his
check intended for the Chickasaws, which the
directors were not apprised of; he did so.
They required time to answer to 3 o’clock;
at 3 the Cashier said he would pay the check.
I had it counted, a dray ready to remove it and
deposit it in the Branch Bank, but on reflection
and recollecting how liberal and Patriotic it had
been under other directors, and an injury might
accrue to the Bank and some worthy stock holders;
after punishing their feelings a while,
I directed Col. Butler to make a deposit of it
in the Nashville Bank to the credit of the
Treasury of the United States, which is done,
and the facts stated with a hope that you will
take into consideration the Patriotism of the
Branch Bank and order your deposits there.
I hold it is true in the Nashville Bank,
the only Bank stock I own.
Therefore it cannot be presumed that
I am actuated from interest.
But the fact is, that Justice from the Government
requires that the liberality of the Branch Bank on the
present occasion ought to be noticed by the Government.
On the execution of your order I move tomorrow early,
and permit me to remark, that mortals cannot command
success; they can only endeavor to deserve it,
and as soon as the Tennessee detachment reaches me
on the confines of Georgia with the smiles of heaven I trust,
I shall soon give peace and safety to that frontier.
It will afford me great gratification to learn that
the plan I have adopted in raising and marching
this Detachment of Tennessee Mounted gunmen
meets your approbation in doing it.
I have consulted as I believe the honor,
safety, and economy of the United States,
and I hope the result will show it.
As soon as I reach my point of destination,
I shall again write to you.39
On 22 January 1818 General Jackson began a 46-day journey
with 1,000 Tennessee militia to Fort Scott.
They burned hostile villages and seized cattle and food.
They were joined by 1,000 Georgia militia.
General Jackson from Huntsville also wrote a letter
on 27 January 1818 to the Secretary of War Calhoun.
He wrote about establishing a national Depot with an Armory,
Foundry, and facility for manufacturing weapons:
Individuals in this country are willing to organize a company
with adequate funds for the erection of a Foundry capable
of casting every species of ordnance and an armory for the
fabrication of the various smaller weapons of War, if such
an encouragement could be given by your Government.
This has been suggested from understanding that a
Foundry was commenced some time since by a
company on the north river under a promise
that a certain proportion of the heavy ordnance
for the army and navy should be cast by them.
A similar offer to Individuals at the West
would be gladly embraced.
It would be expected however that Government
would dispose of or lease for a term of years
the reservation of lands on Shoal creek.
It may be observed however that what is profitable
to Individuals must be equally so to the nation,
independent of the advantages of having a
complete control over the whole establishment.40
On January 30 President Monroe ordered Calhoun to instruct Jackson not to attack
Spanish troops, but Calhoun never sent that order.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was negotiating
with Spain for the cession of the Floridas.
Many Indians learned that Jackson was appointed,
and they fled from Georgia into Spanish Florida.
On March 14 at Fort Fowltown they found dangling from a red pole 50 fresh scalps
they identified as from the boat ambush on the Apalachicola.
Jackson had the fort rebuilt and named Fort Gadsden.
Creek chief William McIntosh considered this
a continuation of the Creek civil war of 1813-14.
On 15 March 1818 Jackson exceeded his orders by taking over Pensacola in Florida.
On April 1 about 1,400 Creek warriors led by Chief McIntosh joined General Jackson,
and they captured three Red Sticks and took over
the town of Red Ground, taking 238 Seminoles.
When Jackson found a thousand head of cattle with Georgia brands,
he had the Indian town set on fire.
They reached the Spanish fort of St. Mark’s on April 6 and demanded its surrender.
The next day Francisco Caso y Luengo accepted
the terms that private property would be respected.
Jackson used the fort as a supply base.
He arrested 70-year-old Alexander Arbuthnot, a Scottish trader
whom Creeks had given power of attorney and
who had warned the Suwanee people to flee.
Arbuthnot in January had written to the Indian agent Mitchell asking
or protection against aggressive Americans on the border.
General Jackson led the Tennessee militia, allied with Creeks,
and forced the Spanish to surrender St. Mark’s Fort in Florida on 6 April 1818.
General Jackson from his camp near St. Marks wrote
this letter to Secretary of War Calhoun on April 8:
I wrote you from Fort Gadsden communicating the
embarrassments under which I had labored previous to
my arrival at that post; and my determination being then
in a situation to commence active operations to penetrate
immediately into the center of the Seminole Towns.
My army marched on the 26 ulto, and on the 1st of April
was reinforced by the friendly Creek warriors under
General McIntosh, and a detachment of Tennessee
Volunteers commanded by Col. Elliott.
On the same day a mile and a half in advance of the
Mekasukian villages, a small party of hostile Indians
were discovered, judiciously located on a point of land
projecting into an extensive marshy pond; the position
designated, as since understood, for the concentration
of the Negro and Indian forces to give us battle.
They maintained for a short period a spirited attack
from my advanced spy companies, but fled and dispersed
in every direction upon coming in contact with my flank
columns, and discovering a movement to encircle them.
The pursuit was continued through the Mekasukian
Towns until night compelled me to encamp my army.
The next day detachments were sent out in every
direction to reconnoiter the country; secure all
supplies found, and reduce to ashes the villages.
This duty was executed to my satisfaction;
nearly Three hundred houses were consumed;
and the greatest abundance of corn, cattle, etc. brought in.
Every indication of a hostile spirit was found
in the habitations of the Chiefs;
In the Council houses of Kenhajee’s Town, the King
of the Mekasukians, more than fifty fresh scalps were found,
and in the center of the public square, the old red stick’s
standard, A red Pole was erected, crowned with scalps,
recognized by the hair as torn from the heads
of the unfortunate companions of Scott.
As I had reason to believe that a portion
of the hostile Indians had fled to St. Marks,
I directed my march towards that fortress.
As advised, I found that the Indians and negroes
combined had demanded the surrender of that work.
The Spanish garrison was too weak to defend it,
and there were circumstances reported, producing
a strong conviction in my mind that if not instigated
by the Spanish authorities, the Indians had received
the means of carrying on the war from that quarter.
Foreign agents who have been long practicing
their intrigues, and villainies in this country
had free access into the Fort.
St. Marks was necessary as a depot
to ensure success of my operations.
These considerations determined me
to occupy it with an American force.
An Inventory of the Spanish property,
munitions of war etc. has been taken and receipted for.
Personal rights and private property have been
respected and the Commandant and garrison
furnished with transportation to Pensacola.
My correspondence with the Spanish Commandant,
the evidence under which I acted and a detailed account of
my operations will be furnished you as early as practicable.
Success depends upon the rapidity of my movements,
and tomorrow I shall march for the Sewaney River,
the destroying the establishments on which will, in my
opinion, put a final close to this coast, has been
fortunate enough in securing Francis or Hissis Hajo,
the great prophet, and Homattlemico an old red stick.
They visited his vessels under an impression they
were English, from whom as they stated supplies of
munitions of war and under late promises, were expected.
Arbuthnot, a Scotchman and suspected
as one of the Instigators of this savage war,
was found in St. Marks.
He is in confinement until evidence
of his guilt can be collected.41
The American naval Captain McKeever used a Union Jack flag to fool into coming
aboard two Seminole chiefs, Himomathle Mico and Hillis Hadjo (a.k.a. Francis the Prophet),
and they were hanged without a trial on April 8.
Jackson’s army moved east a hundred miles
and arrived at Chief Billy Bowlegs’ town on April 16.
On the way there McIntosh’s warriors and some fifty men from Tennessee fought enemy
Creeks for three hours, killing 37 and taking 6 men and
97 women and children prisoners along with 700 cattle.
They reached Bowlegs at sunset and forced several hundred Negro warriors
and Seminoles to flee across the Suwanee River.
Jackson’s force destroyed villages of the Miccosukee and killed Chief Kinache.
The army and a few blacks fought them to help families escape.
Jackson had more than 300 houses burned and captured livestock.
He also arrested the British soldier Robert Ambrister for training and equipping Seminoles.
On April 20 Jackson wrote to Secretary of War Calhoun
about the situation regarding St. Marks in Florida.
On April 22 Captain Obed Wright led a contingent that slaughtered at least ten people
at a Chehaw village including McIntosh’s uncle, Chief Howard.
They did not realize that Chehaws were allies of Jackson
who arrested Wright and apologized to the tribe.
Wright fled to Havana, and the Chehaws were given an $8,000 indemnity as compensation.
Jackson prohibited obeying any order from the War Department
or an officer that did not pass through him as the commander.
Monroe disagreed and wrote him that the Department passed on his orders as President
that must be obeyed; yet he urged Jackson not to retire.
Georgia’s Governor Rabun complained that Jackson
had sent Georgia militia to Florida without his consent.
Jackson’s army went back to St. Mark’s.
There a court martial tried the two Britons who had no lawyer and no witnesses.
Arbuthnot claimed he was there to help the natives and only gave them gunpowder
for hunting, and he had advised Seminole chief Bowlegs
not to throw away his people fighting Jackson’s army.
General Edmund Gaines presided over a court martial which sentenced Arbuthnot to death
and Ambrister to fifty lashes and hard labor for one year;
but on April 29 Jackson had Arbuthnot hanged and Ambrister shot
and he wrote Calhoun that he wanted to make an awful example to the British.
Jackson left a garrison of 200 troops at St. Mark’s
and then returned to Fort Gadsden with 1,200 soldiers.
On 5 May 1818 General Jackson from Fort Gadsden
wrote in a 4-page letter to Secretary of War Calhoun:
On the commencement of my operations I was strongly
impressed with a belief that this Indian War had been
excited by some unprincipled Foreign or private agents.
The outlaws of the old red stick party had been too severely
convinced, and the Seminoles were too weak in numbers
to believe, that they could possibly alone maintain a war
with even partial success against the United States.
Firmly convinced therefore that succor had been
promised from some quarter, or that they had been
deluded into a belief that America dare not violate the
neutrality of Spain by penetrating to their Towns,
I early determined to ascertain these facts, and so
direct my movements as to undeceive the Indians.
After the destruction of the Mekasukian villages
I marched direct for St. Marks.
The correspondence between myself and the Spanish
Commandant in which I demanded the occupancy of that
Fortress with an American Garrison, accompanies this.
It had been reported to me direct from the Governor
of Pensacola that the Indians and Negroes unfriendly
to the United States, had demanded of the commandant
of St. Marks a supply of ammunition, munitions
of war etc., threatening in the event of a
noncompliance to take possession of the Fort.
The Spanish Commandant acknowledged the defenseless
state of his fortress and his inability to defend it: and the
Governor of Pensacola expressed similar apprehensions.
The Spanish Agents throughout the Floridas had
uniformly disavowed having any connection with
the Indians, and acknowledged the obligations of his
Catholic Majesty under existing treaties to restrain
their outrages against the citizens of the United States.
Indeed they declared that the Seminole Indians were
viewed as alike hostile to the Spanish government,
and that the will remained, though the power was wanting
to inflict merited chastisement on this lawless Tribe.
It was therefore to be supposed that the American army
impelled by the immutable laws of self defense to penetrate
the territory of his Catholic Majesty, to fight his battles,
and even to relieve from a cruel bondage some of his
own subjects, would have been received as allies,
hailed as deliverers, and every facility afforded to them
to terminate speedily and successfully this savage war.
Fort St. Marks could not be maintained
by the Spanish force garrisoning it.
The Indians and Negroes viewed it as an
asylum if driven from their Towns, and
were preparing to occupy it in this event.
It was necessary to anticipate their movements,
independent of the position being deemed
essential as a depot on which the success of
my future operations measurably depended.
In the spirit of Friendship therefore I demanded
its surrender to the Army of the United States
until the close of the Seminole War.
The Spanish Commandant required time to reflect,
and it was granted; a negotiation ensued, and an
effort made to protract it to an unreasonable length.
In the conversation between my Aide de camp
Lt. Gadsden and the Spanish Commandant
circumstances transpired convicting him of a
disposition to favor the Indians, and of having taken
an active part in aiding and abetting them in this war.
I hesitated therefore no longer, and as I could not be
received in friendship, I entered the Fort by violence.
Two light companies of the 7th Regiment Infantry and
one of the 4th under the command of Major Twigs was
ordered to advance, lower the Spanish colors, and hoist
the star spangled banner on the ramparts of Fort St. Marks.
The order was executed promptly, no resistance
attempted on the part of the Spanish garrison.
The duplicity of the Spanish Commandant of St. Marks
in professing friendship towards the United States while
he was actually aiding and supplying her savage enemies.
Throwing open the gates of his garrison to their free access,
appropriating the King’s stores to their use, issuing
ammunition and munitions of war to them, and knowingly
purchasing of them property plundered from the Citizens
of the United States is clearly evinced by the
documents accompanying my correspondence.42
On May 13 Monroe and his cabinet agreed that Americans
should remain in Florida until Spain had acceptable garrisons.
Seminoles aided his invasion of Spanish West Florida,
and Spanish Governor Masot surrendered on May 26; but President Monroe
restored Spanish authorities because Congress had not declared war.
Jackson got the Chickasaws to sell a third of Tennessee in a corrupt deal.
The U. S. Senate censured Jackson for disobedience and violence in Florida.
Rumors that 500 Seminole warriors were gathering at Pensacola led Jackson
to invade Spanish West Florida, but actually Major William Young
had found only 87 Indians in the Pensacola area.
Spanish Governor José Masot accused Jackson of aggression
and left Pensacola for nearby Fort Barrancas.
Jackson’s army attacked Pensacola on May 24.
After artillery fired on both sides, Masot surrendered the fort on the 28th to Jackson
who announced that Americans would occupy Florida until Spain could control the borders.
He sent Masot and the garrison to Havana,
appointed Col. William King the U. S. governor and a customs collector.
On June 2 Jackson declared the end of the Seminole War,
and he sent a letter to Monroe informing him that Americans occupied the forts
of St. Mark’s, Gadsden, and Barrancas and that with more forces he could
take over Fort St. Augustine and Cuba in a few days.
Jackson sent two companies of volunteers to kill hostiles
between the Mobile and Apalachicola rivers.
Jackson from Fort Montgomery on June 2 also wrote another letter
to President James Monroe that begins with this paragraph:
I reached this place last evening with the Tennessee
Volunteers & my guards on our return march to Tennessee,
to have them mustered, paid & discharged after closing a
fatiguing campaign, by hoisting the American Eagle over
the Ramparts of Fort don Carlos de Barancas and Pensacola.
This step became absolutely necessary to put down the
Indian war and give “peace & security” to our southern
frontier, as you will see by the documents & certificates
accompanying my letter of this date to the honorable
Secretary of War, to which I beg leave to refer you.
These documents plainly unfold the duplicity of the
Governor and his protest, accompanied with his boasted
threat of opposing force to force in case I advanced,
deserved a severer chastisement than he received,
but the humiliation he experienced after his boast of
desperate resistance of being compelled to surrender
to a battery of one 9 lb. & & a 5 8/10 in. howitzer
was a severe punishment to military feelings.
The Judgement displayed by my aid Captain Gadsden
in selecting the Position, the daring courage of Gadsden,
Captain Call my second aid & Captain Young supported
by C. Peters, Lt. Menton & Spencer struck the garrison
with a panic, and for its gallantry cannot be surpassed
by any military act recorded in history, and there is
not within my recollection an instance of a Position
being taken & ground broke at the distance of
385 yards of a heavy battery and the Position held
until the garrison surrendered, it was left for America
to furnish the example of such determined bravery.
And European Engineers will hear it as
a fable and declare it impossible.
The fact exists & will be acknowledged
by all the garrison of Berancas.43
Newspapers criticized the execution of the two Britons Arbuthnot and Ambrister.
On July 15 Monroe’s cabinet discussed Florida.
Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Treasury Secretary William Crawford,
and Attorney General William Wirt blamed Jackson for disobeying orders;
but Secretary of State John Quincy Adams agreed with Jackson that Spain
could not control the Floridas, and he wanted them sold to the United States.
Wirt wrote an article explaining in Washington’s National Intelligencer that
Jackson had acted without orders for patriotic motives and that
the President restored the Spanish authorities in their two Floridas.
The editorial clarified that the President returned them
because only Congress could declare war.
President James Monroe wrote in a letter to General Jackson on 19 July 1818:
In calling you into active service against the
Seminoles and communicating to you the orders,
which had been given just before to General Gaines,
the views and intentions of government were fully
disclosed in respect to the operations in Florida.
In transcending the limit prescribed by those orders,
you acted on your own responsibility, on facts
and circumstances which were unknown to the
government, when the orders were given,
many of which occurred afterwards,
and which you thought imposed on you the
measure as an act of patriotism essential
to the honor and interests of your country.
The United States stand justified in ordering
their troops into Florida in pursuit of their enemy.
They have this right by the Law of nations,
if the Seminoles were Inhabitants of another country
and had entered Florida to elude our pursuit.
Being inhabitants of Florida with a species of
Sovereignty over that part of the Territory
and a right to the soil, our right to give such
an order is the more complete and unquestionable.
It is not an act of hostility to Spain.
It is the less so because her government is bound by treaty
to restrain arms, if necessary, the Indians there,
from committing hostilities against the United States.
But an order by the government to attack
a Spanish Post would assume another character.
It would authorize war to which by the principles
of our Constitution the Executive is incompetent.
Congress alone possesses the Power.
I am aware that the cases may occur where
the Commanding General acting on his own
responsibility may with safety pass this limit,
and with essential advantage to his country.
The officers and troops of the neutral power
forget the obligations incident to their neutral character;
they stimulate the enemy to make war; they furnish
them with arms and munitions of war to carry it on;
they take an active part in other respects in their favor;
they afford them an asylum in their retreat.
The general obtaining victory pursues them to
this post, the gates of which are shut against him.
He attacks and carries it and rests
on those acts for his justification.
The affair is then brought before his government by
the power, whose post has thus been attacked, had
given an order for it, the officer would have no merit in it.
He exercised no discretion,
nor did he act on his own responsibility.
The merit of the Service, if there
be any in it, would not be his.
This is the ground on which this occurrence
rests as to the past.
I will now look to the future.44
General Jackson on 7 August 1818 wrote in a letter
to the Brigadier-General Edmund Gaines:
I contemplated that the Agents of Spain, or the
Officers of Fort St. Augustine would excite the
Indians to hostilities and furnish them with means.
It will be necessary to obtain evidence substantiating
the fact, and that the hostile Indians have been fed
and furnished from the garrison of Fort St. Augustine.
This being obtained, should you deem your force sufficient,
you will proceed, take and garrison with Americana troops
Fort St. Augustine and hold the garrison prisoners until
you hear from the President of the United States;
or transport them to Cuba, as in your judgment
under existing circumstances, you may think best.
Let it be remembered that the proceedings heretofore
carried on by me, or this order is not on the ground that
we are at War with Spain; it is on the ground of
self-defense, bottomed on the broad basis of the
law of nature and of nations, and justified by
giving peace and security to our frontier,
hence the necessity of procuring evidence of the fact
of the Agents or Officers of Spain having excited the
Indians to continue their war against us, and that they
have furnished them with the means of carrying on the war.
This evidence being obtained, you will
(if your force is sufficient), permit nothing
to prevent you from reducing Fort St. Augustine
except a positive order from the Dept. of War.45
Jackson from the same location on August 10
wrote in this letter to President James Monroe:
I have just received and forwarded to the Honorable
Secretary of War some letters and extracts showing
the assemblage of the Negroes and Indians near
Fort St. Augustine, that the Spaniards have sent them
a war talk, that McQueen is seated at the Seewaney,
and the Negroes are returning there; I have enclosed him
also a copy of my order to Brevet Major General Gaines
which I hope will meet with your approbation.
These letters show the continued hostility of Spain
towards the United States by their constant excitements
to keep the poor deluded Savage at war with us,
and it is certain so long as the Spaniards inhabit the
Floridas and an Indian remains within their limits,
we cannot expect peace on our frontier, hence the
propriety of holding the posts already occupied, and on
the proof of the facts stated, to seize Fort St. Augustine….
My health is greatly impaired, my constitution broken,
as soon as the situation of our common country will permit,
I have a desire to retire to private life.
I fear my health will never again permit me
to superintend another campaign.
Without health a commanding general never can
operate with promptness, energy, and rapidity
of movement which alone can secure success.
I have no doubt but the possession of the Floridas will
tend to perpetuate peace with Europe; it is by bold strokes
of policy accompanied with Justice towards other nations,
that show the world that although we love peace,
we will protect our citizens, and punish duplicity and perfidy,
whenever attempted to be practiced upon us by foreign
governments, which draws forth the admiration of the
world, and not a temporizing policy; the latter leads to war,
the former to admiration and respect.46
On 19 August 1818 General Jackson wrote another letter to President Monroe.
Georgia Governor William Rabun from Milledgeville wrote
this letter to General Jackson on 1 September 1818:
I have lately had the honor to receive
your letter of the 1st. Ultimo.
I supposed that our correspondence on this
subject had finally terminated, but a renewal
on your part has induced me to make this reply.
I find that the same angry disposition which
(no doubt) dictated your letter of the 7th of May last,
is still rankling within your breast.
It is very certain that I have never intentionally
assailed your feelings, or wantonly provoked your frowns,
and I flatter myself, that it is equally certain,
that I shall never find it necessary to court your smiles.
“You are not disposed to enter into a controversy with me,
relative to our respective duties, but recommend an
examination of the Laws of our Country before
I again hazard an opinion on the subject.”
Your advice is very good and should be
attended to (at least) by all public officers.
I hope you will now permit me in turn to recommend
to you, that before you undertake to prosecute
another Campaign, you examine the orders of
your superiors with more attention than usual.
You assert, “that the better part of the Community
know too well, that they have nothing to apprehend
from a Military despotism;” and in proof of this
assertion it might have been well to have Called my
attention to your late proceedings at St. Marks and
Pensacola, as affording Conclusive evidence on that point.
The situation of our bleeding frontier you say,
“was magnified by the apprehensions of a few
frontier settlers, and those who had not understanding
enough to penetrate into the design of your operations.”
Indeed sir, we had expected that your presence
at the head of an overwhelming force, would have
afforded Complete protection of our bleeding and
distressed Citizens bordering on an extensive and
unprotected frontier, but our prospect was only delusive;
for it would seem that the laurels expected in Florida
was the object that accelerated your march far more
than the protection of the “ignorant” Georgians.
If “Col. Hayne and his 3 or 400 Tennesseans made a
movement for the security of the pretended assailed
front of Georgia,” it certainly was a very unsuccessful one.
When you shall have explained to me by what
authority you sent Major Davis into this state with
orders to apprehend Captain Wright
(who was not under your Command)
and place him in Irons etc., then I shall deem it
my duty to explain the motives which induced me
to call for a reinforcement from Fort Early.47
On 1 October 1818 from Coosada Governor of Alabama
William W. Bibb wrote this letter to General Jackson:
Being absent from St. Stephens I had not the pleasure
of seeing Captain Young or of aiding him in his enquiries
respecting the late Indian depredations.
I have also to regret that, having taken no copy
of my letter addressed to you from Fort Crawford;
it is not in my power to comply with your request.
That the Indians obtained at Pensacola the means of
prosecuting their hostile incursions on our frontier I am as
perfectly convinced, as that they murdered our inhabitants.
I presume however that Captain Young has procured
all the evidence which it would be in my power to afford.
The fact appeared to be so notorious that I had not
supposed a doubt would be entertained upon the subject.
I was informed, (and I apprehend it may be clearly
established) that the party by which Stokes was murdered
within less than twenty miles of Claiborne, were seen
soon afterwards at Pensacola disposing of their plunder.
Their trace was pursued by the detachment ordered
into service at the time, towards the Florida line,
and their paths were frequently found leading in the
same direction from their hiding places on the Alabama.
A circumstance has lately occurred, which furnishes
strong proof that the neighboring Spanish territory
has hitherto afforded an Asylum for the enemy.
Within two months the party which has done most
of the mischief in the neighborhood of Fort Dade had
acquired an accession of numbers, and a few weeks
since a competent militia force was ordered against them.
In some way they became apprised of the expedition,
and instead of retreating to Florida as formerly,
they crossed the Alabama and Black Warrior,
murdered a family on their route, and are probably
on their way to the west side of the Mississippi.
This movement I attribute to our possession of Pensacola.
You probably have seen the correspondence which
passed between the Governor of Pensacola and
Major Youngs, in which the former asserts
his total ignorance until that moment,
that our frontier had been attacked.
The assertion cannot be true.
The constant intercourse between our inhabitants
and the people of Pensacola, renders it impossible
that anyone there, should be ignorant on a subject
which excited so much concern.48
General Jackson facilitated a treaty with Chickasaws
that was signed
on 19 October 1818, and
Secretary of War Calhoun commended Jackson in a letter writing,
The notice of the conclusion of the treaty with the
Chickasaws is received, and it affords much
satisfaction that so valuable a cession has
been obtained upon terms so favorable.49
The United States Senate ratified the Chickasaw Treaty on 6 January 1819.
President Monroe responded on 20 October 1818
in
a letter to Jackson and gave him this advice:
The best course to be pursued, seems to be, for you to
write a letter to the Department of War, in which you will
state, that having reason to think, that difference of opinion
existed between you and the executive, relative to the
extent of your powers, you thought it due to yourself
to state your view of them, and on which you acted.
This will be answered, so as to explain ours,
in a friendly manner by Mr. Calhoun, who has
very just and liberal sentiments on the subject.
This will be necessary in case of a call
for papers by Congress, or may be.
Thus we all stand on the ground of honor,
each doing justice to the other, which is the ground,
on which we wish to place each other.50
On October 19 Jackson had persuaded Chickasaws to accept a treaty
and sell their land; about a third went to Tennessee and
one-tenth to Kentucky, for $20,000 a year for 15 years.
Two mixed-race Colbert brothers led the tribe and received $17,000,
and three others got $3,000; but the proceedings were kept secret to conceal the bribery.
On November 28 Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote to the United States
Minister George Erving that Spain must decide either to protect her territory
in Florida or cede the province to the United States.
Letters in the Richmond Enquirer attacked Jackson in 1818 and 1819 and
were later published in 1830 as The Letters of Algernon Sydney in Defence of
Civil Liberty and against the Encroachments of Military Despotism
by a citizen of Virginia, whom Henry Clay of Kentucky knew was Benjamin Watkins Leigh.
The U. S. Congress met in December 1818 and discussed Florida.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams had published his 21-page
“Defense of General Jackson’s Conduct in the Seminole War”
at the Department of State in Washington on 28 November 1818.
Here is a portion that discusses Andrew Jackson:
After the repeated expostulations, warnings and offers
of a 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 adequate force
was placed at his disposal to terminate the war.
It was ascertained that the Spanish force in Florida
was inadequate 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 to be 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, although
within the borders of the Spanish jurisdiction.
There it was that the American commander met the
principal resistance from them; there it was, that
were found the 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 them with 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 the 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 Indian had threatened to seize that Fort,
and that he apprehended the Spanish Garrison there
was not in strength sufficient to defend it against them.
This information was confirmed from other sources,
and by the evidence produced upon the trial of
Ambrister, it 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.
There will be no need of 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 Marks, Alexander Arbuthnot, the British Indian
trader from beyond the sea, the firebrand by whose torch
this Negro Indian war against our borders had been
rekindled, was found an inmate that by the commandant
himself, councils of war had been permitted to be held
within it by the savage chiefs and warriors; that the Spanish
store-houses had been appropriated to their use; 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 garrison.
That information had been afforded from this fort by
Arbuthnot to the enemy of the strength and movements
of the American army; that the date of the 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 pleaded his inability to subdue it.
He himself had expressed his apprehensions that
Fort St. Marks would be forcibly taken by the savages
from its Spanish garrison; yet at the same time he had
refused the passage up the Escambria River, unless upon
the payment 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,
indispensably 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 ammunitions and supplies by Spanish
officers, and if aided and supported by the instigation
of Spanish encouragement, as he had every reason
to expect these would be, they would re-appear and
fired in addition to their ordinary ferociousness with
revenge 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
foot-step with the blood of their defenseless citizens.
So far as all the native resources of the savages extended,
the war was at an end, and General 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 volunteer cavalry to scour the country round
Pensacola, and sweep off the lurking remnant of savages,
who had been scattered and dispersed before him.
This was sufficient to keep in check the remnant of
the banditti, against whom he had marched, so long
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 importance 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
spirit of hostility to Spain, but as a necessary measure
of self-defense; giving notice that they should be restored
whenever Spain should place commanders and a force
there, able and willing to fulfil the engagements 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 the St. Marks to any Spanish force adequate
for its defense against the attack of the savages.
But the President will neither inflict punishment nor pass
a censure upon General Jackson for that conduct, the
motives for which were founded in the purest patriotism
of the necessity 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 contrary due to the justice which
the United States have a right to claim from Spain;
and you are accordingly instructed to demand of the
Spanish government, that enquiry shall be instituted
into the conduct of Don Jose Mazot, governor of
Pensacola, and of Don Francisco C. Luengo, commandant
of St. Marks, and a 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.51
On 7 December 1818 General Jackson from his Hermitage
wrote this short letter to President James Monroe:
I have just received your message to both
Houses of Congress, forwarded by you, and
have read it with great attention and satisfaction.
The Florida question being now fairly before Congress,
I hope that body will take measures to secure our
southern frontier from a repetition of massacre and murder.
From the report of Colonel King, received and
forwarded to the Department of War, you will discover
that the Indians had concentrated their forces on the
Choctaw Hotchy, which gave rise to the affair between
them and Captain Boyles, which Colonel King reports.
The collection of the Indians is said to have taken place
at this point on their hearing that Pensacola was to be
restored to Spain, and that the Indians have declared
they will never submit to the United States.
If this be the fact, and as to myself I have no doubt,
so soon as Spain is in the possession of Pensacola,
we may expect to hear of a renewal of all the horrid
scenes of massacre on our frontier that existed before
the campaign, unless Captain Boyles on his second visit
may be fortunate enough to destroy this operation,
which you may rely, springs from foreign excitement.52
Jackson’s friend Sam Houston had lived with Cherokees for three years
and became a federal agent in 1818 to register emigrating Cherokees.
On 19 January 1819 a House committee reported that
the court martial of Arbuthnot and Ambrister was illegal.
The next day Speaker Henry Clay made a 2-hour oration disapproving of Jackson
for acting without orders from the President or authorization by Congress.
Clay blamed the Seminole War on the unjust Fort Jackson treaty
with the Creeks in August 1814 which refugees in Florida resented.
He also criticized Jackson for hanging the two captured chiefs
and for executing the two Britons Arbuthnot and Ambrister.
Clay warned against the errors that gave rise to
Alexander, Caesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon Bonaparte.
British Foreign Secretary Castlereagh refused to let this interfere with good relations.
In October 1818 the U. S. Congress debated the Anglo-American Convention
and ratified it on 30 January 1819.
Pensacola and St. Mark’s fort were restored to Spain,
though the US maintained the occupation of Fort Gadsden.
The Monroe administration proposed the Sabine River
as the boundary between Louisiana and Texas.
Secretary of State Adams negotiated a treaty with Spanish envoy Onís
which recognized Spain’s territory west of Louisiana from the
Sabine, Red, and Arkansas rivers and south of the 42nd parallel west from Wyoming.
In exchange Spain recognized the Louisiana purchase from France and ceded Florida
to
the U. S. government which paid $5 million for the private American claims against Spain.
General Jackson from Washington city wrote this letter
to Secretary of War Calhoun on 5 February 1819:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your
letter of the present date, enclosing a communication
from the Chairman of the Committee of the Senate
requesting of You a Copy of the letter addressed by Major
White Youngs to Governor Masot on the 27th of April 1818.
Not having received a report from Major Youngs relative
to his correspondence with Governor Masot, or his attack
on the hostile Indians in the vicinity of Pensacola,
the only information I possess on the subject is
contained in the letter of Governor Bibb dated on the
19th of May 1818, to which I beg leave to refer you.
On my return from Suhanne to St. Marks I was
informed (through the medium of Mr. Hambley)
by the Captain of a Vessel direct from Pensacola that
a number of hostile Indians had assembled at that place;
on interrogating the Captain he reluctantly stated that
at the time of his Sailing there were in Pensacola
450 or 500 Indians, that they had been fed, and
furnished with munitions of War and were committing
depredations on the persons and property of the Citizens on
the frontier of Alabama, and also on the Subjects of Spain.
After receiving this information I informed You
in my letter dated at St. Marks on the 26th of April,
that I should leave that place for Fort Gadsden in
two or three days, and after making all necessary
arrangements for the security of the positions occupied,
and detaching a force to scower the Country West
of the Appilachicola I should procced direct to Nashville.
I then Ordered Captain Sands to Mobile to prepare
and hold in readiness a train of Artillery, should
circumstances arising out of facts disclosed render
its use in the field necessary; on this Occasion,
as on all others, I thought it my duty to be prepared fully
to execute my Orders in putting an end to the conflict.
On my arrival at Fort Gadsden my Quartermaster
General Col. George Gibson (who was charged with
the defense of that Post) handed me several letters
brought from Fort Montgomery by Major Hogan from
respectable Citizens, confirming the report made by the
Captain of the Schooner while at St. Marks; and detailing
the murder of eighteen of our Citizens on the Sapulgus,
and the destruction of a Family near Fort Claiborne.
Major Hogan also confirmed this information and added
that the Citizens at Montgomery were fortifying themselves.
Similar information was received from two Gentlemen
who arrived in a Vessel laden with Sutlers Stores for
the Troops at Fort Gadsden, but whose names are
not now recollected, and by the Captains of the
Sloop Hector and Barge Peacock, direct from Mobile.
In addition to the forgoing I was shown a letter
(Confidentially written) from a Person of high Respectability
in Pensacola detailing the facts as stated by
the Captain of the Schooner at St. Marks.
This information corroborated by so many Persons
determined me to go in Person to Pensacola, and I ordered
forthwith to Mobile with instructions to give every facility
to Captain Sands, in having the artillery secretly moved
to Fort Montgomery, there to await my Orders,
and immediately organized a force sufficient for the
execution of my Orders under date 26th December 1817.
After crossing the Choctawhachy I dispatched an
Indian guide with a Soldier express to Fort Crawford
with Orders to Col. Gibson and Captain Sands at
Fort Montgomery to move on the Artillery and form
a junction with me after I crossed the Escambia River,
which Order was promptly executed; on my reaching
the Escambia I was met by Captain Boyles express from
Governor Bibb with the letter of the 19th of May above
mentioned, and on reaching the west Bank received
information that Holmes and his Warriors were then in
Pensacola for which place I immediately marched; for
my proceedings thereafter I refer you to my detailed report.
Should You wish information on any other points
growing out of my military Operations during that Campaign,
it will afford me much pleasure to give it to You.53
On February 8 the House declined to reprimand Jackson on each of the charges,
and a bill to prohibit American soldiers from invading foreign territory
without Congressional approval was defeated 112-42.
The U.S. Senate censured Jackson.
Clay told Jackson it was not personal, but Jackson never forgave him.
The treaty had been signed on 22 February 1819;
but disputes over recent Spanish grants of Florida land delayed acceptance of the treaty
until the U. S. Senate finally ratified it on 19 February 1821.
General Jackson on 29 March 1819 wrote this letter to the Secretary of State Calhoun:
I have the honor to enclose you a commission
as Commissioner jointly with Col. John McKee
and Daniel Burnett Esq, to treat with the Choctaws.
Col. McKee has been directed to report to you the
probability of obtaining a successful treaty.
It is the wish of the Government that a treaty should not be
held, unless there is a strong probability of success, of which
you will judge; and should you determine upon one, you are
authorized to appoint the time and place for holding it.
You are empowered to make the necessary disbursements
and draw on the Department for the amount thereof.
The Government feels confident that
no unnecessary expense will be incurred.
The instructions given to Col. McKee and Mr. Burnett
the last year will, as far as they are
now applicable, be your guide.
You will exercise your discretion whether the provisions that
will be required in case of holding a treaty shall be obtained
by a special contract for the purpose, or by a requisition on
the Commissary General of Subsistence, or his Assistants.
Col. McKee is instructed on the mode of issuing provisions
to the Indians, to which you will conform.
Your compensation will be at the rate of Eight Dollars
per day, for the time actually employed, which
will be ascertained and paid on your certificate.
Enclosed for your information is a copy of a letter
to Col. McKee in relation to this subject.54
John Clark was active in Georgia politics, and he led those who opposed
the United States Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford.
Jackson from Nashville wrote this letter to Clark on 20 April 1819:
You will pardon the liberty I have taken in addressing
you on so slight acquaintance, and permit me to hope
that you will favor me with such facts as you may be in
possession of relative to the public or private Character
of William H. Crawford Esq now Secretary of the Treasury,
Mr. Crawford having been long resident in your state,
and having Commenced his political Career in it, induces
the belief, that as his Theatre of Action must have been
under your observation, you would be consequently
better capable of affording me the information I desire,
than any other gentleman I could apply to in Georgia.
This Gentleman while he was charged with the
superintendence of the Department of War,
having manifested as little respect for the feelings
of officers, as he felt interest; or solicitude, for the
respectability or prosperity of the Army, pursued
a course as unfriendly to the establishment as
it was unbecoming & unworthy the man holding
the power to control the channel of its existence.
Such contact naturally placed us at issue in the
process of which, he has swerved from that
strictly honorable course which it is usual
or one gentleman to observe towards another.
I therefore feel myself at liberty to make such enquiries
concerning him as may properly elucidate his Character.
I shall therefore consider myself under many obligations to
you, for such a statement as you feel at liberty to make.55
On 22 April 1819 Andrew Jackson wrote in a letter to John McKee,
who was an agent to the Cherokees and the Choctaws:
Permit me to suggest the propriety of making the
following statement to the Chiefs of the Nation by way of
preparing them for the Cession so important to themselves,
to the People of the State of Mississippi and desirable to
their friend and father the President of the United States.
It is a fact and ought not to be withheld from them,
as it will bring to their view their true Situation and
open their Eyes to their own benefit and happiness.
It is this that a Bill was reported at the last Session of
Congress the object of which was to enforce the return of
that part of the Nation, which has settled West of the River
Mississippi, which Bill is suspended until the next meeting
of Congress, for the purpose of obtaining the sense of the
Nation whether a part of the whole of the Nation would
agree to exchange the Land where they now live and cross
and Settle with them; what is meant by the whole is the
great body of the Nation, who are not inclined to come
under the immediate Laws of the United States, all that
are ripe for Society, and wish it would be indulged with a
reservation, should it appear that the Nation is opposed to
the exchange of their present Situation, the next Congress
will pass a law as I believe to bring back those now settled
West of the Mississippi—this will place the Nation in an
unpleasant Situation—for as soon as it is made known
that the Choctaw Nation has declined removing to this
Country procured for them by the United States,
the Whites will immediately Settle on it, and the
United States will be compelled to make Sail of it.
What then will be the Situation of the Nation;
a vast portion of them will not labor,
and they cannot support East of the River by hunting.
The Six Towns cannot exist where they now are, and
the consequence will be that necessity will compel them
to separate, and some join one tribe and some another,
by which they will become extinct and lost as a Nation.
Every friend of the welfare of that Nation ought to
advise them against a conduct which will lead to that event;
now is the time and the only time the Government will
have it in its power to make them happy by holding the
Land West of the Mississippi for them, and this can only be
done by their consent to an exchange in whole or in part.
Now the Government has it in its power
to act liberally with them; this is its wish.
The instructions given me are ample, and if I act at all,
it will be with a view to the happiness of the Nation
and the convenience of the State of Mississippi.
Every friend of the Nation must see the road to the
perpetuation and happiness of the whole Nation
in the place proposed, and the happiness of those
who wish to remain by being secured in a reservation
of Land where they now are, and protected by the
Laws and becoming Citizens of the United States.
If they exchange, provisions will be made for their comfort
until they are Settled in their new Country, and if a Treaty
is held, You may say to the Chiefs, that we are instructed
not only to be liberal to the Nation but to them individually.
I would recommend should this meet Your approbation
that You send it round to the Chiefs by Young Peachland,
eldest son of the Interpreter to the Nation that he may
explain it to the Chiefs and Warriors, for which Service
if a Treaty is made, he will be amply rewarded;
if the Nation does not treat, You will have to Stipulate
as Agent that he will be paid for his trouble and expenses.
He has written to me that he would
be willing to undertake this Service.56
That interpreter was James Pitchlynn who had written to Jackson
in December 1818 and on 18 March 1819 to offer his assistance on compensation.
During the spring of 1819 President James Monroe did not invite Jackson
to join the first half of the President’s tour of the Southern Division.
General Gaines joined the party in Georgia for the second half of the tour,
and John Calhoun went home to South Carolina.
Monroe visited Jackson’s Hermitage on June 5
and invited Jackson to be in the second half of the tour.
On June 11 Monroe and Jackson left Nashville and moved on to Kentucky
where they visited Louisville, Frankfort, and Lexington which they reached on July 2.
On July 5 Isaac Selby, Andrew Jackson, William A. Trimble, John T. Mason Jr.,
Robert Wickliffe, James Morrison, William T. Barry, and Thomas Bodley
signed this letter written for President Monroe and given to him at Lexington:
The Military establishments on the Mississippi and
Missouri have excited the deepest interest; and the
feelings of an intelligent community give the highest
evidence of the Vital importance of Success in the
enterprise: we have no hesitation in saying that no
measure has ever given stronger claims of confidence
to the administration of the General Government.
This enterprise so wise, so timely and politic must
necessarily in the commencement create expenditures
far beyond the control of any one individual in these
times of great pecuniary distress and calamity;
when Banks are closed against all kind of
accommodation and individuals without means to lend.
Under this view we most earnestly solicit the liberal aid
and support of the Government in purchasing the means
to affect the Object without injury or loss to the individual
who has undertaken the transportation
(Col. James Johnson is a man who deserves it.)
The Community has confidence in him, and he is now
giving proof of his merit and energy in the arrangement.
In fact he and his near relatives are all exclusively
devoted to the accomplishments of the great Object,
and they have put to hazard their property and resources
in the result; such exertions are worthy of support.
And in the commencement the establishments are
expensive; it must be recollected that every year
less expense will be incurred, and to fail in this
first assay, for want of the means, the British
agents would feel, as if they had gained a triumph.
Our own Citizens would feel as if they
had met with a defeat most sensibly.
Savage depredations might be excited by it;
and it would take a Million Dollars to reinstate it.
It is expected that some disasters may happen;
but a determined perseverance will affect the Object.
With adequate means, we consider
the establishments certain.
No pecuniary consideration involved in this subject
upon a basis of rational & reasonable calculation
can be compared with the great & permanent
advantages and blessings which will flow from it.
We therefore recommend a determined perseverance;
and the liberal support of men who in the late war
and all occasions have manifested such entire
devotion to the Country, and we are of the opinion
that the result will be glorious.57
On that day President Monroe sent the letter to Secretary of War Calhoun.
James Gadsden had served as a secretary to General Andrew Jackson
in his negotiation of a treaty with the Chickasaws in 1816.
Jackson from his Hermitage on 1 August 1819 wrote a letter to James Gadsden
in which he enclosed a longer confidential note that warned him to
watch out for the Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford.
On 13 August 1819 John McKee from French Camp
Choctaw Nation wrote in a letter to General Jackson:
I have the honor to enclose a copy of an address from the
Council of the Nation to the President which speaks for itself.
I had the fullest confidence before the council
convened that the Six Towns at least would
accede to the wishes of the Government.
At a council in their own District at which Messrs.
John Pitchlynn & Edmond Folsom & Middleton Mackay
were present they expressed an unequivocal desire to
cross the Mississippi, but a few half-breeds with but
little claim to distinction have by their exertions and
misrepresentations of the country on Red River
alarmed many of the Indians who were disposed
to migrate into an opinion that the
neither soil, water nor game.
These men are now exerting themselves
to raise a party to go on to Washington.
The Chiefs asked pecuniary aid from me which
I refused on the ground of a letter from the
Department of War directing me to inform the
Chiefs that such a visit was deemed useless
and expensive and therefore to be discouraged.
They are now endeavoring to raise the
means among themselves for the journey
of the three Great Medal chiefs.58
On 25 September 1819 General Jackson sent a letter to William Williams that begins:
Having made a report to the Governor concerning
the Chickasaw treaty & the reservation of the salt spring;
accompanying the same with documents to show
that the statements made by Col. John Williams
in the Senate of the United States were false,
malicious, and without the slightest foundation.
This report is laid before the assembly, & in conjunction
with a communication that I am just informed Col. Williams
has made to the assembly through the Governor may lead
to some discussion, I take the liberty for your information
to state his conduct in the last Congress, referring you to
Doctor Hogg & Major Eaton for the truth of this statement.
I have no doubt but you have seen the report of the
Committee of the Senate with its accompanying documents,
as I am informed & believe Col. John Williams gave to
the members on that committee information that I was
one of the company who had invested large sums in
the purchase of real property in Pensacola, and in
order to enhance the value of my Property, and without
any real necessity in open violation of the Constitution,
had marched my army there & seized the place.
To Establish this fact my staff were summoned before
said committee, and Col. Butler interrogated by them
on this head—finding themselves disappointed and
being informed by Major Eaton one of the committee,
that they were badly informed that it was Mr. James
Jackson of Nashville that he (Major Eaton) was one of the
company & he did know I had no interest in the purchase
nor was I one of the company, nor had I ever been.59
Thomas Jefferson from Monticello wrote this short letter
to General Jackson on 22 November 1819:
Jefferson returns his thanks to General Jackson for
the copy he has been so good as to send him of the
Vindication of the proceedings in the Seminole War.
If doubts on these proceedings have existed
in candid minds, this able vindication
can scarcely fail to remove them.
In addition to what had before been laid before the public,
it brings forward some new views
and new facts also of great weight.
On the whole he cannot doubt but that the gratitude
of his country for former achievements
will be fortified by these new proofs of the
salutary energies of their great benefactor.
He salutes the General with assurances of his
constant & affectionate attachment & high respect.60
Andrew Jackson from Nashville in a letter
to President James Monroe wrote on November 29:
This will be handed to you by Doctor Brunaugh
of my staff, who takes the city in his route on his
Tour to visit and inspect the posts of Norfolk,
Charleston, New Orleans &c &c, by whom I forward
my answer to the report of the committee of the
Senate with such documents as I have thought
relevant to the subject, which will, I trust, convince
every mind that in prosecuting the Seminole war
I have neither infringed the prerogative of the states,
nor the Constitution and laws of the United States;
but that the measures adopted were the only
means to give a permanent & honorable peace
to our country with security to our borders.
When I take a review of the conduct of the opposition,
and reflect upon the means used by some Senators,
combined with the information & belief that Mr. William
H. Crawford drafted that vindictive, false, and malevolent
report, I sicken at the Idea of continuing in office with those
men in power, who when I am risking my life & suffering
every privation to promote the best interests of my country.
They are employed inventing plans to injure my reputation.
These men cannot injure me.
But it is more than ought to exist, that when
I ought to have a little rest and respite from
business, to indulge in attention to health and
the restoration of an impaired Constitution that
I should be compelled to refute the slanders of such men,
be laboriously engaged for a long time, than I was
employed in giving peace and security to our borders.
Such scenes as these must be irksome to every honest
man and make him lament the depravity of human nature.
I cannot bear the idea of abandoning you, so long
as you may think my services may be necessary for my
country—and this I never will do without your consent.
But my constitution is so much impaired that I am fearful
it never will permit me to prosecute another Campaign
with vigor and effect—added to this, Candor compels me
to state, that my private concerns require my attention.
I cannot attend to them as long as in the army without
affording my enemies ground for clamoring against me, and
I cannot ask a furlough from you, for if granted, it would
afford ample ground for clamor & censure against you.
Therefore so soon as it will meet your convenience, & in
your opinion my services can be dispensed with, I hope you
will signify to me, that I may tender to you my resignation.
I will barely add that there are many dependents upon me,
whose education it becomes necessary to attend to which
I cannot do so long as I remain in public life.61
General Jackson on 11 December 1819 from his headquarters in Nashville
wrote a letter to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun explaining in detail strategies
that could lead to the taking of St. Augustine.
On 10 January 1820 Major General Jackson from Nashville sent
a detailed plan for military defense to the Secretary of War John C. Calhoun.
On January 15 Jackson from his Hermitage discussed the threats of Spain
in a letter to President James Monroe.
Jackson wrote,
I trust Congress will prove true to the nation and
support its Character, for the moment it is discovered
that we hesitate to do ourselves Justice and repel the
national insult offered us by the perfidy of Spain, it will
be construed that our forbearance originates from a fear
of the combined powers, and her insults will be multiplied.
After suffering many degradations
we will have to do ourselves Justice by force.
A prompt and manly stand
gives us Justice and prevents war.
The European powers cannot interfere so long as we are
only seeking Justice and carrying into effect that Treaty
that Spain in good faith had become bound to ratify.62
On 17 May 1820 General Jackson wrote this letter
to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun:
Having received information that the Military Road
is complete, I have determined to leave this today
with a view to examine it, and to take such further
measures for its improvement as seem to be
necessary on an examination of its present state.
I shall on my arrival at the encampment of the Troops
operating on the northern end, direct that they return
for the purpose of repairing certain bridges and
causeways that have been injured or destroyed, and
for the Shrubbing the road which is rendered indispensable.
A detachment from the Command to which this duty
will be assigned will be employed in removing
from the Cherokee Lands all intruders.
Contemplating an absence of two or three weeks
I have deemed it necessary to advise you
of my departure and that arrangements are made
for the prompt receipt of anything which you
may deem it necessary to have me advised.63
General Jackson from Nashville wrote this letter
to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun on 19 June 1820:
On last evening I reached this place where
I received your letter of the 24th of May last
and one from the delegation of the state of
Mississippi of the 16th May, requesting that
I should accept the appointment of commissioner
to aid in holding a treaty with the Choctaw Indians.
I had determined never to have anything to do
again in Indian Treaties; but finding that the President
of the United States is desirous that I should engage
in this duty, this added to the Solicitation of the delegation
of that state, has determined me to depart from the
resolution I had formed and to accept of the appointment.
I never can withhold my services, when requested
by old Monroe, and I owe a debt of gratitude
to the people of Mississippi and their late Governor,
for their support in our late struggle with Great Britain—
by him and them I was well supported.
I feel it a duty therefore to endeavor to serve them when
they by their representatives believe I have it in my power.
There is no man I would rather be associated with than
General Hinds, nor one in whom I have more confidence.
In making out the instructions, permit me to suggest the
propriety of pointing out the bounds west of the Mississippi
out of which the land to be given the Choctaws in exchange
for their land whereon they now live, is to be laid out.
The wish of the real Indian Chiefs is (as I am informed)
to perpetuate the existence of their Nation by concentrating
the whole in a country that will support them as a Nation—
at present they are scattered and wandering over
a great space of Country, and if not shortly united
will be lost to their nation in other tribes.
The pride of a real Indian is in the strength
of his Nation, and this is a chord I mean
to touch to obtain the object in view.
I therefore wish to point the lands and describe its bounds,
where their father the President of the United States
means to settle his red children—
concentrate and perpetuate them as a nation
and thereby make his children happy.64
The next day on June 20 Jackson from his Hermitage
wrote this letter to President James Monroe:
I returned from my tour to the south and southeast
on the evening of the 18th instant, when I received your
very friendly and interesting letter of the 23rd of May last,
which I have read with great interest and attention.
On its perusal and consideration, I have determined to
remain in service until the situation of Europe fully develops
itself, and our affairs with Spain are brought to a final close.
Although retirement has been and still is the first object
of my wishes, yet so long as it is believed that my
military service may conduce to the benefit of my
country in any way, my exertions belong to her.
I have hitherto made, and it is still my duty
as a patriot to make my private interests
and views subservient to my country’s good.
I have therefore upon due consideration and reflection
on the subject matter of your interesting letter, resolved
not to retire from the service so long as my continuing may
promote the welfare, safety, and happiness of our country.
I am well aware, as soon as you believe the situation
of our affairs will permit of my retiring without injury to our
country, you will notify me thereof, and permit me to retire.
Until then my private wishes and feelings must bend
to what may be conceived will promote the public good.
The view you have taken of the conduct pursued
by our government, relative to South America,
in my opinion has been both just and proper,
and will be approved by nine-tenths of the nation.
It is true it has been attempted to be wielded by certain
demagogues to the injury of the administration;
but like all other base attempts, has recoiled on its authors;
and I am clearly of your opinion that for the present,
we ought to be content with the Floridas—fortify them,
concentrate our population, confine our frontier to
proper limits, until our country to those limits is filled
with a dense population; it is the denseness of our
population that gives strength and security to our frontier.
With the Floridas in our possession
our fortifications completed,
Orleans, the great emporium of the west, is secure.
The Floridas in possession of a foreign power,
you can be invaded, your fortifications turned,
the Mississippi reached, and the lower country reduced.
From Texas an invading enemy will never attempt such
an enterprise; if he does, notwithstanding all that has been
said and asserted on the floor of Congress on this subject,
I will vouch that the invader will pay for his temerity.65
In the summer of 1820 Jackson went to Tennessee’s capital at Murfreesboro
to persuade delegates to vote against the state bank,
and he also urged anti-relief resolutions in two other counties.
On 2 September 1820 General Jackson wrote
this letter to Secretary of War Calhoun:
I have just received the enclosed letter from John Rogers
the deputy from the Arkansas Cherokees to the Cherokees
on Tennessee River now there, and hasten to lay it before
you, believing with proper caution the information it contains
may prove beneficial in laying the ground work on which the
whole Georgia claim may be obtained from the Cherokees.
This summer as I passed through the lower part of that
nation, I was informed by a half Breed Riley, that the
opinion now expressed by Rogers was prevalent among
the Indians in that part of the nation, and Hicks and
others threatened with death for deceiving them.
I have now but little doubt, that a large portion of the real
Indians wish to pass to the Arkansas, if they had the means.
Might it not have a good effect to have this inquired into,
and the real fact obtained; and if found true, could it not
be carried into effect without much expense to the United
States, except the transportation and provisioning them.
Let a confidential agent who will act impartially be appointed
to go through the nation, and enroll all Indians who want
to pass to the Arkansas, and when enrolled take their
relinquishment of all their claim to land where they now live.
As soon as this is done, let Congress provide the
means of transporting and provisioning them and
pass a law providing that land shall be laid out for them
adjoining the bounds of the Cherokees on Arkansas,
and that a portion of their land here, shall be surrendered
to the state of Georgia adjoining the settled parts thereof.
There can be no question but Congress has
the right to legislate on this subject.
The policy of treating with Indian tribes within the
jurisdiction of the United States, and acknowledging its
Sovereignty, could only have arisen at a time when the arm
of Government was too weak to execute any law passed for
the regulation of the Indian tribes within our territorial limits.
To treat with Indians acknowledging our sovereignty,
and situate within our declared Territorial limits, as a nation,
has always appeared very absurd to me; now when
more justice can be done the Indians by Legislation
than by treaties, and the arm of Government is
sufficiently strong to carry into effect any law that
Congress may deem necessary and proper to pass
for the welfare and happiness of the Indian and
for the convenience and benefit of the United States.
It appears to me that it is high time to do away
the farce of treating with Indian tribes.
Should it be the fact that the wish of the large mass
of the Cherokees on this side the Mississippi River,
are ripe for emigration, it opens a fair field for
Legislative interference by Congress, by which
justice can be done the Indians, and the pledge of the
union to Georgia, to extinguish the Indian title fulfilled.66
General Jackson visited the Choctaw Treaty Ground on September 28,
and there he wrote a letter to his wife Rachel on September 30
and this letter to Choctaws on October 3:
Friends & Brothers of the Choctaw Nation:
Your father the President of the United States has been
informed that many of your nation have crossed the
Mississippi, and that a number of others desire to remove.
He has therefore appointed the undersigned Commissioners
to convene the head men and warriors of his Choctaw
children, and when assembled in a general council,
to deliver them a friendly talk.
He also desires to hear the wishes of your nation,
and in treaty to do such things as will most promote
the happiness and prosperity of all his Choctaw children.
With these instructions we made known to the nation
through your agent, Col. John McKee, that a general
meeting of the chiefs, head men and warriors was
requested and expected at Doake’s stand in said
nation on the 1st day of October 1820.
On that day the undersigned attended at this place
and expected that the chiefs, head men and warriors
of the Choctaw nation were on the road to the treaty
grounds to meet us in council, and listen to the talk
of their father the President of the United States.
This is the third day we have waited to see you.
Only about sixty chiefs and warriors have attended;
and we are informed that not more
than one hundred were expected.
We are told that the chiefs and warriors have
been advised by some bad men to stay away
from the council, and not come forward to hear
the talk of your father the President of the United States.
We have also learned with much pain that many
threats have been made, declaring that anyone
should be put to death who attends the treaty,
and consents to sell or exchange
any part of the Choctaw land.
Fear not those threats.
The arm of your father the President is strong and will
protect the poor Indian from the threats of the white man
and half-breed, who are growing rich by their labor.
They make slaves of the poor Indians
and are indifferent to their happiness.
They care not whether the poor perish or are lost
to the nation, if they can grow rich by their labor,
and by living on the main roads through the country.
Many of your poor Indian brothers
have gone over the Mississippi.
It is represented to your father the President,
that a number more wish to go to that country.
He has at much expense purchased it for you.
He invites you to come forward and tell him
your mind freely and without fear.
You shall not be injured.
He will protect you.
Those who choose to move beyond the Mississippi,
there is a good country for a small part of their lands here.
Those who wish to stay and cultivate the earth,
your father the President wants to remain here.
He therefore desires to see you all at this place
so that each may make a choice freely, and all be happy.
You are all interested and must be heard.
As the friends and brothers of the white people,
you cannot refuse to listen to the council and advice
of your father the President of the United States.
As soon as you all assemble at this place, we will
deliver his friendly talk to his Choctaw children.
If you will not come and hear it,
he may never speak to you again.
This talk is sent to you by your friends and our friends,
Edward Folsom and Middleton Mackey, by whom
you will send us an answer, informing us whether you will
or will not attend at the treaty, and hear the talk of
your father the President of the United States.67
A much longer letter to the Choctaws was signed by Andrew Jackson
and Thomas Hinds at the Choctaw Treaty Ground on October 18.
Notes
1. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume II May 1, 1814 to December 31, 1819,
ed. John Spencer Bassett, p. 228, 229.
2. Ibid., p. 229.
3. Ibid., p. 230.
4. Ibid., p. 236-237.
5. Ibid., p. 238-239.
6. Ibid., p. 241-242.
7. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume V, 1821-1824 Ed. Harold D. Moser et al.,
p. 28-30.
8. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume II May 1, 1814 to December 31, 1819,
p. 242-243.
9. Ibid., p. 245-246.
10. Ibid., p. 249.
11. Ibid., p. 250.
12. Ibid., p. 252-253.
13. Ibid., p. 253, 253-254.
14. Ibid., p. 260-261.
15. Treaty With the Chickasaw: 1816 (Online)
16. Ibid., p. 261.
17. Ibid., p. 266, 270.
18. Ibid., p. 271.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 273-274.
21. Ibid., p. 275-276.
22. Ibid., p. 277, 278-279.
23. Ibid., p. 283.
24. Ibid., p. 288-289.
25. Ibid., p. 290.
26. Ibid., p. 291-292.
27. Ibid., p. 295-296.
28. Ibid., p. 299.
29. Treaty with the Cherokee, 1817 (Online)
30. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume V, 1821-1824, p. 126-127.
31. Ibid., p. 147-148.
32. Ibid., p. 148-149.
33. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume II May 1, 1814 to December 31, 1819,
p. 337.
34. Ibid., p. 340.
35. Ibid., p. 340-341.
36. Ibid., p. 341-342.
37. Ibid., p. 345-346.
38. Ibid., p. 347.
39. Ibid., p. 349-350.
40. Ibid., p. 351.
41. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume V, 1821-1824, p. 189-190.
42. Ibid., p. 197-199.
43. Ibid., p. 213-214.
44. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume II May 1, 1814 to December 31, 1819,
p. 382-383.
45. Ibid., p. 384.
46. Ibid., p. 385, 387.
47. Ibid., p. 392-393.
48. Ibid., p. 393-394.
49. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767-1821
by Robert V. Remini, p. 340.
50. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume II May 1, 1814 to December 31, 1819,
p. 398.
51. Speeches & Writings by John Quincy Adams ed. David Waldstreicher, p. 189-192.
52. Ibid., p. 402.
53. Ibid., p. 410-411.
54. Ibid., p. 414.
55. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume IV, 1816-1820, p. 287.
56. Ibid., p. 300-301.
57. Ibid., p. 288-289.
58. Ibid., p. 313.
59. Ibid., p. 325-326.
60. Ibid., p. 337.
61. Ibid., p. 342-343.
62. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Volume III 1820-1828
ed. John Spencer Bassett, p. 7.
63. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume IV, 1816-1820 p. 369.
64. Ibid., p. 27-28.
65. Ibid., p. 28.
66. Ibid., p. 31.
67. The Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume IV, 1816-1820 p. 391-392.
Andrew Jackson to 1812
Andrew Jackson & Wars 1813-15
Andrew Jackson & Indian Wars 1816-20
Andrew Jackson 1821-24
Andrew Jackson 1825-28
President Jackson in 1829
President Jackson & Indians 1829-36
President Jackson in 1830
President Jackson in 1831
Jackson’s Veto & Banks in 1832
President Jackson in 1833
President Jackson in 1834
President Jackson in 1835
President Jackson in 1836
Andrew Jackson 1837-45
Andrew Jackson Summary & Evaluation
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