Читать книгу Black Creek - Paul Varnes - Страница 7

When Ma saw it was Pa and me returning from the raid, she leaned the musket she was holding against the cabin and stood in the yard while we got the horses and cattle we had brought into pens. Asa, age thirteen, and George, age ten, ran to open and close the pole gates to the pens. Samuel, age six, was with Ma. He was jumping up and down and clapping.

As soon as I swung down from my mare, Ma grabbed and hugged me. The kids also gathered around.

I said, “You all best go take on about Pa. He’s the one who always carries the heavy load around here.”

Using Ma’s name for me, Pa said, “I. J. more than carried his end of the load on this trip. He’ll have lots of tales for you kids.”

Ma said, “That talk can wait. I’ll have the food on the table in a few minutes. You two wash up.”

But the tales couldn’t wait. The kids were dying to know everything. They were asking new questions even before I could start to answer the previous ones. After twenty minutes Ma called us in to eat. When the evening chores were done, the questions and tales started again. We were up that night until almost ten.

Pa then said, “Boys, there’s work to do tomorrow and we’re behind schedule. Everyone get to bed.”

Still, Asa and I whispered in the bed until we went to sleep.

The next two months were quiet compared to our trip to Florida. There’s always enough work to keep everyone busy on a farm, but it being July and August, the farm work slowed some. We then took some time for fishing. Additionally, Pa did some survey work and some property trading. He had some kind of deal going about property all the time.

Pa couldn’t read much English and was only fair with German. There wasn’t much call for reading German in Camden County, Georgia, then. Actually, there wasn’t much call for reading English either. Ma did most of the paperwork for Pa, or he hired it done. Pa was mighty sharp with numbers though, in English and German. I don’t recall anyone ever getting the best of Pa where numbers were concerned.

There was no school to go to and we didn’t have much time for it. Ma taught us about reading English from the Bible, and taught us to write some, too. There wasn’t much to read but the Bible and property-related records. Ma did have a couple of books of her own; one of which only had poetry in it. She let us kids read those books as long as we were careful with them. Ma also encouraged us to read anything else she got her hands on. Due to Pa’s efforts, we also learned to do numbers, using German and English. Since 1776, English was the official language in the United States. Before 1776 almost as many people in the United States spoke German as spoke English. Many of the people in South Carolina, where Pa moved to Georgia from, spoke mostly German.

Pa also taught us lots of other things. He seemed to know everything there was about living in the woods and using the things nature provided. There wasn’t an animal that Pa didn’t know everything about: what it ate, where it slept, its mating habits, the kinds of tracks it left, the kinds of calls it made, and any other peculiarity. An example of the kinds of things Pa knew happened when I was ten years old. It was a dry night, so we had been sleeping without a shelter while away from the house on a hunt. I awoke that morning to Pa’s gentle, but firm, voice.

Pa was saying, “Boy, I want you to remain perfectly still when you wake up. Don’t move a muscle.”

Opening my eyes, I looked at him without otherwise moving. He was sitting in his sleeping roll, a musket in his hands, and was staring just inches over me.

Seeing I was awake, Pa said, “Don’t move a muscle until I say, ‘now.’ Then, roll toward me as quick as you can.”

I said, “What is it, Pa.?”

“A snake. Get yourself ready to move quickly. Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

Pa then tossed his hat over me toward the snake and said, “Now.”

When I had rolled clear, Pa shot the head off the rattler.

Later, when things had settled down a little, I said, “Pa, why did you throw your hat at the snake? Why didn’t you just shoot it?”

He said, “I didn’t throw it at the snake. I threw it beyond the snake. The rattler was coiled, had his head up, and was staring at you. When I threw the hat past the snake, he turned to stare at the hat. That’s just an old trick to freeze a snake in place. He would probably have stayed still, staring at that hat, for a half-hour if you hadn’t moved and I hadn’t shot him. If you had moved while he was staring at you, he might have struck. I didn’t shoot before you rolled over because I would have been shooting only an inch or so above you.”

Even as we were having a peaceful summer, trouble was still brewing between the white Americans and the blacks and Indians. There were continuing small raids by the Indians and free blacks and return raids by the whites. Also, many of the raids by whites were not return raids; they were raids to steal something. Food, slaves, and animals were stolen and carried off by both sides. Adding to the distrust of the Indians, General Gaines had decided that the Indians in Florida were holding a large number of runaway slaves. He sent a message to the Indians seeking permission to enter their lands and kill or capture the slaves. Gaines also charged the Indians with several murders and demanded they deliver the guilty parties to him for justice.

The Indians blamed the whites for the troubles, saying the whites sold them slaves and then claimed them back as runaways. Indian leaders Peter McCloud and Chief Kinuche sent the general a message that the Indians would kill, or drive out with force, anyone trespassing on their lands. Those particular Indians had been neutral up to that point so their announcement presented a new problem. Since those Indian tribes were thought to have almost three thousand fighters, counting runaway and free blacks, it was a serious threat. Though many blacks were then slaves to the Indians, the blacks fought on the Indians’ side to keep from having to return to their white masters.

General Gaines then announced that he would enter Spanish territory to gather all the slaves and return them to Georgia. Major D. E. Twiggs, the commander of Fort Scott, said about that time that he had been ordered by Neamathla not to cross the Flint River or his men would all be killed.

While this was going on, we were busy with our fall planting. Duties with these activities carried us on into the winter. Once the first cold spell hit, we set our trap lines and began tending them. Raccoon and fox hides, bringing ten to fifteen cents each, were valuable once the animals had acquired their winter coats.

While we were tending trap lines, General Gaines ordered Major Twiggs to attack Fowltown, the Indian village of which Neamathla was chief. Fowltown was located on American treaty land, about fifteen miles south of Fort Scott and the same distance north of Tallahassee, Florida. The Indians living there were trespassing. Twiggs carried out the attack in November with over 250 men. They only killed five Indians. The others escaped. Though the fighting had been going on for several years, that battle is considered by some to be the initial battle of the First Seminole War.

The Indians immediately set out to get revenge in any way they could. Some small parties raided farms and plantations in Georgia. Their most effective strategy in getting revenge was to line the banks of the Apalachicola River with warriors and shoot at passing boats. In addition to killing a number of Americans, this also caused the boat traffic to stop. Because its inhabitants depended on the boats for provisions, it was feared that Fort Scott would have to be abandoned.

The War Department then ordered General Andrew Jackson to raise an army and go to the relief of Fort Scott. Jackson gathered a few hundred volunteers and regular soldiers from Tennessee and Kentucky and marched his force toward Georgia.

On February 26, 1818, Jacob Hunter brought word that Andrew Jackson, with several hundred men, was en route from Tennessee to Fort Scott. Jacob was the same Sergeant Hunter who had served with Major Bailey.

Later, Pa called the family together and said, “Tomorrow, I. J. and I are leaving to help General Jackson in an attack on the Indians in west Florida. We might be gone for some time. I know you’ll be all right. Asa is fourteen now and George is eleven. Just like you,” he was looking at Ma, “they can shoot as good as most. Samuel knows how to load for you if necessary. If we put pressure on the hostiles there, it should be safe here.”

Turning to the boys, he said, “Asa, George, your ma’s going to have another baby in a few months. I don’t want her to have to do any heavy lifting. You boys know what to do without being told. I want you to start the plowing tomorrow, and start planting on March fifteenth. God willing, we’ll be back to help with the harvest before the end of May.”

There wasn’t any further discussion about it and Ma started gathering up some food for us to carry. Our guns and other things were always ready for instant use so we didn’t have anything to do but put some things on a packhorse and go. Riding northwest on our Spanish mares the next morning, and leading a packhorse, we planned to stop off at Jacob Hunter’s place and get him. Riding northwest would also take us around the Georgia side of the Okefenokee Swamp. That was the shortest way around it going west. Also, going south around the swamp would have taken us through Florida and we probably would have encountered Indians.

As we traveled, three other volunteers soon joined us. Further west we joined with another group of five, thus making eleven of us. Covering the 240 miles to Fort Scott in nine days, we arrived one day ahead of General Jackson and the thousand men he had gathered.

Jacob Hunter, having been a sergeant, and Pa, being a natural scout, organized us. It’s a good thing they did because as we approached the fort, they decided to hold everyone up in a small covered area and do some scouting. We soon found sign of Indians. Shortly thereafter we discovered a party of thirty Indians. Had we stumbled into them, some of us would have been goners. We were on the east side of the Flint River, as were the Indians. The fort was on the west side.

After watching them for a short time, Pa said, “They’re waiting for something. It might be for dark or it might be for others to join them.”

Arriving back where our fellow volunteers waited, Pa said, “We best go upriver for a mile or so and cross. There’s thirty Indians laying up on this side of the river and waiting for something.”

One mile upstream, we were almost all the way across the river when we came under fire from the riverbank behind us. There wasn’t much damage, the Indians were doing their shooting with short barrel muskets. They were almost out of range with those weapons. As soon as we were on the west side of the river, and under the cover of trees, we returned fire with our long rifles. It looked like we hit a couple of the hostiles and they withdrew. We then turned downriver and soon arrived at the fort. We had to have one animal and one man treated for superficial pellet wounds. The pellets were removed. The distance had been so great that the pellets from the muskets hardly penetrated.

The people at the fort were extremely short on food. Leading three pack animals laden with considerable corn and dry beans and most of a deer we had killed that day, we were warmly greeted by Major Twigg.

When Sergeant Hunter explained the cause of the shooting, which had been heard at the fort, Major Twigg said, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen men fight their way into a fort. We certainly are proud you’re here, though. We were about out of food. We can also use the additional guns in case of an attack.”

An attack was not to come that night, however. The next day General Jackson and his men arrived. While they had seen sign, they had not encountered any hostiles. The Red Sticks had fled into the swamps before such a large force as Jackson had. Along with his white American troops, Jackson had several hundred Lower Creek Indians with him to fight against the Upper Creeks, or Red Sticks. Within days, several hundred additional Georgia militia also arrived.

From Fort Scott we moved down the Apalachicola River to the site of Negro Fort, which had been destroyed. Pa and I were asked to accompany the Lower Creeks of Jackson’s army. Sergeant Hunter and the other eight men were assigned to a unit with Jackson. Pa was one of the best trackers anywhere and was also able to speak some Muskogee—a language common to the Indians in the southeastern United States. I think the general wanted assurance that the Lower Creeks gave him correct information. The general need not have worried because the Lower and Upper Creeks were mortal enemies. On more than one occasion I witnessed the Lower Creeks with us flush two or three Upper Creeks from hiding and kill them.

Once at the site of the destroyed Negro Fort, General Jackson ordered his engineer to build a new fort. As more volunteers from Tennessee and Georgia and over a thousand more Lower Creek Indians arrived, Jackson’s army grew to 3,500 men. Fifteen hundred of them were Lower Creek Indians. William McIntosh, half Scot and half Indian, was the leader of the 1,500 Lower Creeks. In addition to being a chief, he was made a brigadier general by the United States government.

While most of General Jackson’s men worked on the fort, and waited at it for food to arrive by boat, McIntosh and our friendly Creeks crossed the Apalachicola and raided Red Stick camps and towns on the west side of the river. The Upper Creeks were called Red Sticks because they carried a red stick for religious purposes. That also made it easy to tell which tribe was which. Pa and I went with them on those raids. We killed or captured almost three hundred Red Sticks. The captives were mostly women and children. Our Creek friends kept most of the women and children. We also took a large supply of corn and other food from the Indian camps and towns. Corn was badly needed as food for man and horse.

Ever since Pa brought my Spanish mare home I had been teaching her tricks that I had seen other horses and riders do on occasion. She also did the normal things that most good saddle horses do. Using only foot and knee pressure, I could have her back up, go forward, turn, stop, or travel at any gait. I had also taught her to lift a hoof for me to look at without me holding it. She would bow on command while I was standing in front of her or while I was in the saddle. It was while I was in the saddle and having her bow that, by accident, I caused her to lie down the first time. While bowing, she would lower her head and lift her right front hoof and tuck it under her. It was while she was in that position one day that a wasp stung me on the left arm. A reflex jerk on the reins in my left hand caused her to tip over to the right and lie down on her right side. Kicking my right foot from the stirrup to keep it from being broken, I also slid forward on her neck and head to avoid possibly getting crushed by her body. There she was, lying on her side with me lying on her neck and head. I don’t know which of us was most surprised or frightened. In a few seconds she quieted down. Even after I got off of her neck, she remained quietly on the ground until I pulled on her reins to get her up. After a few minutes, I got up enough nerve to try it again. Though her fall was more controlled, she responded in the same way. From then on, I would cause her to lie down a couple of times each time we were riding alone. She soon got to where she was under full control as she went down. The mare seemed to like this new trick.

Not knowing what he would say about it, I never showed Pa that trick. It was while we were on one of those raids west of the Apalachicola River that he first saw it. In fact, it was performed in front of thirty of our Lower Creek Indian friends. While scouting, I was three hundred yards in front of, but still in visual contact with, Pa and our band of thirty Indians. I had dismounted and was leading my mare to give her a breather. That’s something we did for ten minutes of every hour to rest the horses. As I was going between two ponds thick with tall gallberry and palmetto bushes, I spotted a band of fifteen Red Stick Creek warriors. Because I was dismounted and because the gallberry and palmetto bushes were pretty tall, they hadn’t spotted me or my horse. They did, however, have an angle on me such that I was cut off from my group. If I ran for it, they could cut me off from my group and might be able to get me. If I tried to go straight back to my group, they would surely kill or capture me. Lifting a hand to Pa, I made a circle with it and pointed toward the Red Sticks. That was our signal we had seen something. I then raised a fist three times, letting Pa know there were fifteen of them. The Red Sticks and the members of our group were not visible to each other because of the thick vegetation around the ponds. Pa acknowledged my signal. My job done, I then moved to take care of myself. Stepping in front of my mare, I signaled her to bow. I then jerked lightly with her left rein across her face to signal her to lie down. Certain that I had not been seen, I dropped across her neck and stroked her head.

Having been warned, and having twice the number of warriors the Red Sticks had, Pa’s group had the advantage. As the fight started, I could tell the location of both parties by the sounds of gunfire and running horses. Pa’s group wasn’t fifty yards from me when I slid off my mare’s neck and pulled on her reins. I then stuck my right foot over her back and was in the saddle as she came to her feet. I was right in the thick of the fight when my mare gained her footing. With a loaded rifle and musket, I was a welcome addition. The surviving Red Sticks were soon at full flight.

After our party was reassembled, Pa said, “What happened? I thought your mare stepped in a hole or something. Her foot seems okay now.”

I said, “She’s fine, Pa. I found out some time back how to make her lie down. We just did it as a stunt when we were alone. I never thought it might have a use. The mare just saved my life by lying still.”

Back at the fort I was asked to demonstrate to those Indians who were with me how I got my horse to lie down. As the word got around about the incident, there were others, Indian and white, who wanted me to show them how to make their horse lie down. There were varying degrees of success by the warriors in teaching their horses the trick. Very few horses learned to lie down on command as quickly as my mare had. My mare became so famous that it would have been impossible for anyone to steal her. She would have been recognized anywhere. I soon started working with Pa’s mare to teach her to lie down.

Going to war isn’t all about fighting. There were lots of boring times between battles when we were looking for something to do. Teaching stunts to horses and showing off on horseback became one of the chief pastimes around the camp. It was amazing how many stunts some of the Indian ponies could do. I soon had my mare and Pa’s doing many of those stunts.

After the fort was completed and food arrived, Jackson ordered his ships to blockade St. Marks and kill or capture any Indians they came across. He then turned his army loose on the towns and villages to the east around Lake Miccosukee. It was estimated that 1,500 Indians—men, women, and children—lived in that area. Accompanied by Pa, a white regiment, and me, General McIntosh and his 1,500 warriors swept through the area. In addition to killing those warriors we could corner, we seized everything we could use. Everything else was destroyed. In village after village we encountered little resistance. Sometimes we would be shot at from heavy cover. The attackers would then run. The size of our force was overpowering. Frequently, only empty villages awaited us. After taking what was useful, we then burned the villages. In most cases the villagers left in such a hurry that they left behind most of their food and other belongings.

One of the villages destroyed was that of a Red Stick chief named Peter McQueen. In that attack, over a hundred prisoners were taken—mostly women and children. As Pa and I rode past one small group of prisoners, I had an uneasy feeling and glanced about. Seeing an Indian boy who was standing and staring at me, I stopped my horse. Pa stopped, too. I said, “Pa, it’s the same boy I let go last June.”

Pa said, “It sure is. He’s over a hundred miles west of where we last saw him.”

I said, “We are too, Pa.”

The boy and I looked at each other for half a minute. Neither of us smiled. I then raised my hand to him and he raised his hand in return.

Turning to Pa, I said, “Pa, we need to let him go and I haven’t learned enough Muskogee yet to explain it to our Indian friends.”

Pa then spoke to a nearby friendly Indian who returned his conversation in Muskogee.

Pa then said to me, “All of this little group is to be let go. That’s why they’re separated from the others. There’s no point in looking a gift horse in the mouth so I didn’t ask why they’re to be let go.”

Still not knowing his name, I looked back at Osceola. I thought of speaking to him, but I didn’t know what to say or enough of his language to do a good job of it. I didn’t know at the time that his pa was a half-Scot who had taught him English. Pa then heeled his mare and moved on. Raising my hand to the boy, I also rode on. The Indian boy once again raised his hand. Otherwise he didn’t move. I was then seventeen. I was later to learn that Osceola was fifteen at that time. I was also to learn he had come to Florida with Peter McQueen’s band when they were driven out of Alabama and Georgia.

In the meantime Jackson’s white soldiers were crushing the other Seminole towns. Outnumbered by almost ten to one in most cases, the Indians put up little resistance. Jackson’s troops burned town after town, took thousands of cattle, and took the Indians’ supplies of corn, rice, beans, pumpkins, and other food. The Indians mostly vanished into the swamps.

Jackson then turned his army toward St. Marks and took the fort without a fight. The Spanish commander of the fort only protested.

Bowlegs’ town on the Suwannee River, the black community on the Suwannee, and Arbuthnot’s ship were the next victims of Jackson’s attacks. Arbuthnot sold guns, ammunition, and cloth to the Indians from his ship, which was anchored in the Suwannee. He had done so for some time.

In the meantime, the friendly Indian army Pa and I were with turned toward the Suwannee to meet General Jackson for the attack there. As we approached the Suwannee, survivors from the towns we had ransacked arrived there and told what had happened to their towns and property. These people convinced those along the Suwannee of the danger they were in. Not knowing they were alerted, Jackson marched his men as fast as possible hoping to find and engage the enemy before they were alerted. Jackson wanted to end the war with one major attack. We needed to engage the enemy well before dark in order to have adequate time to finish our work before they could use the cover of night to escape. With the Lower Creek warriors, we arrived in advance of Jackson’s white force.

Recognizing the futility of the situation, Chief Bowlegs’ tribe disappeared into the swamp east of the river. His village was on the east side of the river so it was just a matter of them pulling out and vanishing into the swamp. The blacks, whose houses lined the west side of the river—the same side we were approaching from—set up a blocking force to stop us. They also started moving their families across the river. We arrived at that time. About four hundred black fighters and some Indians who stayed behind to help them held us off for the hour or so until dark.

Since Jackson’s white force had not yet arrived, our Lower Creek Indian friends did most of the fighting against the black force holding the riverbank. Being there, and participating, I can tell you the fighting was not very ferocious. The blacks were dug in and our Indians never made an open charge. If they had, they would have overpowered and killed most of the blacks. A couple of hundred Lower Creeks might have also been killed if we had made an open daylight charge.

The way it happened was that we set up behind trees and logs and shot at the blacks with our long rifles. Armed only with short-barreled muskets, that’s what they shot at us with. We were almost out of range of their muskets but were plenty close enough to be effective with the few long rifles among our force. Still, the blacks mostly kept their heads down and we didn’t hit very many.

I can’t fault the Indians for the way they fought. It was just their style to lay up behind trees. Pa and I were both happy with that. Neither of us wanted to lead a charge into the muzzles of over four hundred guns behind breastworks.

As soon as it was dark enough not to be committing suicide, we advanced. The instant we got within range of their muskets, we made a charge. The blacks chose that same time to make a break for the river and try to cross it. Most of them escaped across the river or drowned in it. If we had arrived at the settlement a few hours earlier, we would have had time to cross the river at another place and box them in. As it was, the attack might have cost the defenders a third of their fighters. It couldn’t be determined for sure because most of their fallen died in the river and were never seen again. Only a dozen of the blacks were found dead in their fixed positions. We had no dead among our fighters and only a few slight wounds.

Taking advantage of the deserted houses, we camped at the site for several days. While camped there we scavenged the surrounding area for food and searched for those who might not have yet gotten out of the area. Our Indian friends killed or captured a few of the blacks and Seminoles we found in the swamps during those days. Two white men were captured: the trader named Arbuthnot, who sold arms to the Indians, and a man named Ambrister, a British subject who had been training the black people for war. Jackson took them to St. Marks where they were court-martialed, sentenced to death, and executed.

Jackson then moved on to Pensacola where it was said the Spanish were outfitting several hundred Indians so they could raid into the United States. After taking over Pensacola, Jackson then put the fort under siege. Following a brief fight, the Spanish garrison at Pensacola surrendered; thus ended the First Seminole War. It did not end the raiding and fighting, however—raiding by all parties continued at a diminished rate.

Pa and I didn’t go to Pensacola. The two of us, along with the several hundred volunteers from Georgia, headed for home. We were dismissed because we were no longer needed. At the same time Jackson also dismissed the Lower Creeks who were fighting with him.

Once their towns were destroyed, the Red Stick Creeks and Miccosukees, except for roving bands, were driven from west Florida. We were to find that our position in southeast Georgia was no safer than it had been. In fact it was less safe. Except for raiding, scavenging, and pillaging east of the Suwannee for a few miles, what is officially called the First Seminole War had taken place between the Suwannee River and Pensacola. Only three hundred or so of the Red Stick and Miccosukees warriors were killed. Most just migrated east. We then had to contend with them at home because more of them were situated closer to our house than before. Also, many of the captive Indian boys had been released. Like me, they would soon be full-grown.