Chapter 21:
Marine Conductors on the Trail of Tears

 

 

In 1830, the Federal government ordered some 60,000 southwest Indians from what was then Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia to relinquish their ancestral land and move west to the new Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. They were the five so-called “civilized tribes"—Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Cherokees and Seminoles.

This order was done under the Indian Removal Act, passed by President Andrew Jackson, because some 10,000 white settlers and greedy land speculators coveted the Indian land. The underlying reason was “King Cotton” which thrived in this southern climate and became an enormous cash crop.

These Indians were a very advanced people. They grew cotton, carded it and made their own cloth, much to the chagrin of the uncouth settlers. The Indian Removal Act was thought to be the most expedient solution to expel the tribes from this valuable land.

Having to move thousands of Indians some 1,225 miles west in the winter was a tall order for the Marines. A forced movement of so many under adverse conditions had never before been attempted. The suffering of the Indians has been described as horrific, but the Marines conducting them devoted themselves indefatigably to aid and comfort the wretched marchers. The Choctaws of southeastern Mississippi were the first to be removed, followed by some of the Seminoles.

The Choctaw chief Pushmataka couldn’t believe what was happening to his peaceful people. Parting with the land they had lived on for centuries, “where we have grown up as the herbs of the woods,” was incomprehensible to the Indians.

The Chickasaws moved west themselves with no apparent problems. They and the Choctaws would experience good conditions compared to the tribes that followed.

As it turned out, the Indian removal would become one of the darkest chapters in American conscience and history: truly, an American tragedy.

The government justified its actions by events that had taken place over the preceding years. In the summer of 1813, the Creeks, encouraged by Tecumseh and supplied by the British and the Spaniards in Florida, massacred the Fort Mims garrison in southeast Alabama killing all 400 men, women and children. The black slaves taken were now Creek slaves. Many of the Creeks then went to Pensacola with their American scalps and redeemed their reward from the British agents there.

General Andy Jackson destroyed the Creek will to fight in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814—out of 1,000 Creek warriors only 70 escaped. After this defeat, the Creeks didn’t want to fight the whites any more. They realized that they were as many “as the leaves in the forest.” The men became idle and superstitious while their slaves did all the work. One band of Creeks, the Yuchi, rose up in Alabama but the Marines, some armed with the new Colt rifles, put down that insurrection.

The survivors of Horseshoe Bend joined the Seminoles in Florida where the Indian leader Osceola roused his warriors to resist. The son of an English trader and a Creek mother, Osceola would become the Marines’ greatest opponent. Osceola repeatedly attacked U.S. Army units with brilliant tactics. The whole peninsula was shaken in fear. Runaway Negro slaves who had escaped from Southern plantations joined the Seminoles in the fight. The scattered U.S. Army numbering only 4,000 soldiers needed help. Colonel Henderson volunteered the Marine Corps and President Jackson—who had earlier tried to abolish the Corps—accepted readily.

The first Marines to join the Seminole War were 57 men under First Lieutenant Nathanuel Waldron of the frigate Constitution. They landed on Jan. 22, 1836 at Fort Brooke near Tampa. (For more on the Seminole Wars, see Chapter 20.)

In the spring of 1836, Commandant Archibald Henderson led the Marines to fight the Indians who had started an uprising against the planned march west of the Mississippi.

On June 23rd, Henderson reported with 462 Marines to Major General Winfield Scott at Columbus, Georgia. They had marched 224 miles across the state in 14 days. The next day, 160 more Marines from New York under Lieutenant Colonel William Freeman reached Milledgeville and headed south to Florida.

The Marines conducted company-sized patrols, guarded the mail road from Columbus to Tuskegee, Alabama, and supervised one of the many concentration camps built. The Creeks were gathered in from two areas of Alabama. The upper towns in Northeast Alabama numbered 14,142 Indians with 445 slaves. The lower towns in Southeast Alabama had 8,552 Creeks with 457 slaves. Though most of their cattle and horses had been stolen by the whites, the Indians’ slaves were surprisingly permitted to accompany them to the new land.

The Creeks sold 5.2 million acres in Alabama at roughly one-sixth of market value. Some of the Creeks not obeying the removal crossed over into Georgia and moved in with the Cherokees. They never recuperated from their losses and lived in abject poverty.

The Indians received their worst treatment in the state of Alabama where the white intruders rampantly engaged in every form of oppression. The state government sided with the land speculators and in the investigation of fraud uncovered by the Federals, the state enforced its law preventing an Indian from testifying against a white. Though the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the Indians, Jackson ignored the court’s decision.

The Creek uprising in 1836 actually was propagated by the whites to mask the Federal investigation of fraudulent land claims. The Georgia militia had fired on the Creeks and the most belligerent band, the Yuchi, retaliated—so the burning and killing started anew.

Creek husbands, brothers and fathers were asked to serve in Florida against the Seminoles, much as the Japanese-American 443rd Regimental Combat Team served against Germany in WWII, while back at home, their property was destroyed, girls were raped and some Creeks were abducted as slaves by the whites.

Even though General Scott had ordered, “Every possible kindness…must be shown by the troops,” the troops, except for the Marines, didn’t obey and the roundup proved harrowing. Families were separated. The elderly and ill were forced out at gunpoint. People were given only moments to collect cherished possessions. White looters then followed, ransacking homesteads as the Creeks were led away.

In Tallahassee, the southern Creeks were collected for removal. In July, 15,000 Creeks started the “Trail of Tears” to today’s Oklahoma. On Sept. 5, 1836, Marine Lieutenant John Sprague led the detachment of 1984 Creeks under Chief Tusk-e-batch-e-hadjo across Alabama to Memphis. Tusk-e-batch-e-hadjo was appalled at what the interlopers were doing to his people.

The whites appropriated everything: fields and crops, horses, saddles, harnesses, hoes, rifle guns, chickens, hogs, cows and calves, ducks, geese, money, grist mills, feather beds, blankets, quilts, pots, ovens, kettles, dishes, cups and saucers, knives and forks, pails, gardens, bacon, potatoes, beans, salt, cabins, looms, shuttles, weaver’s reeds, spinning wheels, thread reels, bedsteads, tables, chairs, cupboards, spoons, plows, chairs, baskets, saws, shovels, carpenter’s tools—even fiddles. Every necessity to maintain human life was stolen by the looters. Not even bedding was left for the Indian children. It was a cruel way to start a 1,000-mile trip.

The removal was under the auspices of the Alabama Emigrating Company whose contractors were to meet the trek at intervals with supplies. They were always late and people starved as a result. The contractors saw this as a chance to profit at the expense of these hapless Creeks. The Army, trying to help, brought in pork and flour that had spoiled from basking in the hot sun for days. Oftentimes, the Indians had to go into the forest to eat dead animals.

In Lt. Sprague’s wagon train were 1,984 Indians, 45 wagons for the children and the sick, and 500 warriors on horses. One hundred and fifty hostiles from the Creek war came in from a swamp. They kept to the back of the column and, fearing retaliation, stayed quiet. No fodder was provided for the horses and many died in route. The cane brake that flourished along rivers was the only feed that sustained the herd—when they were lucky enough to chance upon on it.

They averaged 12 miles a day. Sprague sent 500 men on their ponies through the huge Mississippi Swamp and arranged for the bulk of his party to go by boat up the Arkansas River to Little Rock. Eventually, 13,000 Creeks assembled near Memphis to cross the Mississippi River. The Indians were afraid of going on the steamboats for fear of being thrown overboard if they died, as burial rites were very sacred to them. As it turned out on a later trek, 311 Creeks drowned when the steamboat Monmouth broke in half after a collision with another boat.

Across the Mississippi, game was now abundant as the land was clear of habitation. On Nov. 22, the group arrived at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. They had marched 800 miles by land, and traveled 425 miles by water in 96 days. Twenty-nine Indians died on the trail, many of them without a garment to cover their nakedness.

On subsequent marches, conducted by the Army, the suffering endured by the Creeks on the trail was immensely worse. The change of climate, absence of doctors, lack of nutrition, exhaustion and brutal treatment would add up to a death each day on the long march. First to succumb were children, the weak, the aged, the infirm and the intemperate. When passing near a white settlement, they were besieged by settlers who sold them whiskey. The Indians had a propensity for liquor and their binges slowed up the march for days as they tried to drown their misery.