TROUBLE IN FLORIDA
David.Gettman January 21st, 2009
From:
ONE HUNDRED YEARS WITH THE SECOND CAVALRY
By Joseph I. Lambert, Major, Second Cavalry
Copyright 1939 Commanding Officer, Second Cavalry, Fort Riley, Kansas
Capper Printing Company, Inc.
Spain ceded Florida to the United States on July 17, 1821. Emigration from adjoining states began at once, but it was found by the new settlers that the most desirable land was occupied by the Seminole Indians, who were originally Creeks from Georgia. According to the census by the superintendent of Indian affairs in 1822, there were less than 5,000 of these aborigines, including 800 negro slaves. Their village consisted of log or palmetto huts surrounded by cleared fields of less than twenty acres.
After much insistence by the white people, a commission was appointed to make a treaty with the Indians in 1823. Under this treaty they were specifically limited to certain areas, and placed under the patronage of the federal government. The Indians did not like the provisions of the treaty, saying they were not given enough land upon which to live decently. There was much ill feeling between them and the settlers because of the difficulty of the latter in inducing the Indians to give up runaway slaves. After much persuasion, the chiefs reluctantly signed a treaty in 1833, whereby they agreed to remove to Arkansas and live among the Creeks. Their own people repudiated this treaty and positively refused to move to the new land. The chiefs were called together again in 1835, and when five refused to agree to the treaty, they were told by the commission that their names had been stricken from the rolls as chiefs. This of course heightened the ill feeling and suspicion of the Indians. In October, 1835, one of the friendly chiefs was murdered when he attempted to flee to the troops for protection. In December the Indian Agent, General Thompson, and an officer accompanying him were murdered just outside Fort King. A detachment of one hundred men, under Major Dade, while marching from Fort King to Fort Brooke, together with eight officers, was ambushed December 28, 1835, and all of the party killed, except two men who escaped. Plantations were attacked, and much of the state was soon laid waste by the bloodthirsty Indians. Continue Reading »
Again on July 19, 1836, Company D, under Captain James A. Ashby, who had just joined the day before, took an important part in the fight at Welika Pond near Fort Defiance. With twenty-six men from his company and a detachment of artillery, Captain Ashby was escorting a train from Fort Drane to Fort Defiance when attacked by Indians just outside the latter place. In the first part of the fight Captain Ashby was severely wounded but refused to leave his post until the battle was won. After arrival of reinforcements from the fort, the Seminoles were driven from the vicinity and the train proceeded to the post. For this gallant conduct here Captain Ashby was breveted to major. 
