Kenneth W. Porter

Negroes and Indians on the Texas Frontier, 1831-1876

The Indians of the Southern Plains occasionally permitted captives to be ransomed by relatives, friends, or government authorities; traders with the Indians, particularly civilized Indians and half-breeds, sometimes bought captives on speculation, trusting that their relatives would be willing to pay a high enough reward for their return to cover the original cost and a reasonable profit. To purchase a white captive, however, unless specifically commissioned to do so, might result in a loss, since the relatives might all be dead or without funds. A Negro captive, however, was almost as good as money, since he could always be sold in Arkansas or the Indian Territory. De Shields, however, is exaggerating the importance of this traffic when he writes: Usually Indians did not kill negro slaves, but held them for large ransom, which they seldom, or never, failed to get.61 We have already seen more than ample evidence that the usual fate of the Negro was to be killed; to be held for ransom-under which head De Shields probably

Negroes and the East Florida Annexation Plot, 1811-1813

South of the United States borders, in the territory still precariously held by the Most Catholic Kiing of Spain, the Negroes and Indians of East Florida were, in 1812 and 13, being entangled in a net of international intrigue.1 The persistent desire of the United States to possess the Floridas, which K. C. Babcock declares between 1801 and 1819, amounted almost to a disease, corrupting the moral sense of each succeeding administration, had resulted, after a local insurrection, in a proclamation of Oct. 27, 1810, annexing to the United States the territory from the Mississippi to Perdido. 2 Congressional confirmation of this presidential action was followed, Jan. 15, 1811, by a secret act of Congress authorizing the President to take possession of all or any part of Florida in case of agreement with the local authorities or in the event of any attempt by a foreign government to occupy any part of that territory. Gen. George Mathews, formerly governor of Georgia, was accordingly dispatched to East Florida to obtain the transfer of that region to the United States. Local authorities was a term capable of being liberally construed, and Gen. Mathews therefore devoted himself to nurturing the ambitions of American settlers in the Spanish territory of East Florida, who might be encouraged to set themselves up as a local government favor-

Florida Slaves and Free Negroes in the Seminole War, 1835-1842

At the outbreak of the Seminole War, the Negroes of Florida were divided into three categories: slaves to the whites, principally on the sugar plantations of the St. Johns valley; free Negroes, the result of the lenity of the Spanish law which required the emancipation of any slave offering his master

Negroes and the Seminole War, 1817-1818

300, principally in St. Augustine and vicinity; and Indian Negroes, lving among the Seminole, either as legal slaves, through purchases from Spaniards, English, or Americans, or, in a greater number of cases, runaways and their descendants, but all thoroughly identified in customs and interests with the Indians, at the worst as their favored dependents, at the best as advisers to the chief men of the tribe, and in no case treated as chattels. The Seminole War, ostensibly caused by the insistence of the United States government on the removal of the Seminole to the Indian Territory, along with most of the other Indian tribes east of the Mississippi, in order to make room for white settlers and prevent border difficulties, was in large measure also urged on by the desire of slave traders and slave owners to gain possession of the Negroes living among the Seminole; on the other hand, the unwillingness of the Indians to leave the country in which they had established themselves was reinforced by the fear of the Seminole Negroes lest, emerging from their fastnesses for transportation to the west, they should be seized and enslaved. All the parties to the controversy were well acquainted with one another. There had been peace between the whites and the Seminole ever since the annexation of Florida to the United States. The Indians and their Negroes had been accustomed to come frequently into St. Augustine and other towns to trade, and were familiar with the city and its inhabitants. Racial ties made the relations among the various categories of Florida Negroes particularly close. Mlany of

Negro Guides and Interpreters in the Early Stages of the Seminole War, Dec. 28, 1835-Mar. 6, 1837

Florida and the territory adjacent thereto were the region of North America in which the Negro population, because of its numbers, the complicated balance and tension among nations and tribes, the existence of an international border and the character of the terrain, was best able for approximately a century and a half to act aggressively and to some extent even effectively and independently in behalf of its own interests. An important episode in this long struggle was the so-called Seminole War, 1817-1818, but for an understanding of its significance a brief survey of its remote background and a more detailed examination of the events more immediately leading up to it are required.

Negroes on the Southern Frontier, 1670-1763

When the Seminole War broke out late in 1835, out of a total of perhaps 5,000 Seminole Indians, about 500 preferred to seek the protection of the United States troops against their hostile kinsmen rather than join with the latter in armed resistance to removal, but of perhaps a thousand Negroes in the nation, no such proportion of friendlies appeared; in fact, up to the treaty of Mar. 6, 1837, which was generally accepted and was supposed to end the war by giving protection to the Negro slaves and allies of the Seminole, the number of Negro tribesmen who were won over to a support of the United States troops could have been counted on the fingers of a badly maimed hand.1 The assistance of Seminole Negroes was badly needed, too, to guide United States troops to the haunts of the hostiles and to communicate with them in an attempt to induce them to surrender; such a knowledge of the country, combined with a knowledge both of English and the Seminole tongue, could scarcely be found save among Negroes who had lived among the Seminole Indians. The failure during the first year or so to obtain adequate assistance of this character is an important factor in explaining the general ill-fortune experienced by the United States troops during that early period. A few Negroes, however, were found to serve against their own people.

Notes on Negroes in Early Hawaii

Charles Town, settled April 1670, was the beginning of the colony which later became South Carolina.2 From the beginning slaves were an important element in the population and continued to be increasingly so. The total number of Negroes was almost never estimated as less than twice that of the whites and by the end of the period the whites were estimated at 30-40,000, the Negroes at 7090,000.3

Chapter IV: Relations in the South

Shortly after the Hawaiian Islands became known to the European world through the voyages of Captain Cook, they became a Mecca for restless and discontented seafarers of almost every race and nationality. When the Tonquin and the Beaver touched at these Islands on their way to the mouth of the Columbia in 1811 and 1812, respectively, they found about sixty persons of alien birth in residence, some of whom, possessing special abilities, occupied positions of responsibility in the kingdom. A Scotchman, John Young, was governor of the island of Hawaii, Isaac Davis, an American, was one of the kings chief councillors. Don Francisco Marin, usually known as Manini, a Spaniard, was secretary and chief interpreter to the king and also acted as ship-carpenter, mason, and physician. A young Frenchman from Bordeaux, J. B. Rives, acted as preceptor of the kings sons. Mr. Davis, the kings gardener, was a Welshman; another Welshman was the harbor master. A Mr. Harbottle, an Englishman, was head pilot of his majestys fleet. Franchere found an Indian from Bombay, occupied in making a twelve-inch cable for one of the kings schooners, and learned that two escaped convicts from Botany Bay were running a distillery. Among the less distinguished but still respectable settlers were certain Americans and Portuguese. Most of those above-mentioned had native wives and families.1 Thus we observe that over a century ago the Hawaiian Islands already presented something of that mixture of races and nationalities which is now one of their most characteristic features. Among ships engaged in the trade with the Northwest Coast and in the Pacific in general it was customary for

Chapter I: Association as Fellow Slaves

The various native peoples whom the white settlers encountered in North America were by no means all on the same cultural level. Among the most advanced were certain tribes to the south and west of the southern colonies, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, from which last tribe the Seminoles were a secession. All these tribes, as well as others of less note, leavened by intermarriage with white traders, mostly Scotch, took with enthusiasm to many institutions of civilized life, and particularly to Negro slavery. Slavery among the Indians was known in South Carolina at least as early as 1748.96 The Five Civilized Tribes, as they came to be called, became large slaveholders for the same reason as their white neighbors, while the more northerly tribes abstained for the same sort of reason. Slavery took various forms among the different tribes and with individual members of the same tribe. A careful observer traced the variation as follows: The full-blood Indian rarely works for himself and but few of them make their slaves work. A slave among wild Indians is almost as free as his owner, who scarcely exercises the authority of a master beyond requiring something like a tax paid in corn or other product of labor. Proceeding from this condition, more service is required from the slave until among the half-breeds and the whites who have married natives, they become slaves indeed in all manner of work. Even some full-bloods were finally inspired to follow the example of the whites in this respect.97 The Cherokees are usually regarded as the most advanced of the Five Tribes. In 1809 there were 12,395 Cherokees with 583 slaves;9 in 1824 the citizens of the Cherokee Nation num-

Chapter II: Contacts in Warfare

The first intimate relation of an extensive character to be established between Negro and Indian in the New World was that of fellow slaves. It will be remembered that Negroes were imported into Spanish America to take the place of the Indians, who lacked the physical stamina to endure the labors on plantations and in mines to which they were subjected by their conquerors. Without much doubt the blood of the two races was first mingled in the West Indies.3 Many of the slaves imported into the English colonies came by way of the West Indies4 and some of these were doubtless of mixed blood. Indian and Negro slavery had been simultaneously introduced into the Bermudas in 1616 ;15 extensive importations of African slaves followed, and after the Pequot and King Philip wars a large number of redskins who had been taken prisons were also shipped to the islands, sometimes in exchange for Negroes. Many of the colored people, we are told, show in their physiognomy the influence of the Indian type. Probably some of the descendants of these deported prisoners were later sold into slavery on their native continent. Indians and Negroes were united in the bounds of a common servitude on the North American continent as well. All the great colonizing nations of the Continent held Indian slaves, and all the English colonies, in which we are particularly interested, at one time or another contained a greater or lesser number of native bondservants.7 Some of these