Osceola (Asseola, or As-se-he-ho-lar, sometimes called Powell because after his father's death his mother married a white man of that name81) was not more than thirty years of age. He was slender, of only average height, and slightly round-shouldered; but he was also well proportioned, muscular, and capable of enduring great fatigue. He had light, deep, restless eyes, and a shrill voice, and he was a great admirer of order and technique. He excelled in athletic contests and in his earlier years had taken delight in engaging in military practice with the white men. As he was neither by descent nor formal election a chief, he was not expected to have a voice in important deliberations; but he was a natural leader and he did more than any other man to organize the Seminoles to resistance. It is hardly too much to say that to his single influence was due a contest that ultimately cost $10,000,000 and the loss of thousands of lives. Never did a patriot fight more valiantly for his own, and it stands to the eternal disgrace of the American arms that he was captured under a flag of truce.
It is well to pause for a moment and reflect upon some of the deeper motives that entered into the impending contest. A distinguished congressman,82speaking in the House of Representatives a few years later, touched eloquently upon some of the events of these troublous years. Let us remember that this was the time of the formation of anti-slavery societies, of pronounced activity on the part of the abolitionists, and recall also that Nat Turner's insurrection was still fresh in the public mind. Giddings stated clearly the issue as it appeared to the people of the North when he said, "I hold that if the slaves of Georgia or any other state leave their masters, the Federal Government has no constitutional authority to employ our army or navy for their recapture, or to apply the national treasure to repurchase them." There could be no question of the fact that the war was very largely one over fugitive slaves. Under date October 28, 1834, General Thompson wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs: "There are many very likely Negroes in this nation [the Seminole]. Some of the whites in the adjacent settlements manifest a restless desire to obtain them, and I have no doubt that Indian raised Negroes are now in the possession of the whites." In a letter dated January 20, 1834, Governor Duval had already said to the same official: "The slaves belonging to the Indians have a controlling influence over the minds of their masters, and are entirely opposed to any change of residence." Six days later he wrote: "The slaves belonging to the Indians must be made to fear for themselves before they will cease to influence the minds of their masters.... The first step towards the emigration of these Indians must be the breaking up of the runaway slaves and the outlaw Indians." And the New OrleansCourierof July 27, 1839, revealed all the fears of the period when it said, "Every day's delay in subduing the Seminoles increases the danger of a rising among the serviles."
All the while injustice and injury to the Indians continued. Econchattimico, well known as one of those chiefs to whom special reservations had been given by the treaty of Fort Moultrie, was the owner of twenty slaves valued at $15,000. Observing Negro stealers hovering around his estate, he armed himself and his men. The kidnapers then furthered their designs by circulating the report that the Indians were arming themselves for union with the main body of Seminoles for the general purpose of massacring the white people. Face to face with this charge Econchattimico gave up his arms and threw himself on the protection of the government; and his Negroes were at once taken and sold into bondage.
A similar case was that of John Walker, an Appalachicola chief, who wrote to Thompson under date July 28, 1835: "I am induced to write you in consequence of the depredations making and attempted to be made upon my property, by a company of Negro stealers, some of whom are from Columbus, Ga., and have connected themselves with Brown and Douglass.... I should like your advice how I am to act. I dislike to make or to have any difficulty with the white people. But if they trespass upon my premises and my rights, I must defend myself the best way I can. If they do make this attempt, and I have no doubt they will, they must bear the consequences.But is there no civil law to protect me? Are the free Negroes and the Negroes belonging to this town to be stolen away publicly, and in the face of law and justice, carried off and sold to fill the pockets of these worse than land pirates? Douglass and his company hired a man who has two large trained dogs for the purpose to come down and take Billy. He is from Mobile and follows for a livelihood catching runaway Negroes."
Such were the motives, fears and incidents in the years immediately after the treaty of Payne's Landing. Beginning at the close of 1834 and continuing through April, 1835, Thompson had a series of conferences with the Seminole chiefs. At these meetings Micanopy, influenced by Osceola and other young Seminoles, took a more definite stand than he might otherwise have assumed. Especially did he insist with reference to the treaty that he understood that the chiefs who went West were toexaminethe country, and for his part he knew that when they returned they would report unfavorably. Thompson then, becoming angry, delivered an ultimatum to the effect that if the treaty was not observed the annuity from the great father in Washington would cease. To this, Osceola, stepping forward, replied that he and his warriors did not care if they never received another dollar from the great father, and drawing his knife, he plunged it in the table and said, "The only treaty I will execute is with this." Henceforward there was deadly enmity between the young Seminole and Thompson. More and more Osceola made his personality felt, constantly asserting to the men of his nation that whoever recommended emigration was an enemy of the Seminoles, and he finally arrived at an understanding with many of them that the treaty would be resisted with their very lives. Thompson, however, on April 23, 1835, had a sort of secret conference with sixteen of the chiefs who seemed favorably disposed toward migration, and he persuaded them to sign a document "freely and fully" assenting to the treaties of Payne's Landing and Fort Gibson. The next day there was a formal meeting at which the agent, backed up by Clinch and his soldiers, upbraided the Indians in a very harsh manner. His words were met by groans, angry gesticulations, and only half-muffled imprecations. Clinch endeavored to appeal to the Indians and to advise them that resistance was both unwise and useless. Thompson, however, with his usual lack of tact, rushed onward in his course, and learning that five chiefs were unalterably opposed to the treaty, he arbitrarily struck their names off the roll of chiefs, an action the highhandedness of which was not lost on the Seminoles. Immediately after the conference moreover he forbade the sale of any more arms and powder to the Indians. To the friendly chiefs the understanding had been given that the nation might have until January 1, 1836, to make preparation for removal, by which time all were to assemble at Fort Brooke, Tampa Bay, for emigration.
About the first of June Osceola was one day on a quiet errand of trading at Fort King. With him was his wife, the daughter of a mulatto slave woman who had run away years before and married an Indian chief. By Southern law this woman followed the condition of her mother, and when the mother's former owner appeared on the scene and claimed the daughter, Thompson, who desired to teach Occeola a lesson, readily agreed that she should be remanded into captivity.83Osceola was highly enraged, and this time it was his turn to upbraid the agent. Thompson now had him overpowered and put in irons, in which situation he remained for the better part of two days. In this period of captivity his soul plotted revenge and at length he too planned a "ruse de guerre." Feigning assent to the treaty he told Thompson that if he was released not only would he sign himself but he would also bring his people to sign. The agent was completely deceived by Osceola's tactics. "True to his professions," wrote Thompson on June 3, "he this day appeared with seventy-nine of his people, men, women, and children, including some who had joined him since his conversion, and redeemed his promise. He told me many of his friends were out hunting, whom he could and would bring over on their return. I have now no doubt of his sincerity, and as little, that the greatest difficulty is surmounted."
Osceola now rapidly urged forward preparations for war, which, however, he did not wish actually started until after the crops were gathered. By the fall he was ready, and one day in October when he and some other warriors met Charley Emathla, who had upon him the gold and silver that he had received from the sale of his cattle preparatory to migration, they killed this chief, and Osceola threw the money in every direction, saying that no one was to touch it, as it was the price of the red man's blood. The true drift of events became even more apparent to Thompson and Clinch in November, when five chiefs friendly to migration with five hundred of their people suddenly appeared at Fort Brooke to ask for protection. When in December Thompson sent final word to the Seminoles that they must bring in their horses and cattle, the Indians did not come on the appointed day; on the contrary they sent their women and children to the interior and girded themselves for battle. To Osceola late in the month a runner brought word that some troops under the command of Major Dade were to leave Fort Brooke on the 25th and on the night of the 27th were to be attacked by some Seminoles in the Wahoo Swamp. Osceola himself, with some of his men, was meanwhile lying in the woods near Fort King, waiting for an opportunity to kill Thompson. On the afternoon of the 28th the agent dined not far from the fort at the home of the sutler, a man named Rogers, and after dinner he walked with Lieutenant Smith to the crest of a neighboring hill. Here he was surprised by the Indians, and both he and Smith fell pierced by numerous bullets. The Indians then pressed on to the home of the sutler and killed Rogers, his two clerks, and a little boy. On the same day the command of Major Dade, including seven officers and one hundred and ten men, was almost completely annihilated, only three men escaping. Dade and his horse were killed at the first onset. These two attacks began the actual fighting of the Second Seminole War. That the Negroes were working shoulder to shoulder with the Indians in these encounters may be seen from the report of Captain Belton,84who said, "Lieut. Keays, third artillery, had both arms broken from the first shot; was unable to act, and was tomahawked the latter part of the second attack, by a Negro"; and further: "A Negro named Harry controls the Pea Band of about a hundred warriors, forty miles southeast of us, who have done most of the mischief, and keep this post constantly observed." Osceola now joined forces with those Indians who had attacked Dade, and in the early morning of the last day of the year occurred the Battle of Ouithlecoochee, a desperate encounter in which both Osceola and Clinch gave good accounts of themselves. Clinch had two hundred regulars and five or six hundred volunteers. The latter fled early in the contest and looked on from a distance; and Clinch had to work desperately to keep from duplicating the experience of Dade. Osceola himself was conspicuous in a red belt and three long feathers, but although twice wounded he seemed to bear a charmed life. He posted himself behind a tree, from which station he constantly sallied forth to kill or wound an enemy with almost infallible aim.
After these early encounters the fighting became more and more bitter and the contest more prolonged. Early in the war the disbursing agent reported that there were only three thousand Indians, including Negroes, to be considered; but this was clearly an understatement. Within the next year and a half the Indians were hard pressed, and before the end of this period the notorious Thomas S. Jessup had appeared on the scene as commanding major general. This man seems to have determined never to use honorable means of warfare if some ignoble instrument could serve his purpose. In a letter sent to Colonel Harvey from Tampa Bay under date May 25, 1837, he said: "If you see Powell (Osceola), tell him I shall send out and take all the Negroes who belong to the white people. And he must not allow the Indian Negroes to mix with them. Tell him I am sending to Cuba for bloodhounds to trail them; and I intend to hang every one of them who does not come in." And it might be remarked that for his bloodhounds Jessup spent—or said he spent—as much as $5,000, a fact which thoroughly aroused Giddings and other persons from the North, who by no means cared to see such an investment of public funds. By order No. 160, dated August 3, 1837, Jessup invited his soldiers to plunder and rapine, saying, "All Indian property captured from this date will belong to the corps or detachment making it." From St. Augustine, under date October 20, 1837, in a "confidential" communication he said to one of his lieutenants: "Should Powell and his warriors come within the fort, seize him and the whole party. It is important that he, Wild Cat, John Cowagee, and Tustenuggee, be secured. Hold them until you have my orders in relation to them."85Two days later he was able to write to the Secretary of War that Osceola was actually taken. Said he: "That chief came into the vicinity of Fort Peyton on the 20th, and sent a messenger to General Hernandez, desiring to see and converse with him. The sickly season being over, and there being no further necessity to temporize, I sent a party of mounted men, and seized the entire body, and now have them securely lodged in the fort." Osceola, Wild Cat, and others thus captured were marched to St. Augustine; but Wild Cat escaped. Osceola was ultimately taken to Fort Moultrie, in the harbor of Charleston, where in January (1838) he died.
Important in this general connection was the fate of the deputation that the influential John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, was persuaded to send from his nation to induce the Seminoles to think more favorably of migration. Micanopy, twelve other chieftains, and a number of warriors accompanied the Cherokee deputation to the headquarters of the United States Army at Fort Mellon, where they were to discuss the matter. These warriors also Jessup seized, and Ross wrote to the Secretary of War a dignified but bitter letter protesting against this "unprecedented violation of that sacred rule which has ever been recognized by every nation, civilized and uncivilized, of treating with all due respect those who had ever presented themselves under a flag of truce before the enemy, for the purpose of proposing the termination of warfare." He had indeed been most basely used as the agent of deception.
This chapter, we trust, has shown something of the real nature of the points at issue in the Seminole Wars. In the course of these contests the rights of Indian and Negro alike were ruthlessly disregarded. There was redress for neither before the courts, and at the end in dealing with them every honorable principle of men and nations was violated. It is interesting that the three representatives of colored peoples who in the course of the nineteenth century it was most difficult to capture—Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Negro, Osceola, the Indian, and Aguinaldo, the Filipino—were all taken through treachery; and on two of the three occasions this treachery was practiced by responsible officers of the United States Army.
Footnote 76:(return)In his official capacity Jackson issued two addresses which have an important place in the history of the Negro soldier. From his headquarters at Mobile, September 21, 1814, he issued an appeal "To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana," offering them an honorable part in the war, and this was later followed by a "Proclamation to the Free People of Color" congratulating them on their achievement. Both addresses are accessible in many books.
Footnote 77:(return)McMaster, IV, 431.
Footnote 78:(return)See J.R. Giddings:The Exiles of Florida, 63-66; also speech in House of Representatives February 9, 1841.
Footnote 79:(return)Sprague, 19.
Footnote 80:(return)The correspondence is readily accessible in Sprague, 30-37.
Footnote 81:(return)Hodge'sHandbook of American Indians, II, 159.
Footnote 82:(return)Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio. His exhaustive speech on the Florida War was made February 9, 1841.
Footnote 83:(return)This highly important incident, which was really the spark that started the war, is absolutely ignored even by such well informed writers as Drake and Sprague. Drake simply gives the impression that the quarrel between Osceola and Thompson was over the old matter of emigration, saying (413), "Remonstrance soon grew into altercation, which ended in aruse de guerre, by which Osceola was made prisoner by the agent, and put in irons, in which situation he was kept one night and part of two days." The story is told by McMaster, however. Also note M.M. Cohen as quoted inQuarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine, Vol. II, p. 419 (July, 1837).
Footnote 84:(return)Accessible in Drake, 416-418.
Footnote 85:(return)This correspondence, and much more bearing on the point, may be found in House Document 327 of the Second Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress.
In a previous chapter86we have already indicated the rise of the Negro Problem in the last decade of the eighteenth and the first two decades of the nineteenth century. And what was the Negro Problem? It was certainly not merely a question of slavery; in the last analysis this institution was hardly more than an incident. Slavery has ceased to exist, but even to-day the Problem is with us. The question was rather what was to be the final place in the American body politic of the Negro population that was so rapidly increasing in the country. In the answering of this question supreme importance attached to the Negro himself; but the problem soon transcended the race. Ultimately it was the destiny of the United States rather than of the Negro that was to be considered, and all the ideals on which the country was based came to the testing. If one studied those ideals he soon realized that they were based on Teutonic or at least English foundations. By 1820, however, the young American republic was already beginning to be the hope of all of the oppressed people of Europe, and Greeks and Italians as well as Germans and Swedes were turning their faces toward the Promised Land. The whole background of Latin culture was different from the Teutonic, and yet the people of Southern as well as of Northern Europe somehow became a part of the life of the United States. In this life was it also possible for the children of Africa to have a permanent and an honorable place? With their special tradition and gifts, with their shortcomings, above all with their distinctive color, could they, too, become genuine American citizens? Some said No, but in taking this position they denied not only the ideals on which the country was founded but also the possibilities of human nature itself. In any case the answer to the first question at once suggested another, What shall we do with the Negro? About this there was very great difference of opinion, it not always being supposed that the Negro himself had anything whatever to say about the matter. Some said send the Negro away, get rid of him by any means whatsoever; others said if he must stay, keep him in slavery; still others said not to keep him permanently in slavery, but emancipate him only gradually; and already there were beginning to be persons who felt that the Negro should be emancipated everywhere immediately, and that after this great event had taken place he and the nation together should work out his salvation on the broadest possible plane.
Into the agitation was suddenly thrust the application of Missouri for entrance into the Union as a slave state. The struggle that followed for two years was primarily a political one, but in the course of the discussion the evils of slavery were fully considered. Meanwhile, in 1819, Alabama and Maine also applied for admission. Alabama was allowed to enter without much discussion, as she made equal the number of slave and free states. Maine, however, brought forth more talk. The Southern congressmen would have been perfectly willing to admit this as a free state if Missouri had been admitted as a slave state; but the North felt that this would have been to concede altogether too much, as Missouri from the first gave promise of being unusually important. At length, largely through the influence of Henry Clay, there was adopted a compromise whose main provisions were (1) that Maine was to be admitted as a free state; (2) that in Missouri there was to be no prohibition of slavery; but (3) that slavery was to be prohibited in any other states that might be formed out of the Louisiana Purchase north of the line of 36° 30'.
By this agreement the strife was allayed for some years; but it is now evident that the Missouri Compromise was only a postponement of the ultimate contest and that the social questions involved were hardly touched. Certainly the significance of the first clear drawing of the line between the sections was not lost upon thoughtful men. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1820: "This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in anypracticableway. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle that would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation andexpatriationcould be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be."87For the time being, however, the South was concerned mainly about immediate dangers; nor was this section placed more at ease by Denmark Vesey's attempted insurrection in 1822.88A representative South Carolinian,89writing after this event, said, "We regard our Negroes as theJacobinsof the country, against whom we should always be upon our guard, and who, although we fear no permanent effects from any insurrectionary movements on their part, should be watched with an eye of steady and unremitted observation." Meanwhile from a ratio of 43.72 to 56.28 in 1790 the total Negro population in South Carolina had by 1820 come to outnumber the white 52.77 to 47.23, and the tendency was increasingly in favor of the Negro. The South, the whole country in fact, was more and more being forced to consider not only slavery but the ultimate reaches of the problem.
Whatever one might think of the conclusion—and in this case the speaker was pleading for colonization—no statement of the problem as it impressed men about 1820 or 1830 was clearer than that of Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, at Albany in 1829.90The question, said he, was by no means local. Slavery was once legalized in New England; and New England built slave-ships and manned these with New England seamen. In 1820 the slave population in the country amounted to 1,500,000. The number doubled every twenty years, and it was easy to see how it would progress from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000; to 6,000,000; to 12,000,000; to 24,000,000. "Twenty-four millions of slaves! What a drawback from our strength; what a tax on our resources; what a hindrance to our growth; what a stain on our character; and what an impediment to the fulfillment of our destiny! Could our worst enemies or the worst enemies of republics, wish us a severer judgment?" How could one know that wakeful and sagacious enemies without would not discover the vulnerable point and use it for the country's overthrow? Or was there not danger that among a people goaded from age to age there might at length arise some second Toussaint L'Ouverture, who, reckless of consequences, would array a force and cause a movement throughout the zone of bondage, leaving behind him plantations waste and mansions desolate? Who could believe that such a tremendous physical force would remain forever spell-bound and quiescent? After all, however, slavery was doomed; public opinion had already pronounced upon it, and the moral energy of the nation would sooner or later effect its overthrow. "But," continued Nott, "the solemn question here arises—in what condition will this momentous change place us? The freed men of other countries have long since disappeared, having been amalgamated in the general mass. Here there can be no amalgamation. Our manumitted bondmen have remained already to the third and fourth, as they will to the thousandth generation—a distinct, a degraded, and a wretched race." After this sweeping statement, which has certainly not been justified by time, Nott proceeded to argue the expediency of his organization. Gerrit Smith, who later drifted away from colonization, said frankly on the same occasion that the ultimate solution was either amalgamation or colonization, and that of the two courses he preferred to choose the latter. Others felt as he did. We shall now accordingly proceed to consider at somewhat greater length the two solutions that about 1820 had the clearest advocates—Colonization and Slavery.
Early in 1773, Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, called on his friend, Rev. Ezra Stiles, afterwards President of Yale College, and suggested the possibility of educating Negro students, perhaps two at first, who would later go as missionaries to Africa. Stiles thought that for the plan to be worth while there should be a colony on the coast of Africa, that at least thirty or forty persons should go, and that the enterprise should not be private but should have the formal backing of a society organized for the purpose. In harmony with the original plan two young Negro men sailed from New York for Africa, November 12, 1774; but the Revolutionary War followed and nothing more was done at the time. In 1784, however, and again in 1787, Hopkins tried to induce different merchants to fit out a vessel to convey a few emigrants, and in the latter year he talked with a young man from the West Indies, Dr. William Thornton, who expressed a willingness to take charge of the company. The enterprise failed for lack of funds, though Thornton kept up his interest and afterwards became a member of the first Board of Managers of the American Colonization Society. Hopkins in 1791 spoke before the Connecticut Emancipation Society, which he wished to see incorporated as a colonization society, and in a sermon before the Providence society in 1793 he reverted to his favorite theme. Meanwhile, as a result of the efforts of Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Granville Sharp in England, in May, 1787, some four hundred Negroes and sixty white persons were landed at Sierra Leone. Some of the Negroes in England had gained their freedom in consequence of Lord Mansfield's decision in 1772, others had been discharged from the British Army after the American Revolution, and all were leading in England a more or less precarious existence. The sixty white persons sent along were abandoned women, and why Sierra Leone should have had this weight placed upon it at the start history has not yet told. It is not surprising to learn that "disease and disorder were rife, and by 1791 a mere handful survived."91As early as in hisNotes on Virginia, privately printed in 1781, Thomas Jefferson had suggested a colony for Negroes, perhaps in the new territory of Ohio. The suggestion was not acted upon, but it is evident that by 1800 several persons had thought of the possibility of removing the Negroes in the South to some other place either within or without the country.
Gabriel's insurrection in 1800 again forced the idea concretely forward. Virginia was visibly disturbed by this outbreak, andin secret session, on December 21, the House of Delegates passed the following resolution: "That the Governor92be requested to correspond with the President of the United States,93on the subject of purchasing land without the limits of this state, whither persons obnoxious to the laws, or dangerous to the peace of society may be removed." The real purpose of this resolution was to get rid of those Negroes who had had some part in the insurrection and had not been executed; but not in 1800, or in 1802 or 1804, was the General Assembly thus able to banish those whom it was afraid to hang. Monroe, however, acted in accordance with his instructions, and Jefferson replied to him under date November 24, 1801. He was not now favorable to deportation to some place within the United States, and thought that the West Indies, probably Santo Domingo, might be better. There was little real danger that the exiles would stimulate vindictive or predatory descents on the American coasts, and in any case such a possibility was "overweighed by the humanity of the measures proposed." "Africa would offer a last and undoubted resort," thought Jefferson, "if all others more desirable should fail."94Six months later, on July 13, 1802, the President wrote about the matter to Rufus King, then minister in London. The course of events in the West Indies, he said, had given an impulse to the minds of Negroes in the United States; there was a disposition to insurgency, and it now seemed that if there was to be colonization, Africa was by all means the best place. An African company might also engage in commercial operations, and if there was coöperation with Sierra Leone, there was the possibility of "one strong, rather than two weak colonies." Would King accordingly enter into conference with the English officials with reference to disposing of any Negroes who might be sent? "It is material to observe," remarked Jefferson, "that they are not felons, or common malefactors, but persons guilty of what the safety of society, under actual circumstances, obliges us to treat as a crime, but which their feelings may represent in a far different shape. They are such as will be a valuable acquisition to the settlement already existing there, and well calculated to coöperate in the plan of civilization."95King accordingly opened correspondence with Thornton and Wedderbourne, the secretaries of the company having charge of Sierra Leone, but was informed that the colony was in a languishing condition and that funds were likely to fail, and that in no event would they be willing to receive more people from the United States, as these were the very ones who had already made most trouble in the settlement.96On January 22, 1805, the General Assembly of Virginia passed a resolution that embodied a request to the United States Government to set aside a portion of territory in the new Louisiana Purchase "to be appropriated to the residence of such people of color as have been, or shall be, emancipated, or may hereafter become dangerous to the public safety." Nothing came of this. By the close then of Jefferson's second administration the Northwest, the Southwest, the West Indies, and Sierra Leone had all been thought of as possible fields for colonization, but from the consideration nothing visible had resulted.
Now followed the period of Southern expansion and of increasing materialism, and before long came the War of 1812. By 1811 a note of doubt had crept into Jefferson's dealing with the subject. Said he: "Nothing is more to be wished than that the United States would themselves undertake to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa ... But for this the national mind is not yet prepared. It may perhaps be doubted whether many of these people would voluntarily consent to such an exchange of situation, and very certain that few of those advanced to a certain age in habits of slavery, would be capable of self-government. This should not, however, discourage the experiment, nor the early trial of it; and the proposition should be made with all the prudent cautions and attentions requisite to reconcile it to the interests, the safety, and the prejudices of all parties."97
From an entirely different source, however, and prompted not by expediency but the purest altruism, came an impulse that finally told in the founding of Liberia. The heart of a young man reached out across the sea. Samuel J. Mills, an undergraduate of Williams College, in 1808 formed among his fellow-students a missionary society whose work later told in the formation of the American Bible Society and the Board of Foreign Missions. Mills continued his theological studies at Andover and then at Princeton; and while at the latter place he established a school for Negroes at Parsippany, thirty miles away. He also interested in his work and hopes Rev. Robert Finley, of Basking Ridge, N.J., who "succeeded in assembling at Princeton the first meeting ever called to consider the project of sending Negro colonists to Africa,"98and who in a letter to John P. Mumford, of New York, under date February 14, 1815, expressed his interest by saying, "We should send to Africa a population partly civilized and christianized for its benefit; and our blacks themselves would be put in a better condition."
In this same year, 1815, the country was startled by the unselfish enterprise of a Negro who had long thought of the unfortunate situation of his people in America and who himself shouldered the obligation to do something definite in their behalf. Paul Cuffe had been born in May, 1759, on one of the Elizabeth Islands near New Bedford, Mass., the son of a father who was once a slave from Africa and of an Indian mother.99Interested in navigation, he made voyages to Russia, England, Africa, the West Indies, and the South; and in time he commanded his own vessel, became generally respected, and by his wisdom rose to a fair degree of opulence. For twenty years he had thought especially about Africa, and in 1815 he took to Sierra Leone a total of nine families and thirty-eight persons at an expense to himself of nearly $4000. The people that he brought were well received at Sierra Leone, and Cuffe himself had greater and more far-reaching plans when he died September 7, 1817. He left an estate valued at $20,000.
Dr. Finley's meeting at Princeton was not very well attended and hence not a great success. Nevertheless he felt sufficiently encouraged to go to Washington in December, 1816, to use his effort for the formation of a national colonization society. It happened that in February of this same year, 1816, General Charles Fenton Mercer, member of the House of Delegates, came upon the secret journals of the legislature for the period 1801-5 and saw the correspondence between Monroe and Jefferson. Interested in the colonization project, on December 14 (Monroe then being President-elect) he presented in the House of Delegates resolutions embodying the previous enactments; and these passed 132 to 14. Finley was generally helped by the effort of Mercer, and on December 21, 1816, there was held in Washington a meeting of public men and interested citizens, Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, presiding. A constitution was adopted at an adjourned meeting on December 28; and on January 1, 1817, were formally chosen the officers of "The American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States." At this last meeting Henry Clay, again presiding, spoke in glowing terms of the possibilities of the movement; Elias B. Caldwell, a brother-in-law of Finley, made the leading argument; and John Randolph, of Roanoke, Va., and Robert Wright, of Maryland, spoke of the advantages to accrue from the removal of the free Negroes from the country (which remarks were very soon to awaken much discussion and criticism, especially on the part of the Negroes themselves). It is interesting to note that Mercer had no part at all in the meeting of January 1, not even being present; he did not feel that any but Southern men should be enrolled in the organization. However, Bushrod Washington, the president, was a Southern man; twelve of the seventeen vice-presidents were Southern men, among them being Andrew Jackson and William Crawford; and all of the twelve managers were slaveholders.
Membership in the American Colonization Society originally consisted, first, of such as sincerely desired to afford the free Negroes an asylum from oppression and who hoped through them to extend to Africa the blessings of civilization and Christianity; second, of such as sought to enhance the value of their own slaves by removing the free Negroes; and third, of such as desired to be relieved of any responsibility whatever for free Negroes. The movement was widely advertised as "an effort for the benefit of the blacks in which all parts of the country could unite," it being understood that it was "not to have the abolition of slavery for its immediate object," nor was it to "aim directly at the instruction of the great body of the blacks." Such points as the last were to prove in course of time hardly less than a direct challenge to the different abolitionist organizations in the North, and more and more the Society was denounced as a movement on the part of slaveholders for perpetuating their institutions by doing away with the free people of color. It is not to be supposed, however, that the South, with its usual religious fervor, did not put much genuine feeling into the colonization scheme. One man in Georgia named Tubman freed his slaves, thirty in all, and placed them in charge of the Society with a gift of $10,000; Thomas Hunt, a young Virginian, afterwards a chaplain in the Union Army, sent to Liberia the slaves he had inherited, paying the entire cost of the journey; and others acted in a similar spirit of benevolence. It was but natural, however, for the public to be somewhat uncertain as to the tendencies of the organization when the utterances of representative men were sometimes directly contradictory. On January 20, 1827, for instance, Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, speaking in the hall of the House of Representatives at the annual meeting of the Society, said: "Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites." Just a moment later he said: "Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary carrying with him credentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions." How persons contaminated and vicious could be missionaries of civilization and religion was something possible only in the logic of Henry Clay. In the course of the next month Robert Y. Hayne gave a Southern criticism in two addresses on a memorial presented in the United States Senate by the Colonization Society.100The first of these speeches was a clever one characterized by much wit and good-humored raillery; the second was a sober arraignment. Hayne emphasized the tremendous cost involved and the physical impossibility of the whole undertaking, estimating that at least sixty thousand persons a year would have to be transported to accomplish anything like the desired result. At the close of his brilliant attack, still making a veiled plea for the continuance of slavery, he nevertheless rose to genuine statesmanship in dealing with the problem of the Negro, saying, "While this process is going on the colored classes are gradually diffusing themselves throughout the country and are making steady advances in intelligence and refinement, and if half the zeal were displayed in bettering their condition that is now wasted in the vain and fruitless effort of sending them abroad, their intellectual and moral improvement would be steady and rapid." William Lloyd Garrison was untiring and merciless in flaying the inconsistencies and selfishness of the colonization organization. In an editorial in theLiberator, July 9, 1831, he charged the Society, first, with persecution in compelling free people to emigrate against their will and in discouraging their education at home; second, with falsehood in saying that the Negroes were natives of Africa when they were no more so than white Americans were natives of Great Britain; third, with cowardice in asserting that the continuance of the Negro population in the country involved dangers; and finally, with infidelity in denying that the Gospel has full power to reach the hatred in the hearts of men. InThoughts on African Colonisation(1832) he developed exhaustively ten points as follows: That the American Colonization Society was pledged not to oppose the system of slavery, that it apologized for slavery and slaveholders, that it recognized slaves as property, that by deporting Negroes it increased the value of slaves, that it was the enemy of immediate abolition, that it was nourished by fear and selfishness, that it aimed at the utter expulsion of the blacks, that it was the disparager of free Negroes, that it denied the possibility of elevating the black people of the country, and that it deceived and misled the nation. Other criticisms were numerous. A broadside, "The Shields of American Slavery" ("Broad enough to hide the wrongs of two millions of stolen men") placed side by side conflicting utterances of members of the Society; and in August, 1830, Kendall, fourth auditor, in his report to the Secretary of the Navy, wondered why the resources of the government should be used "to colonize recaptured Africans, to build homes for them, to furnish them with farming utensils, to pay instructors to teach them, to purchase ships for their convenience, to build forts for their protection, to supply them with arms and munitions of war, to enlist troops to guard them, and to employ the army and navy in their defense."101Criticism of the American Colonization Society was prompted by a variety of motives; but the organization made itself vulnerable at many points. The movement attracted extraordinary attention, but has had practically no effect whatever on the position of the Negro in the United States. Its work in connection with the founding of Liberia, however, is of the highest importance, and must later receive detailed attention.
We have seen that from the beginning there were liberal-minded men in the South who opposed the system of slavery, and if we actually take note of all the utterances of different men and of the proposals for doing away with the system, we shall find that about the turn of the century there was in this section considerable anti-slavery sentiment. Between 1800 and 1820, however, the opening of new lands in the Southwest, the increasing emphasis on cotton, and the rapidly growing Negro population, gave force to the argument of expediency; and the Missouri Compromise drew sharply the lines of the contest. The South now came to regard slavery as its peculiar heritage; public men were forced to defend the institution; and in general the best thought of the section began to be obsessed and dominated by the Negro, just as it is to-day in large measure. In taking this position the South deliberately committed intellectual suicide. In such matters as freedom of speech and literary achievement, and in genuine statesmanship if not for the time being in political influence, this part of the country declined, and before long the difference between it and New England was appalling. Calhoun and Hayne were strong; but between 1820 and 1860 the South had no names to compare with Longfellow and Emerson in literature, or with Morse and Hoe in invention. The foremost college professor, Dew, of William and Mary, and even the outstanding divines, Furman, the Baptist, of South Carolina, in the twenties, and Palmer, the Presbyterian of New Orleans, in the fifties, are all now remembered mainly because they defended their section in keeping the Negro in bonds. William and Mary College, and even the University of Virginia, as compared with Harvard and Yale, became provincial institutions; and instead of the Washington or Jefferson of an earlier day now began to be nourished such a leader as "Bob" Toombs, who for all of his fire and eloquence was a demagogue. In making its choice the South could not and did not blame the Negro per se, for it was freely recognized that upon slave labor rested such economic stability as the section possessed. The tragedy was simply that thousands of intelligent Americans deliberately turned their faces to the past, and preferred to read the novels of Walter Scott and live in the Middle Ages rather than study the French Revolution and live in the nineteenth century. One hundred years after we find that the chains are still forged, that thought is not yet free. Thus the Negro Problem began to be, and still is, very largely the problem of the white man of the South. The era of capitalism had not yet dawned, and still far in the future was the day when the poor white man and the Negro were slowly to realize that their interests were largely identical.
The argument with which the South came to support its position and to defend slavery need not here detain us at length. It was formally stated by Dew and others102and it was to be heard on every hand. One could hardly go to church, to say nothing of going to a public meeting, without hearing echoes of it. In general it was maintained that slavery had made for the civilization of the world in that it had mitigated the evils of war, had made labor profitable, had changed the nature of savages, and elevated woman. The slave-trade was of course horrible and unjust, but the great advantages of the system more than outweighed a few attendant evils. Emancipation and deportation were alike impossible. Even if practicable, they would not be expedient measures, for they meant the loss to Virginia of one-third of her property. As for morality, it was not to be expected that the Negro should have the sensibilities of the white man. Moreover the system had the advantage of cultivating a republican spirit among the white people. In short, said Dew, the slaves, in both the economic and the moral point of view, were "entirely unfit for a state of freedom among the whites." Holland, already cited, in 1822 maintained five points, as follows: 1. That the United States are one for national purposes, but separate for their internal regulation and government; 2. That the people of the North and East "always exhibited an unfriendly feeling on subjects affecting the interests of the South and West"; 3. That the institution of slavery was not an institution of the South's voluntary choosing; 4. That the Southern sections of the Union, both before and after the Declaration of Independence, "had uniformly exhibited a disposition to restrict the extension of the evil—and had always manifested as cordial a disposition to ameliorate it as those of the North and East"; and 5. That the actual state and condition of the slave population "reflected no disgrace whatever on the character of the country—as the slaves were infinitely better provided for than the laboring poor of other countries of the world, and were generally happier than millions of white people in the world." Such arguments the clergy supported and endeavored to reconcile with Christian precept. Rev. Dr. Richard Furman, president of the Baptist Convention of South Carolina,103after much inquiry and reasoning, arrived at the conclusion that "the holding of slaves is justifiable by the doctrine and example contained in Holy Writ; and is, therefore, consistent with Christian uprightness both in sentiment and conduct." Said he further: "The Christian golden rule, of doing to others as we would they should do to us, has been urged as an unanswerable argument against holding slaves. But surely this rule is never to be urged against that order of things which the Divine government has established; nor do our desires become a standard to us, under this rule, unless they have a due regard to justice, propriety, and the general good.... A father may very naturally desire that his son should be obedient to his orders: Is he therefore to obey the orders of his son? A man might be pleased to be exonerated from his debts by the generosity of his creditors; or that his rich neighbor should equally divide his property with him; and in certain circumstances might desire these to be done: Would the mere existence of this desire oblige him to exonerate his debtors, and to make such division of his property?" Calhoun in 1837 formally accepted slavery, saying that the South should no longer apologize for it; and the whole argument from the standpoint of expediency received eloquent expression in the Senate of the United States from no less a man than Henry Clay, who more and more appears in the perspective as a pro-Southern advocate. Said he: "I am no friend of slavery. But I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of any other people; and the liberty of my own race to that of any other race. The liberty of the descendants of Africa in the United States is incompatible with the safety and liberty of the European descendants. Their slavery forms an exception—an exception resulting from a stern and inexorable necessity—to the general liberty in the United States."104After the lapse of years the pro-slavery argument is pitiful in its numerous fallacies. It was in line with much of the discussion of the day that questioned whether the Negro was actually a human being, and but serves to show to what extremes economic interest will sometimes drive men otherwise of high intelligence and honor.
Footnote 86:(return)IV, Section 3.
Footnote 87:(return)Writings, XV, 249.
Footnote 88:(return)See Chapter VII, Section 1.
Footnote 89:(return)Holland:A Refutation of Calumnies, 61.
Footnote 90:(return)See "African Colonization. Proceedings of the Formation of the New York State Colonization Society." Albany, 1829.
Footnote 91:(return)McPherson, 15. (See bibliography on Liberia.)
Footnote 92:(return)Monroe.
Footnote 93:(return)Jefferson.
Footnote 94:(return)Writings, X, 297.
Footnote 95:(return)Writings, X, 327-328.
Footnote 96:(return)Ibid., XIII, 11.
Footnote 97:(return)Writings, XIII, 11.
Footnote 98:(return)McPherson, 18.
Footnote 99:(return)First Annual Report of American Colonization Society.
Footnote 100:(return)See Jervey:Robert Y. Hayne and His Times, 207-8.
Footnote 101:(return)Cited by McPherson, 22.
Footnote 102:(return)The Pro-Slavery Argument(as maintained by the most distinguished writers of the Southern states). Charleston, 1852.
Footnote 103:(return)"Rev. Dr. Richard Furman's Exposition of the Views of the Baptists relative to the Coloured Population in the United States, in a Communication to the Governor of South Carolina." Second edition, Charleston, 1833 (letter bears original date, December 24, 1822).
Footnote 104:(return)Address "On Abolition," February 7, 1839.
We have already seen that on several occasions in colonial times the Negroes in bondage made a bid for freedom, many men risking their all and losing their lives in consequence. In general these early attempts failed completely to realize their aim, organization being feeble and the leadership untrained and exerting only an emotional hold over adherents. In Charleston, S.C., in 1822, however, there was planned an insurrection about whose scope there could be no question. The leader, Denmark Vesey, is interesting as an intellectual insurrectionist just as the more famous Nat Turner is typical of the more fervent sort. It is the purpose of the present chapter to study the attempts for freedom made by these two men, and also those of two daring groups of captives who revolted at sea.
Denmark Vesey is first seen as one of the three hundred and ninety slaves on the ship of Captain Vesey, who commanded a vessel trading between St. Thomas and Cape François (Santo Domingo), and who was engaged in supplying the French of the latter place with slaves. At the time, the boy was fourteen years old, and of unusual personal beauty, alertness, and magnetism. He was shown considerable favoritism, and was called Télémaque (afterwards corrupted toTelmak, and then toDenmark). On his arrival at Cape François, Denmark was sold with others of the slaves to a planter who owned a considerable estate. On his next trip, however, Captain Vesey learned that the boy was to be returned to him as unsound and subject to epileptic fits. The laws of the place permitted the return of a slave in such a case, and while it has been thought that Denmark's fits may have been feigned in order that he might have some change of estate, there was quite enough proof in the matter to impress the king's physician. Captain Vesey never had reason to regret having to take the boy back. They made several voyages together, and Denmark served until 1800 as his faithful personal attendant. In this year the young man, now thirty-three years of age and living in Charleston, won $1,500 in an East Bay Street lottery, $600 of which he devoted immediately to the purchase of his freedom. The sum was much less than he was really worth, but Captain Vesey liked him and had no reason to drive a hard bargain with him.
In the early years of his full manhood accordingly Denmark Vesey found himself a free man in his own right and possessed of the means for a little real start in life. He improved his time and proceeded to win greater standing and recognition by regular and industrious work at his trade, that of a carpenter. Over the slaves he came to have unbounded influence. Among them, in accordance with the standards of the day, he had several wives and children (none of whom could he call his own), and he understood perfectly the fervor and faith and superstition of the Negroes with whom he had to deal. To his remarkable personal magnetism moreover he added just the strong passion and the domineering temper that were needed to make his conquest complete.
Thus for twenty years he worked on. He already knew French as well as English, but he now studied and reflected upon as wide a range of subjects as possible. It was not expected at the time that there would be religious classes or congregations of Negroes apart from the white people; but the law was not strictly observed, and for a number of years a Negro congregation had a church in Hampstead in the suburbs of Charleston. At the meetings here and elsewhere Vesey found his opportunity, and he drew interesting parallels between the experiences of the Jews and the Negroes. He would rebuke a companion on the street for bowing to a white person; and if such a man replied, "We are slaves," he would say, "You deserve to be." If the man then asked what he could do to better his condition, he would say, "Go and buy a spelling-book and read the fable of Hercules and the wagoner."105At the same time if he happened to engage in conversation with white people in the presence of Negroes, he would often take occasion to introduce some striking remark on slavery. He regularly held up to emulation the work of the Negroes of Santo Domingo; and either he or one of his chief lieutenants clandestinely sent a letter to the President of Santo Domingo to ask if the people there would help the Negroes of Charleston if the latter made an effort to free themselves.106About 1820 moreover, when he heard of the African Colonization scheme and the opportunity came to him to go, he put this by, waiting for something better. This was the period of the Missouri Compromise. Reports of the agitation and of the debates in Congress were eagerly scanned by those Negroes in Charleston who could read; rumor exaggerated them; and some of the more credulous of the slaves came to believe that the efforts of Northern friends had actually emancipated them and that they were being illegally held in bondage. Nor was the situation improved when the city marshal, John J. Lafar, on January 15, 1821, reminded those ministers or other persons who kept night and Sunday schools for Negroes that the law forbade the education of such persons and would have to be enforced. Meanwhile Vesey was very patient. After a few months, however, he ceased to work at his trade in order that all the more he might devote himself to the mission of his life. This was, as he conceived it, an insurrection that would do nothing less than totally annihilate the white population of Charleston.
In the prosecution of such a plan the greatest secrecy and faithfulness were of course necessary, and Vesey waited until about Christmas, 1821, to begin active recruiting. He first sounded Ned and Rolla Bennett, slaves of Governor Thomas Bennett, and then Peter Poyas and Jack Purcell. After Christmas he spoke to Gullah Jack and Monday Gell; and Lot Forrester and Frank Ferguson became his chief agents for the plantations outside of Charleston.107In the whole matter of the choice of his chief assistants he showed remarkable judgment of character. His penetration was almost uncanny. "Rolla was plausible, and possessed uncommon self-possession; bold and ardent, he was not to be deterred from his purpose by danger. Ned's appearance indicated that he was a man of firm nerves and desperate courage. Peter was intrepid and resolute, true to his engagements, and cautious in observing secrecy when it was necessary; he was not to be daunted or impeded by difficulties, and though confident of success, was careful in providing against any obstacles or casualties which might arise, and intent upon discovering every means which might be in their power if thought of beforehand. Gullah Jack was regarded as a sorcerer, and as such feared by the natives of Africa, who believe in witchcraft. He was not only considered invulnerable, but that he could make others so by his charms; and that he could and certainly would provide all his followers with arms.... His influence amongst the Africans was inconceivable. Monday was firm, resolute, discreet, and intelligent."108He was also daring and active, a harness-maker in the prime of life, and he could read and write with facility; but he was also the only man of prominence in the conspiracy whose courage failed him in court and who turned traitor. To these names must be added that of Batteau Bennett, who was only eighteen years old and who brought to the plan all the ardor and devotion of youth. In general Vesey sought to bring into the plan those Negroes, such as stevedores and mechanics, who worked away from home and who had some free time. He would not use men who were known to become intoxicated, and one talkative man named George he excluded from his meetings. Nor did he use women, not because he did not trust them, but because in case of mishap he wanted the children to be properly cared for. "Take care," said Peter Poyas, in speaking about the plan to one of the recruits, "and don't mention it to those waiting men who receive presents of old coats, etc., from their masters, or they'll betray us; I will speak to them."
With his lieutenants Vesey finally brought into the plan the Negroes for seventy or eighty miles around Charleston. The second Monday in July, 1822, or Sunday, July 14, was the time originally set for the attack. July was chosen because in midsummer many of the white people were away at different resorts; and Sunday received favorable consideration because on that day the slaves from the outlying plantations were frequently permitted to come to the city. Lists of the recruits were kept. Peter Poyas is said to have gathered as many as six hundred names, chiefly from that part of Charleston known as South Bay in which he lived; and it is a mark of his care and discretion that of all of those afterwards arrested and tried, not one belonged to his company. Monday Gell, who joined late and was very prudent, had forty-two names. All such lists, however, were in course of time destroyed. "During the period that these enlistments were carrying on, Vesey held frequent meetings of the conspirators at his house; and as arms were necessary to their success, each night a hat was handed round, and collections made, for the purpose of purchasing them, and also to defray other necessary expenses. A Negro who was a blacksmith and had been accustomed to make edged tools, was employed to make pike-heads and bayonets with sockets, to be fixed at the ends of long poles and used as pikes. Of these pike-heads and bayonets, one hundred were said to have been made at an early day, and by the 16th June as many as two or three hundred, and between three and four hundred daggers."109A bundle containing some of the poles, neatly trimmed and smoothed off, and nine or ten feet long, was afterwards found concealed on a farm on Charleston Neck, where several of the meetings were held, having been carried there to have the pike-heads and bayonets fixed in place. Governor Bennett stated that the number of poles thus found was thirteen, but so wary were the Negroes that he and other prominent men underestimated the means of attack. It was thought that the Negroes in Charleston might use their masters' arms, while those from the country were to bring hoes, hatchets, and axes. For their main supply of arms, however, Vesey and Peter Poyas depended upon the magazines and storehouses in the city. They planned to seize the Arsenal in Meeting Street opposite St. Michael's Church; it was the key to the city, held the arms of the state, and had for some time been neglected. Poyas at a given signal at midnight was to move upon this point, killing the sentinel. Two large gun and powder stores were by arrangement to be at the disposal of the insurrectionists; and other leaders, coming from six different directions, were to seize strategic points and thus aid the central work of Poyas. Meanwhile a body of horse was to keep the streets clear. "Eat only dry food," said Gullah Jack as the day approached, "parched corn and ground nuts, and when you join us as we pass put this crab claw in your mouth and you can't be wounded."
On May 25110a slave of Colonel Prioleau, while on an errand at the wharf, was accosted by another slave, William Paul, who remarked: "I have often seen a flag with the number 76, but never one with the number 96 upon it before." As this man showed no knowledge of what was going on, Paul spoke to him further and quite frankly about the plot. The slave afterwards spoke to a free man about what he had heard; this man advised him to tell his master about it; and so he did on Prioleau's return on May 30. Prioleau immediately informed the Intendant, or Mayor, and by five o'clock in the afternoon both the slave and Paul were being examined. Paul was placed in confinement, but not before his testimony had implicated Peter Poyas and Mingo Harth, a man who had been appointed to lead one of the companies of horse. Harth and Poyas were cool and collected, however, they ridiculed the whole idea, and the wardens, completely deceived, discharged them. In general at this time the authorities were careful and endeavored not to act hastily. About June 8, however, Paul, greatly excited and fearing execution, confessed that the plan was very extensive and said that it was led by an individual who bore a charmed life. Ned Bennett, hearing that his name had been mentioned, voluntarily went before the Intendant and asked to be examined, thus again completely baffling the officials. All the while, in the face of the greatest danger, Vesey continued to hold his meetings. By Friday, June 14, however, another informant had spoken to his master, and all too fully were Peter Poyas's fears about "waiting-men" justified. This man said that the original plan had been changed, for the night of Sunday, June 16, was now the time set for the insurrection, and otherwise he was able to give all essential information.111On Saturday night, June 15, Jesse Blackwood, an aid sent into the country to prepare the slaves to enter the following day, while he penetrated two lines of guards, was at the third line halted and sent back into the city. Vesey now realized in a moment that all his plans were disclosed, and immediately he destroyed any papers that might prove to be incriminating. "On Sunday, June 16, at ten o'clock at night, Captain Cattle's Corps of Hussars, Captain Miller's Light Infantry, Captain Martindale's Neck Rangers, the Charleston Riflemen and the City Guard were ordered to rendezvous for guard, the whole organized as a detachment under command of Colonel R.Y. Hayne."112It was his work on this occasion that gave Hayne that appeal to the public which was later to help him to pass on to the governorship and then to the United States Senate. On the fateful night twenty or thirty men from the outlying districts who had not been able to get word of the progress of events, came to the city in a small boat, but Vesey sent word to them to go back as quickly as possible.