Florida:

U.S. Territory and State

1821-1861

Part Five

Fort Stansbury looked as many Florida forts during the Seminole War looked

Second Seminole War – Fort Stansbury and the “Ochlocknee Indians”

         In the 1830s, while St. Marks and Magnolia were booming, and small communities in the central and western areas of present-day Wakulla County were coming along, such as Greenough along the western bank of the Sopchoppy River, hostilities between the Seminoles and Americans escalated. Throughout the Territory of Florida, one of the biggest issues to white Floridians were the Seminoles. Governor Duval insisted that the 5,000 or so Seminoles living in villages along the Apalachicola and Suwannee Rivers, in Alachua and near Tallahassee, evacuate the territory, but their leaders refused to leave. The Seminole and the American settlers sometimes had violent run-ins with each other. White settlers sent angry letters to the government in Tallahassee calling for the removal of the “savages.” In turn, Seminole leaders also sent letters to Tallahassee asking for protection from the whites and accused Americans of stealing Seminole cattle and kidnapping Black Seminoles, or maroons, and forcing them into slavery.

In 1823, Duval decided to move the Seminoles in north Florida down to a reservation in central Florida away from encroaching white settlers. A meeting headed by James Gadsden was set up for early September at Moultrie Creek, just south of St. Augustine. About 425 Seminole showed up at the meeting and chose Neamathla to be their chief representative and speaker. Under the terms of the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, the Seminole were forced to immigrate under the protection of the U.S., and give up all claim to lands in Florida in exchange for a reservation of about 4 million acres. The reservation would run down the middle of the Florida peninsula from just north of present-day Ocala, to a line even with the southern end of Tampa Bay. The boundaries were well inland from both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts to prevent the Seminole from making contact with traders from Cuba or the Bahamas. Neamathla along with five other chiefs, including John Blount, were allowed to keep their villages along the Apalachicola River.

More Americans moved into Florida and coveted the Seminole's land so they began petitioning the government to completely relocate the Seminoles to west of the Mississippi River. A meeting at Payne's Landing was called in 1832 and the Seminoles were ordered to leave Florida completely for land west of the Mississippi, and they had three years to do so. U.S. Indian Agent Wiley Thompson read a letter to the Seminoles from then President Andrew Jackson which stated that if the Seminoles did not choose to immigrate they would be made to by force. Some chiefs agreed to move, but still others did not. During this tumultuous time, atrocities were committed on both sides, which made tensions between the whites and Seminoles much worse. The U.S government realized that the Seminoles were not going to move on their own, so they began preparing for war. On December 28, 1835, the Seminoles ambushed a column of U.S. soldiers on the path from Fort Brooke (Tampa) to Fort King (Ocala). All but a few men were killed during the Dade Battle, which was named for the commanding officer who was killed during the first surprise volley of gunfire. At the same time, U.S. Indian Agent Wiley Thompson was killed at Fort King by Osceola. This was the beginning of the long Second Seminole War.

As the war dragged on, General Zachary Taylor felt it was less costly and more important to protect white settlers, rather than chase the Seminoles. After some deadly raids on white homesteads in the Leon and Wakulla County areas, as well as other places in north Florida and southern Georgia, Taylor decided to send troops from south Florida to north Florida to help protect the settlers in the area. He wanted to keep the entire area under constant military watch. Taylor conjured a plan to divide north Florida up into twenty-mile squares, each one containing a small post, or blockhouse fort, garrisoned by twenty or thirty men.[1] Taylor’s winter campaign of 1838-1839 consisted mostly of road and fort construction. Building forts and cutting roads, which connected each fort with another, was hard work, but Taylor reported “it will be observed that fifty-three new posts have been established, eight-hundred and forty-eight miles of wagon-road, and three thousand six hundred and forty-three feet of causeway and bridges opened and constructed.”[2] One such post was called Fort Stansbury, located in present-day Wakulla County, near the Leon County border in Woodville.

Towards the end of the Second Seminole War, a chief by the name of Tustenuggee Chupco surrendered along with his seventy followers to the U.S. Army near Great Cypress Swamp. In August of 1842, it was announced that the war was over. President John Tyler, in his second annual message to Congress, stated that the war “has happily been terminated.”[3] But as Tyler was delivering his “the war is over” speech, Chief Pascofa was accused of leading raids in middle and western Florida. Pascofa’s band of Creeks, whom whites in the area called the “Ochlocknee Indians” had disturbed the peace since 1838, when they broke away from a party that was forced to migrate west. Many of the Seminoles had been pushed down south during the fighting, but in western Florida the camps of “runaway Creeks” from Georgia still dotted the wilderness, and their canoes still frequented the Choctawhatchee and the Ochlocknee Rivers, the latter being the western boundary of present-day Wakulla County. “Their war-hoop still startled the sparse settlements around Tallahassee.”[4] Sometime during the conflict, a group of Creeks raided the family homestead of the wife of a Raker brother, near Jump Creek, down present-day Whiddon Lake Road, killing her and her family.

            Estimated at forty warriors strong, Pascofa’s band were notoriously aggressive and were involved in several cases of violence. They hid in the wilderness where it was nearly inaccessible to white settlers. From these swampy camps the Creeks launched raids into American settlements, and just as suddenly retreated back into the wilds, leaving destruction in their wake. On more than one occasion, Pascofa’s Creeks attacked stagecoaches and killed all the passengers causing whites to fear travel. On August 31, 1842, the Ochlocknee Indians attacked the homestead of a man named Perkins and murdered his entire family. They claimed they were seeking vengeance for violent acts committed by whites against them. Governor Richard Keith Call sent the Florida militia to search for Pascofa, but could not find a single hostile Indian. Governor Call then appealed to President Tyler for assistance. Secretary of War John C. Spencer then told General William J. Worth to do something about the attacks in the Florida Panhandle. Worth called upon Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, commander of the Third Infantry in Florida, to “pursue, capture, and destroy these Indians.”[5] Worth wanted to take no prisoners from this group of Creeks who had been terrorizing Americans in north Florida for years. He did not wish to relocate them. Worth wanted them all dead.

           

Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock

A very empathetic man, Ethan Allen Hitchcock decided to resolve this conflict by removing the Ochlocknee Creeks without bloodshed, for he believed that was the only wise way to deal with them. Hitchcock wrote in his diary, “I have been much with the Indians and look upon them as a part of the great human family, capable of being reasoned with and susceptible of passions and affections which, rightly touched, will secure moral results with almost mechanical certainty. I repeatedly urged Mr. Poinsett, when he was secretary of war, to voluntarily assign to the Indians some small part of Florida, and they would soon be willing to go west. One reason why the Indians would not surrender is that they were under the impression that they would be killed if they do so. Years of bloody pursuit of them makes it absolutely necessary to give them assurance of protection and security…Even if the war was unavoidable, which I do not believe, there have been many lives and at least then million dollars wasted to pay for a ridiculous pride in warring against a handful of abused savages.”[6]

Hitchcock’s headquarters in north Florida would be Fort Stansbury. In 1839, the U.S. Army established Fort Stansbury in present-day Wakulla County, near the Leon County border, located in what is now woods on private land back off Bob Miller Road near present-day Woodville. Built on a spot of land that was originally a settler’s home, until they were scared away by the constant threat of Indian attacks, Fort Stansburry was the headquarters for the Third Infantry of whom Hitchcock commanded. Colonel Hitchcock departed from New York on September 10, 1842 and arrived at Fort Gamble, in Jefferson County, on October 10. At Fort Gamble he rested and dined with some old army buddies. He then proceeded to Fort Hamilton, in Madison County, then to Fort Pleasant in present-day Taylor County, before finally reaching his new post at Fort Stansbury. It was described as being a ring of buildings inside a stockade in the shape of a parallelogram. There is evidence of seven or eight barracks in the fort. The construction was of split pine logs, flat side facing in, round side facing out, and pointed at the top. “There is something indescribably solemn and grand,” Hitchcock wrote about Fort Stansbury, “in the moaning of the wind through the tall pines among which my post is situated.”[7]

            On November 28, Hitchcock received an order form General Worth to reopen the war and destroy Chief Pascofa and his Ochlocknee Creeks. Hitchcock and his command left Fort Stansbury on December 9, to end the Seminole War once again. His plan was to make friendly advances and invite the hostiles in to convince them to move west. He knew if he wanted to be successful against Chief Pascofa, as many commanders in the past were not, he would not use military force. He even rejected two companies of local volunteer miltia who wanted to be mustered in. Hitchcock along with two regiments of the Third Infantry marched to the Chattahoochee River at the Florida/Georgia border, boarded the steam ship William Gaston, and then floated down the Apalachicola River in search for the hostiles. Hitchcock brought with him two Indians, U.S. friendly, to act as scouts. He instructed them to enter the woods and search for any Indian and ask them to meet with Hitchcock. They were to tell the Indians that they would not be held against their will and were free to leave whenever they wanted. Two days later, Hitchcock’s Indian allies returned to camp with a young warrior who had a look on his face that he had made a very bad decision. Hitchcock took the freighted young man’s hand, reassured him of his safety, and had his men bring him some food. He asked the man to sit with him for a chat.

The two had a long talk about his people and Chief Pascofa. At the end of the meeting, Hitchcock had more food brought out to the young man, and asked him to try and convince Pascofa to come to Hitchcock for a friendly meeting, in which he would be safe. The young warrior left and returned two days later, stating that Chief Pascofa would meet Hitchcock in three days’ time. Three Creeks came to Hitchcock the next day and Pascofa himself arrived a day or two later. Hitchcock walked with Pascofa to just outside his camp where the two sat on a log and had a long talk. Calmly and non-threatening, Hitchcock told Pascofa that his band had become isolated amongst the ever-growing white population in north Florida who had no desire to co-exist with Indians, and that they unfortunately would never see peace unless they emigrated west. Chief Pascofa agreed to leave if his people had no objections. He told Hitchcock that he would talk to them and return in a few days.

The next day, Chief Pascofa with ten warriors unexpectedly arrived outside of the camp on the Apalachicola River armed with muskets. Before the startled Americans could react, the warriors unloaded their muskets into the treetops, signifying they were there in peace. They then entered the camp chanting a song of peace. Hitchcock wrote, “I met them in the center of camp at the head of my officers, and we shook hands and exchanged talk – rejoicing that peace was now made.”[8] The Lieutenant Colonel then sat down and talked with Chief Pascofa and his people. They expressed how happy they were to be treated like human beings. Hitchcock presented them with gifts, and they presented Hitchcock with the peace pipe. After the celebration, Pascofa and his warriors promised to bring back with them the rest of the Ochlocknee Creeks in three days. Pascofa told Hitchcock that his people had been “rained on for years, but the sun is now shining.”[9]

Three days had passed and still no sign of Pascofa’s band. Then on December 29, a handful of Indians arrived and informed Hitchcock that several families would be trickling in slowly. Once they did, they told Hitchcock that too many white settlers along the Apalachicola River wanted them dead, and asked him to travel in his boat to the Ochlocknee River where they would then board his ship. Thinking it could be a trick to get rid of him, Hitchcock reluctantly agreed.

Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock soon headed for the Ochlocknee River, accompanied by only twenty men, as he had sent the remainder of his troops back to Fort Stansbury. Two days later, Hitchcock arrived at the Ochlocknee River, with no Creeks in sight. Growing anxious, Hitchcock was beginning to believe maybe he was duped. On January 8, 1843 he ordered the steamboat to travel further upriver into seemingly unknown territory that was virtually unpopulated by whites at this time. Days passed and still no sign of the Ochlocknee Indians. One morning, the Colonel sent a row boat upriver in search of the Indians. Later that afternoon the boat returned with Chief Pascofa himself on board. The chief came aboard and shook hands with Hitchcock, apologizing profusely for his tardiness, blaming it on the slower moving families. Soon after, all of Pascofa’s band arrived and they then performed a goodbye dance on the banks of the Ochlocknee River. Hitchcock wrote, “I went with him (Pascofa) to his camp – a strange and memorable scene. A few fires in the thick woods with some fifty Indians around them. They had a dance, in which my officers joined. Pascofa looked on as chief and insisted on my sitting by his side. He constantly talked of his happiness that peace had come and frequently spoke of me as having ended the war. They are badly dressed, the blankets I had given them just covering their nakedness, and seem haggard and poor. Lieutenant Henry has issued a blanket to each and a shirt and turban to each man and a calico dress and handkerchief for each women, food, etc.”[10]

The next day, everybody boarded the William Gaston, and headed for the Gulf of Mexico. Hitchcock was very pleased with himself, and even received a congratulatory letter from General Worth on his success. It was longtime believed that the Ochlocknee Indians would never leave peacefully, but Hitchcock managed the impossible. There was great joy at Fort Stansbury, and the Indians called Hitchcock their peaceful capture, or Pa-ga-chu-lee, the “Controlling Spirit.” Hitchcock wrote in his diary that once the William Gaston neared a wharf at Cedar Key with several white people near, the Creek men became suddenly very serious and the women began to tear up. The Colonel told them to remain calm, that they were now among people who wanted to help them. Chief Pascofa’s lips trembled so much he could not speak. “A women”, Hitchcock wrote, “stood near with a small child in her arms, and I told her that they had been living more like wild animals than like human creatures, and she could now bring her children up in peace and safety. At this she dropped her head and burst into tears.”[11]

Hitchcock remarked to one of the women that he had noticed there were no children between the ages of four and fourteen. She replied that to prevent the whole group from being caught, some of the babies were put to death to stop their crying, and it was easier to flee without them. What a terrible life these poor people were forced to live before they agreed to emigrate. At Cedar Key, Hitchcock turned over command to a junior officer, who was to get the party to Arkansas, their new home. Hitchcock returned to Fort Stansbury on February 16. On March 7 and 8, Governor Call gave a party and a dinner in honor of Hitchcock and his officers. Orders came down from Washington on March 20 to transfer Hitchcock from Fort Stansbury to Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. He and his regiment arrived there on April 22, 1843.

           The U.S. Army then abandoned Fort Stansbury, leaving the blockhouse made of pine to the elements of the Florida climate. There are documents that indicate that while the army was there, fourteen men died and were buried at Fort Stansbury. Dysentery and apoplexy were the main causes of death for the soldiers. Unfortunately, the documents give no adequate information regarding the whereabouts of the cemetery, and none have been discovered to this day. Researchers have found that Fort Stansbury was not confined to just the blockhouse fort, but also extended to a nearby sinkhole, which apparently the regiment used as a trash dump. The most interesting fact about Fort Stansbury is that it is one of the few places in Florida in which a peaceful resolution was reached with the local Indians during the Second Seminole War, rather than bloodshed, all because of Ethan Allen Hitchcock.

Sources used:

Missall, J., & Missall, M. L. (2004). The Seminole Wars: America's Longest Indian Conflict. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

McReynolds, E. C. (1957). The Seminoles. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Croffut, W. (1909). Fifty Years in Camp and Field - Diary of Major-General Ethan Allen Hitchcock, U.S.A. New York: The Knickerbocker Press.

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[1] Missall and Missall, p.159

[2] Ibid. p.160

[3] McReynolds,  p.236

[4] Croffut, p.164

[5] Ibid. p.165

[6] Ibid. p.165-166

[7] Ibid. p.167

[8] Ibid. p.170

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid, p.172

[11] Ibid. p.172