Folch Leaves West Florida—His Successors—War of 1812—Tecumseh’s Visit to the Seminoles and Creeks—Consequences—Fort Mims—Percy and Nicholls’ Expedition.
In October, 1809, Folch left Pensacola to fill the appointment of Governor of the country west of the Perdido, the capital of which was Mobile. The uneventful period, for Pensacola at least, between that year and 1813, was marked only by the incoming and outgoing of governors. Folch’s successor was his son-in-law, Don Francisco Maximiliano de Saint Maxent, under an ad interim appointment. In July 1812, he was succeeded by Mauricio Zuniga, who in May, 1813, gave place to Mateo Gurzalez Maurique, whose administration covered the period of the war between the United States and Great Britain, which was declared by the former, on June 18, 1812.
That Pensacola should have been involved in that struggle would seem to be out of the natural order of events, when it is remembered that Spain and the United States were at peace. But, as before intimated, there existed a covert hostility on the part of the Spanish officials at Pensacola against the Americans, growing out of the dispute as to the limits of West Florida; and now intensified by the capture of Mobile on April 13, 1813, by an expedition from New Orleans, under the command of General Wilkinson. Spain herself was too much absorbed by her struggle for existence to take any active interest in a question of boundary in the new world. But the British, who were her allies in her war with the French, availed themselves of that official hostility to induce the Spaniards at Pensacola to permit them to make that place a base from which the Indians could be furnished with supplies to wage war on the United States.
After the capture of Detroit, in August, 1812, the British formed the scheme of combining the Indians on the western frontier of the United States in a line of warfare extending from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. As their chief emissary to accomplish that end, they employed Tecumseh, the great Shawnee Chief, who in the fall of that year made his appearance amongst the Seminoles and Creeks. He at once began the work of exciting their hostility against the Americans, by every argument, art, and device which his own savage shrewdness could suggest, or the deliberate calculations of his British allies prompt. He addressed the Creek assemblies with the burning words of an impassioned oratory, to which his stately form and commanding presence gave additional force. He upbraided their disposition to adopt the speech, the dress, and habits of the white man, instead of cleaving to those of their forefathers. He persuaded them that it was degrading to an Indian warrior to follow the plow, or to rely upon cattle and the fruits of the field for sustenance; that it was decreed by the Great Spirit that the country should go back to the forest, and that the Indian should depend upon the chase for his food, as his forefathers had done. An invidious contrast was drawn between the disinterested friendship of the British, who had no occasion or use for their lands, and the cupidity of the Americans who were annually restricting their hunting grounds by their ever extending settlements. Superstition, and necromancy, too, were successfully employed to enforce his teachings. Some of the wavering, like Francis, afterwards known as the prophet, were induced to submit to days of seclusion and fasting, in houses from which the light was excluded, until darkness, spells, and incantations, acting upon bodies enfeebled by hunger, inspired faith in the mission of the great Shawnee. A comet, which appeared in the last days of September of that year, was pointed to as a sign placed in the heavens by the Great Spirit, as a presage of wrath and destruction to the white man, and a promise of redemption to the Indian.
He had the temerity, even, to foretell a great natural phenomenon of which he was to be the proximate cause, as an evidence his mission was inspired. “When I reach Detroit I shall stamp my foot, and the earth will tremble and rock.” And strange to relate, at about the lapse of time the journey would consume, an earthquake was felt throughout the Creek country, when from all sides came the cry of the awe-stricken Indians: “Tecumseh has reached Detroit and stamped his foot.”[51]
His mission divided the Creeks into two parties, of which by far the most numerous and warlike, was that which yielded to his seductions. To each of his converts he gave a red stick as an emblem of war, and hence the hostile Creeks became known as “Red Sticks.”
He had hardly returned to Detroit, when there came to Pensacola British agents, bringing with them military supplies for distribution amongst the Red Sticks, to whose bloody instincts was applied the stimulus of a bounty of five dollars for every American scalp.
That Pensacola should be the Creek base of supply, was in accordance with the plan of warfare designed by the British at Detroit, and a fulfillment of Tecumseh’s promised assistance to their savage allies. After the arrival there of the British agents and their stores, the Red Sticks lost no time in procuring from them the needed supplies for the war to which they had pledged themselves. From all parts of the Creek country the hostiles were seen hurrying to Pensacola, and returning with arms and ammunition, without hindrance from the Spanish officials.
The first startling result of the alliance between the British and Indians, was the massacre of Fort Mims, which occurred in August, 1813, an event that sent a thrill of horror through every American heart.
The fort was situated on Lake Tensas, a mile east of the Alabama river. It consisted of a stockade enclosing about an acre, with a blockhouse in one of its angles. In the center of it stood the residence of Samuel Mims, for whom it was named. It had been hastily constructed, as a refuge for the people of the neighborhood, in anticipation of an extended war, rendered imminent by encounters that had taken place between small parties of Indians and whites. In July, there entered the stockade five hundred and fifty-three souls, composed of soldiers, other men, women and children. Owing to the ill chosen site, situated as it was in a hammock, and the negligence of those in command, the place was surprised at midday on August 30, by one thousand Creek Indians under William Weatherford and Francis, who rushed in at the open gate, which had been heedlessly left unclosed. But few of those in the Fort escaped. All the dead were scalped, except those who were saved from that outrage, by undergoing the process of cremation in the buildings in which they had taken refuge, and which were fired by the enemy to overcome their defenders. Their bloody work finished, the Indians rested and feasted, at the scene of the massacre, smoking their pipes, and trimming and drying the scalps they had taken. Afterwards, these horrid trophies of victory, strung on sticks, were taken to the British agents at Pensacola, who paid for them the promised bounty.
It is due to William Weatherford, who was a son of a half-sister of Alexander McGillivray, that, it should be mentioned, at the peril of his own life, he interfered to save the women and children. Failing in his merciful efforts, he refused to witness their massacre, and left the bloody scene.
Not content with making Pensacola a base for inciting the Indians to hostilities against the United States, in 1814, there came into the harbor a British fleet, with a body of marines, the former under the command of Captain William Henry Percy, and the later under that of Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Nicholls, for the purpose of taking possession of its fortifications. This the imbecile Maurique permitted them to do. Fort George, which had been named St. Michael by the Spaniards, resumed its English name, and received a British garrison, whilst the flag of St. George once again floated from its ramparts. Fort San Carlos and the battery on Santa Rosa Island were also turned over to the British. And at the same time, the Governor’s house was made the headquarters of Percy and Nicholls.
The fleet consisted of two ships, each of twenty-four guns, and two brigs, each of eighteen guns, with three tenders. The marines numbered two to three hundred men.
Nicholls at once began to increase his force by enlisting Indians, whom he supplied with British uniforms, and drilled in the streets of Pensacola.
Thus reads his order of the day, twenty-sixth of August 1814. “The noble Spanish nation has grieved to see her territories insulted, having been robbed and despoiled of a portion of them while she was overwhelmed with distress, and held down by the chains which a tyrant had imposed on her gloriously struggling for the greatest of all blessings (true liberty). The treacherous Americans, who call themselves free, have attacked her like assassins while she was fallen. But the day of retribution is fast approaching.... As to the Indians, you are to exhibit to them the most exact discipline, being patterns to these children of nature. You will teach and instruct them, in doing which you will manifest the utmost patience, and you will correct them when they deserve it.”
Percy in a communication to Lafitte, the commander of the Barrataria pirates, says: “As France and England are now friends, I call on you with your brave followers to enter into the service of Great Britain, in which you shall have the rank of Captain.”
Nicholls likewise issued a proclamation to the people of Louisiana and Kentucky, inviting them to join the British. To the latter he addressed himself specially as follows: “Inhabitants of Kentucky, you have too long borne with grievous impositions. The whole brunt of the war has fallen on your brave sons. Be imposed upon no more. Either range yourselves under the standard of your forefathers, or observe a strict neutrality.”[52]
And as an additional stimulus to the activity and zeal of the Indians, the bounty on American scalps was raised from five to ten dollars.[53]
