MURDER OF WILEY THOMPSON
DEC. 28, 1835
FORT KING, NEAR THE WITHLACOOCHEE RIVER, CENTRAL FLORIDA
Wiley Thompson, Indian Agent to the Seminole, paused and lit his cigar. It would be the last of his life. We had come to kill him. Throughout the night eighty warriors had crept through the dark Withlacoochee swamps to this saw palmetto thicket in the black shadow of the ancient forest. We were Seminole and Estelusti, what the whites called the Black Seminole.
Thompson stood on a small knoll a hundred paces away. Beside him was Lt. Constantine Smith. The two men were enjoying their customary afternoon stroll down the wagon road outside Fort King. They laughed, sharing a joke. They looked right at us without seeing. I could smell their cigars.
Two hundred yards beyond the men, Erastus Rogers and his clerks labored at the sheds and wagons of the territorial trading post. They bellowed and guffawed and cursed without looking our way. A half-mile away, the gates to Fort King stood open. A small herd of cattle and a couple dozen horses grazed in the pasture.
No one saw Osceola’s rifle barrel move just a hair’s width, keeping the bead squarely on Thompson’s chest. No one saw a sliver of sunlight glint off the scrolled 42-inch barrel that fired a .58 caliber ball. No one saw the hunter and stag engraved silver side-plate on the striped-maple butt of the rifle that had been a gift from Thompson to Osceola just six months ago. It was his apology for laughing while the MacCuaigs raped Osceola’s wife.
Willet's hand lightly squeezed mine, but I gave no response. I did not look at her. I wanted to turn and run, but I could not. Not in front of Osceola or Willet, and especially not my brother John.
Osceola pulled the trigger. The rifle roared, belching flame and smoke. The gun performed better than Thompson’s apology. The .58 caliber ball blew a hole through Thompson’s chest, lifting him off his feet and dropped him on his back on the damp coquina road.
Like a thunderclap, eighty rifles fired. The trees shook as birds took flight. The bodies of Thompson and Smith jerked as musket balls slammed into them. Bullets peppered the fort’s walls. Our whooping, war-painted warriors burst from the trees. Rogers and his men ran for the safety of the trading post’s stockade, but the thick-bodied laborers were no match for our sprinters. The soldiers in guard towers ducked out of sight and the gates of the fort slammed shut as the traders went down under an ax and knife swinging frenzy.
Bare chested, Osceola stood over the body of Thompson, howling his triumph like a wolf. Blood streamed down his arm as he pumped a fistful of scalp-skin and hair at the fort. Thompson’s scalp belonged to Osceola, to right the egregious wrong. It did not matter who took the scalp of Smith. Half his head had been blown off anyway. One warrior sliced off a dangling flap of hair and skin as another sawed at his remaining ear. More swarmed over Rogers and his men. Willet and I hurried toward the trading post but stayed back from the mob rampaging throng.
“Go now, Little Sister,” Osceola shouted to Willet as we passed, blood streaked across his triumphant face and dripping down his heaving chest. “Hurry to the war camp. Tell Micanopy and Alligator we have succeeded but will toy with these cowardly dogs a while longer. When we tire of shaming them, we will be on our way.”
“No, I will leave after I have collected my share of the plunder. Those men wronged me also, and I will take my pay,” said Willet. Only Willet dared speak this way to Osceola, the most ferocious fighter among the Seminole. But she did, sometimes like a feisty dog pulling at a pants cuff. Osceola was married to Willet’s older sister.
“Very well,” said Osceola. “But do not tarry.”
We ran for the main storeroom, darting around the warriors who danced and frolicked across the yard, firing their guns in the air, and shouting insults and challenges at the fort. The gates to the fort stayed shut and no soldiers’ rifles appeared in the loopholes.
Our warriors could afford to be bold. There was little fear that the soldiers would come out and fight. We had watched the fort for weeks and knew its routines down to the minute, including Thompson’s stroll and favorite cigar maker. We knew most of the garrison had marched out weeks ago, to protect the terrified civilians cowering in Fort Drane. Only sixty of the soldiers inside the walls were fit for duty. The remainder were bedridden due to the diseases of the Florida Swamp.
I would not waste bullets firing or time dancing, but I felt the same thrill our jubilant warriors did. I felt the lightning bolts of excitement and crashing waves of relief and something like joy. I had felt the same fear creeping through the swamps and the same exhilaration when Osceola’s bullet tore through Jesup’s heart. We had finally struck back against the Americans after months of waiting in dread and anger and fear, and we now had the mighty American army cowering behind the walls of their fort. Many of our young men had wanted this fight, had yearned and thirsted for it. I did not. I had only followed my brother, who fought because he said our people would be enslaved and erased from the earth otherwise. Still, the thrill was there, but time was precious.
We pushed our way through the celebrating mob at the door. Inside I tripped over a fourth body, that of Robin Rogers, the young nephew of the trader. His slender chest had been blown apart by musket balls and his blond scalp was gone. He had not been a bad boy.
We ran down the dark, narrow, cluttered aisles, shoving our way through warriors who had become happy, chattering boys as they tussled over coveted prizes. We grabbed what we came for and ran blinking back into the sunlight. Outside, chaos reigned. Buildings had been ransacked and storehouses raided, and our men pillaged and tromped through the wreckage.
Warriors danced around in unfamiliar boots and hats, waving their new rifles and pistols. They showed off their other trophies, the bags of coffee beans, sacks of tobacco and silver coins. Barrels of white flour had been smashed open and warriors cavorted through it, throwing handfuls on each other and kicking up a cloud.
The coops, corrals and animal pens and storehouses had been smashed open. Warriors chased the livestock with gleeful abandon. Hooting men hopped alongside flat-eared, hee-hawing, high-kicking mules, trying to strap packsaddles onto the obstinate beasts. Hundreds of frantic laying hens ran around in squawking horror, freed from the darkness of their flimsy sheds only to be chased around by ghostly, flour-dusted figures. Snorting hogs and squealing piglets wiggled and wriggled and shot out of the grasp of laughing, diving pursuers.
Only Osceola maintained his rage, taunting the fort with Thompson’s bloody scalp as he cursed the cowardly soldiers. John, Yah-hah and Lutcha, two Seminole sub-chiefs, stood watching, bent with laughter and passing a bottle of rum. As we ran past them a blur of white came hurtling at my head. I threw my arms up but was knocked off my feet. A few feet away, a disheveled chicken with an oddly bent neck chicken clucked and flopped weakly in the dirt. The flour-faced boy who’d been chasing the hen looked hungry so I gave the bird a kick. He tossed it in a sack bulging with a few others and took off at a sprint.
###
Gliding down the crooked Withlacoochee River, we sang our victory songs. Our cypress dugouts rode low in the water, loaded down with much loot than any expected. The entire trading post had been emptied. Our warriors rocked with laughter as they recounted the attack or waved a great trophy. The army had been embarrassed. A great wrong had been avenged. The good spirits were lifted even more by the trading post rum being passed around.
I watched Willet’s back. She was the only female warrior taking part in the attack. It was my 15th winter, and the 16th for her. She had been a big, ungainly and awkward looking girl when we were little children. She was tall for a girl, and very dark skinned. Her mother had been a full Negro slave and her father was a full-blooded Red Stick Creek. She had been a shrill and annoying pest. Lately I had noticed she wasn’t.
She and her father Mateo had come to live on my family’s home island more than a year ago, after their village had been raided and burned. Mateo had once been a great warrior, but now he was very old. Injuries had left him nearly crippled, but he was the best arrow and bow maker among our people. Hunters came from all over Florida to trade for them, but he always saved the best for his daughter.
She did not wear loose blouse and long skirts of a Seminole woman. Instead, she looked more like a small version of an American backwoodsman. Her hair hung in a long braid, and she wore buckskins. Willet rarely engaged in typical womanly pursuits. She preferred to be out in the forest or beating boys at horse races and archery. I was not sure what I thought about that. Lately, I really wasn’t sure of much when I thought about her, but I found myself thinking about her often. Now I was thinking about what this day meant for me and her, and for all our people.
Early last spring Thompson had called all the Seminole chiefs together and told them they had to vacate all our territory in Florida forever. Thompson declared that January 1st, 1836 was the deadline set by the terms of the Treaty of Payne’s Landing, signed three years before. He told the chiefs that if they did not comply, President Andrew Jackson would send his mighty army in to remove us.
Micanopy and our Council of Chiefs protested angrily. They told Thompson that only minor chiefs had signed the treaty, and they did not represent the Seminole tribe. Our chiefs said bribes had been paid. The treaty-signers came forward and told Thompson that they had been threatened, coerced, and tricked. Finally, our leaders protested that even if the treaty were valid, we had been told we could stay until 1842, still seven years away. Thompson laughed in their faces and called them dishonest, dishonorable, and bickering old women.
We made ourselves ready. Fishermen and salvage divers from the Bahama Islands smuggled in rifles and gunpowder. Our gardens and fields doubled and tripled in size, and our villages stayed smoky from racks of drying fish and meat. Many councils were held where the men fasted and prayed and smoked their pipes. That summer our people held the longest, most well-attended Dance of the Green Corn that any Seminole could ever remember. The warriors drank the black drink to purify their bodies and put iron in their hearts. Old tribal grudges were put aside. We would stand united against a common enemy.
Our spies in the forts and port towns watched as hundreds of volunteers had assembled at coastal forts, eager for a chance to fight us. They told us when the steamships arrived in Tampa Bay, waiting to take us across the Gulf in chains. We watched from the shadows as more slave trackers prowled the territory, hoping to collect bounties. Three days ago our spies had told us a column of soldiers had marched out of Fort Brook near Tampa, headed to Fort King.
“I hope Micanopy and Alligator were as successful as we were,” I said. There had been a second attack planned for today. Ours was the attack on Wiley Thompson and the trading post. Micanopy would lead the other, against the column marching from Fort Brook.
“I have not so much confidence in Micanopy,” she said. “But I do have faith in Alligator and Jumper and the other micos. They will not allow him to falter. We have planned too long and carefully to make mistakes or have lapses in courage.”
Micanopy was the hereditary chief of the Seminole, but his authority was mostly symbolic. He had profited nicely from a friendly relationship with the Americans and was not eager to fight them. If not for his sense-maker Abraham advising him to resist, most knew Micanopy would have meekly moved west and continued his comfortable life.
Osceola was different. His hatred of the Americans and their Creek lapdogs burned hotter than fire. For years he had suffered greatly at their hands. Osceola had been elected our war chief after his defiant acts of valor and fiery rhetoric had aroused in them his same hot passion for war. All the chiefs and warriors pledged him their loyalty.
“Perhaps Thompson should not have given Osceola that fancy rifle,” I said.
“Osceola would have killed him regardless,” said Willet. “Perhaps Thompson should not have scoffed when Chechoter and I were kidnapped, nor laughed as Osceola begged for Chechoter’s freedom.”
###
The moon was high and bright as we entered the Wahoo Swamp, slipping down the narrow streams. The drums and the orange glow above the trees guided us to the war camp. Shouts and songs reached us as we made the last turn of the winding stream.
Never had I heard such a loud celebration. Four hundred warriors celebrated in the field, and hundreds more had joined the revelry. A pole the height of three men, stood between the two largest fires. The pole was carved and painted, and Wiley Thompson’s scalp fluttered from the top. A wide hoop hung from the pole just above the heads of the dancers. A hundred scalps, stiff and black with dried blood, dangled from the hoop like bats dangling in a cave.
A circle of old men pounded their drums in the glowing firelight. An admiring orchestra of women and young maiden smiled and made eyes as they played sugar cane flutes and rattled necklaces of silver coins.
A throng of warriors danced around the scalp pole in a frenzy. The whooping dancers stomped and strutted and pranced. They flung their arms and head backs and howled like wolves. They performed grand reenactments of their bravery and prowess, stalking and pouncing with wide sweeping motions with blades and clubs. Prancing and gyrating around the pole they leapt up to touch the scalps.
“Are you not going to dance?” asked Willet.
“I killed no enemy. I have no reason to dance,” I said.
“Neither have most of those dancing now,” said Willet. “I think some of that is silly. What I have in mind for my retribution is neither fun nor a reason to celebrate.”
“You won’t be happy when those men are dead?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have thought much about it. Their deaths will do little to please me. However, I will be happy while they are suffering. For the moment I am more than satisfied with the treasure I found. Father will be very happy. Your mother also,” said Willet. She had collected steel arrow heads, hand axes, small saws, files, and sandpapers for Mateo, but the bulk of the plunder on the blanket was for the women of our island: Straw bonnets, bolts of calico cloth, hair ribbons, needles, thread, ivory combs, colorful neck scarves and handkerchiefs and glass beads of every color.
“A treasure indeed. Many found treasure today,” I said. The field was cluttered with the spoils of the raids. Stacks of barrels, bulging sacks, bales and crates. Pots, pans, steel knives and hatchets were in piles on the bright new blankets. “Do you want none of the rum?”
“I have seen how stupid people become on rum,” she said. “I have no desire to be an idiot. Aren’t you having any?”
“I’ve had the painful head,” I said. I admired my grand prize, a 4-draw brass telescope from Shuttleworth of London. I had also grabbed a compass, a bullet mold, and good rubberized blanket along with a steel-bladed hatchet I needed and a big knife I didn’t.
After a bit Osceola walked our way. He wobbled a little. His face glowed with war paint, victory, and alcohol. Thompson’s blood had dried on him.
“Little sister, you don’t seem pleased by our great victories today,” he said to Willet.
“I saw much death and pain. Why should I be pleased? I am deeply saddened at the death of the young Rogers boy,” she said. “I do not feel pride or wish celebration over his death. He was a friendly boy.”
“It was a great blow to our enemy, the Americans,” said Osceola angrily. In the shadow and firelight, his angry face looked fearsome. “That should always be celebrated.”
“Rogers played no part in what happened to Chechoter and me,” said Willet. “Only his clerks and the MacCuaig filth. Rogers was always fair to me.”
“Even worse, then,” said Osceola. “A man that does not stand against injustice is no man, but a worm. I have saved him from a life burrowing spinelessly in the ground. Now he merely rots in it.”
“I do not mourn him,” said Willet. “But MacCuaig is the one I want, the one that must pay. That boy certainly harmed no one. He cared only about his horses.”
“They are all our enemies,” said Osceola. “He would have grown to plot against us.”
“No, they are not, that is a foolish thing to say,” said Willet.
“They say it of us,” said Osceola, slightly cowed.
“Exactly, so now we are no better?” said Willet. “We do not kill children. That is not our way.”
“Our way is whatever we must do to avoid extinction or enslavement,” snapped Osceola as he turned and walked toward the reveling warriors. “Don’t make me regret paying them cows for you.”
“Osceola bloats up like a bullfrog when he struts around,” I said, after he had walked a safe distance away. “It’s funny.’
“Better not let him hear you say that,” said Willet.
“He knows better than to push me around,” I said. “My brother John’s alliance to him is too important.”
“Your brother John,” Willet laughed. “If you want to compare bloated bullfrogs.”
“Not unjustly said,” I said. “But let’s join them anyway.”
###
We joined John at the fire. Alligator, chief of a small Seminole village, had just sat down beside him. John was tall, long-limbed and lithe, like our mother. Short, twisted braids sprouted from beneath his calico turban and his skin was dark. He was the best athlete among the Estelusti, and rivaled Osceola and Wild Cat as best among the Seminole. He was a champion wrestler and was always chosen first for stick ball games. John enjoyed some rum from time to time, and he had a big tin cup of it now. Knowing John, it was not his first, nor would it be his last.
“This was a victorious day, but easy victories make warriors careless and overconfident,” said Alligator. He had been a gray-haired leader of a simple fishing village before Jackson had sent his soldiers.
“You speak true. The soldiers at Fort King stayed inside their walls. That will not always be the case,” said John, who always spoke slowly and considered his words. ”Tell me more of your attack on Dade.”
“We shadowed the soldiers for three days. Micanopy continued to say he was waiting for Osceola to join us,” said Alligator. “He fretted and fussed like an old grandmother. He passed up many excellent locations for ambushes, and we knew soon it would be too late. The soldiers would be too near the fort. Jumper and I argued with him. I told him if his heart was weak he should leave and go with the women.”
“I am surprised Micanopy would sleep without a warm fire and his wives tending to his every need,” said John.
“Yes. Staying with the women has become Micanopy’s way. For too long he has enjoyed a life of sloth and comfort. It is good Osceola is our war leader, and not Micanopy. He does not have the heart for the war trail,” said Alligator.
“But he did today,” said John.
“Yes, finally. But even then, as Dade’s column approached, Micanopy began to waver. We told him that as chief he must fire the first shot. If he didn’t, I said I would shoot the American officer and see that Micanopy was shamed. Finally, he fired. I was shocked, but his bullet struck Dade through his heart. Every Seminole then fired. We killed half the soldiers with that first volley, and most of their officers.”
“That is what we must always do. Aim for the officers,” said John. “Cut the head off the snake.”
“They fired their cannon at us, but we easily avoided it. They cannot move the big barrel fast enough to hit a Seminole, and we shot down the men who tried to load it. New men jumped up to take their place, but we killed them, too.”
“The Americans do not know how to fight Seminole in our own land,” said John. “It does not matter how powerful you are if you cannot hit your target. I am sure they killed some trees, though.”
“Many trees,” said Alligator. “They killed so many trees the cannon ran out of balls, and then their muskets did, too. That is when we charged and finished off the last few soldiers. We killed them all, more than a hundred. And we lost only three warriors. It was a horrible scene, but great victory. It had to be done.”
“That is a great victory,” said John. “But now we have started a war.”
“No. They started the war,” said Alligator as the drums and whooping went quiet.
Osceola climbed atop a stack of captured crates. He was taller than most Seminole and powerfully muscled, toughened from a life of warfare since childhood. He towered above us now, shirtless, muscular arms outstretched. His body, painted and blood-stained, gleamed in the fire. The warriors rushed to Osceola’s pulpit, chanting his name.
“I would thank Mr. Wiley Thompson for such a beautiful rifle that shoots so true,” bellowed Osceola to whoops and cheers. “However, it is with great sadness I must report he is unable to attend. He sends his regards as he is otherwise occupied, dancing tonight instead in the pit of demons. He sends his scalp instead.”
The warriors whooped and whistled until Osceola motioned for silence.
“Now I tell you this. Our path is now chosen. I will make the white man red with blood. He will blacken in the sun and rain, where the wolf shall smell his bones and buzzards liven upon his flesh! Hooah!”
“Hooah! Hooah!: chanted the crowd, as Osceola howled at the moon.
The celebration continued until the sun rose. By then, after hours of feasting and drinking, the battle reenactments got less fearsome and more clumsy. The dancers staggered and fell, collapsing into each other in drunken piles, laughing at each other’s clumsiness.
“It is a good thing that Sharp Knife Jackson’s soldiers do not know where we are. This would be a good time to strike,” said Willet as two drunk warriors rolled past, laughing as they tried to pin the other to the ground.
###
After two days, most of the warriors had returned to their villages with their share of the plunder. All the whiskey had been consumed that first night. The warriors had danced until they had collapsed from exhaustion and intoxication. The next day many suffered severely, their eyes bleary, holding their heads and walking unsteadily.
Only sixty warriors remained, half of them Estelusti. John, Osceola, Alligator, and other leaders huddled in discussion. Osceola was triumphant, buoyant, and eager for more battle. The others were more somber. We all knew the Americans would soon send more soldiers to avenge their dead.
I heard happy shouts of greeting as a small group of men walked into camp. Some were war-painted, but so covered with grime it was hard to tell. Their buckskins and calico shirts were muddy and shredded from the swamps and saw palmetto thickets. Nearly all wore bandages or had visible wounds.
Two men and walked in our direction. The smaller man was Wild Cat, who had been John’s closest friend since they could walk. He was small and wiry, not much bigger than me, and always bursting with vigor and energy. Wild Cat was the son of King Philip, a prominent Seminole chief whose territory was along the east coast. King Philip had always been friends with the Spaniards whose families had lived in St. Augustine for generations. Wild Cat had been raised mingling with the scions of old Spanish wealth. John and Wild Cat had been fierce competitors in sporting events and for girls since childhood. Even with their strong egos, somehow, they had always remained best friends. An insult to one was an insult to both and they were furious and feared fighters.
Wild Cat was a bit of a fancy man and his jaunty arrogance surpassed even Osceola and John. He enjoyed dressing like a dandy in European finery and strutting around the streets and pubs and dance halls of the city. It was said many ladies of the town had enjoyed trysts with Wild Cat, including a few wives and daughters of St. Augustine high society. Even now, dirty, and ragged, he still had a grin and sparkle in his eye. John jumped to his feet and ran to him.
“Hooah,” shouted Wild Cat. They squeezed each other with tears of happiness.
“Hooah,” shouted John. “I am happy to see you are safe. We heard men were lost and the fighting bloody.”
“There were some close calls, but we had much success. I am also happy to see my brother safe,” said Wild Cat.
“We had no losses other than Pete being wounded by a ferocious fowl,” John laughed. “It was a fierce battle for a moment, but in the end, he was victorious and barely pecked.”
“Ha,” laughed Wild Cat as they released their embrace. “Young Pete wounded in his first battle. Did you take the scalp?”
“No,” I bristled. “It won’t be my last battle.”
“And the fate of the bird?” said Wild Cat. “No doubt a fine meal. “
“No doubt,” I said.
“Pete graciously gave the prize to the boy who was chasing it to begin with,” said John.
“You shouldn’t be so wasteful in time of war,” said Wild Cat.
“I ate half a ham and a tin of English cookies before he ever got that bird plucked and over a fire,” I said.
“Very clever. Just like your brother,” said Wild Cat.
“He is,” said John. “Who is your companion?”
“This is Virgil, my new friend. Our new ally.”
Virgil was black as coal and a foot taller than the other men. He had muscles like Samson, the muscle of the men who had labored dawn to dusk every day of their lives on a sugar plantation. His huge hands were scarred up like alligator hide. A flintlock pistol and broad, hooked cane knife were looped to Virgil’s rough leather belt. The heavy knife was scratched and chipped, and dry, dark stains ran down the blade.
“Hooah, Virgil. You have come a long way. Here, drink some rum,” said John, opening the spigot on the rum keg and filling three tin cups. “This is Alligator, my brother Pete and our friend Willet. Any enemy of the MacCuaigs is a friend of ours. Hooah.”
“To many more victories,” said Wild Cat and all three took a big gulp of rum.
“Lawd a-mussy. That is some powerful likker,” said Virgil, gasping and choking.
“If it’s not to your liking,” said John.
“Oh, it’s to my liking,” grinned Virgil, gulping down the rest of the cup. “It is sho nuff to my liking.”
"Our plan is working. Florida is in panic," said Wild Cat. "Mosquito County is in flames. We have burned the big houses and sugar mills. We also seized many storehouses of food from the plantations. We have taken many horses and cattle. The Whites are hiding in St. Augustine and hundreds of men have been freed to join our cause. These men are eager for battle!”
“That is outstanding news!” said John, clinking his cup to theirs.
“You are one of the men freed?” John asked Virgil.
“No, I freed myself some months ago,” said Virgil.
“Virgil knocked the turds out of some MacCuaigs and now there is a five-hundred-dollar reward on his head,” crowed Wild Cat.
“That’s Nat Turner money,” John said. “They must want you bad.”
“With that large reward, it is not safe for him east of the St. Johns. He has been betrayed more than once by people enticed by that gold.”
“Hooah. You stay with us as long as you need. No one will find you,” said John. “How were you able to escape the MacCuaigs?”
“It’s a long story, but I wish I’d busted me a bunch more of them sons-a-bitches,” said Virgil, gasping after a big gulp of rum.
“I welcome long stories, my friend,” said John, filling everybody’s cup. “We have all night and enough rum to float a ship.”
“To start, I didn’t have no bad life there on the Gentry, plantation,” said Virgil. “To my good fortune, Massa Edgar Gentry didn’t allow much whipping by the overseers. We was treated better than most I’ve heard of. I had me a fine, beautiful wife, and three fine chilluns and our own little farm plot. I was allowed to hire myself and was saving money in hopes of one day buying my family’s freedom. My troubles began last year in the summer of all that sickness. Massa Edgar near died. He had to go north and get out’n this weather.”
“White people are not meant for the sickly season. I am confused why they want this land so bad,” said Wild Cat.
“Massa’s evil-minded brother Barclay took over running the place. Barclay was the opposite of Edgar. He brought in a new overseer boss. Got rid of those who shared Mass’ Gentry’s mind,” said Virgil. “These new men Instead, these people whipped and kicked and bullied us around for sport.”
“Sounds like they were trained by the MacCuaigs.”
“I suspect so. A few months passed with us hoping Massa would return. Then Joost Von Bock and Chebona Bula MacCuaig and his gang came through on a slave buying trip. They already had a coffle of more than a hundred,” said Virgil.
“Chebona Bula and his brothers are buying as many slaves as they can. They hope to sell to the new Creek plantations in the Indian Territory,” said John. “Cherokee, Choctaw, the other civilized tribes, are all clearing land for big cotton plantations. They say the slave trade is going to be thriving out there because cotton is in such much demand in the North. They are buying slaves cheap from the planters who are fearful of an uprising.”
“Yes, all of us knew what they was doing, but before he went north, Edgar had ordered Barclay not to sell no souls. Barclay stood by that, and Joost was about to ride on by until he spied my Naomi who worked in the house and was always fixed up nice. Joost declares he wants to buy her, as his concubine. At first Barclay would not sell, but finally Joost gave him a price so high he couldn’t refuse. Just Naomi. Not the children. Not me.”
“Those people are evil right through,” said John.
“Naomi and the babies was bawling. I was shouting and cussing. I tried to get at Von Bock, but a bunch of them tackled me and beat me down,” said Virgil. “When the other slaves seen what was happening, they started a ruckus. I grabbed a loose shackle and started swinging, leaving at least five of them bone-broke and brain-fractured before they knocked my lights out. Of course, once I woke up dead they whupped me near to death.”
“Of course,” said John. “Surprised you’re not already dead.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” said Virgil. “I imagine I would be dead if they hadn’t wanted to keep me around for entertainment. They bought me just to break me. They intended to geld me, but Laughing Boy decided that if I was intact, I could tolerate a lot more punishment. They gave me plenty of it, and sure enjoyed it as long as I was chained up. They’d whip me until the blood streamed down my legs, let me rest up a couple days, then whip me near dead again. One day I broke out, grabbed a shovel and left another bloody pile of them. I wasn’t able to reach my Naomi, though.”
"Now you see why the MacCuaigs are after him,” said Wild Cat. “They even have a wager of several hundred dollars amongst themselves as to who will get him first. They are out for blood. They have brutal plans for him. They promise they will follow through on gelding him this time.”
“We will get your wife,” said John. “That I promise you. As for the other, you may get killed fighting beside us, but you will die with everything intact.”
“I already made that promise to myself, “said Virgil.
“Where are they holding her now?”
“They are holding all the slaves on the Von Bock plantation beyond the St. John’s, hundreds of them waiting to be put on ship,” said Virgil.
###
Virgil stayed with us when the others went off to discuss strategy. He sipped his rum and stared into the fire, a look of deep sadness on his face. Willet put a blanket over his shoulders and gave him a cup of steaming coffee.
“Don’t be worried,” said Willet. “We will free your people.”
“Thank you, miss,” he said. “You speak American better than most Americans.”
“I spent several years of my childhood in a Christian mission on the land of the Cherokee,” she said. “I was taken there after our village was massacred at the Horseshoe Bend, during the Red Stick War. My mother was mortally wounded and died soon after we were captured. A missionary took claim of me as an infant.”
“But you came back to live as an Indian?”
“Yes, I craved it from my first memory,” she said. “Thankfully, I was rescued by my father after a few years. He had been lied to and told I died with my mother. I have never known such happiness like my first days of running free through the Cove.”
“I know that feeling,” he said. “I felt the same when I run off, but for the worry of my family.”
“We will get them. We have many brave fighters that will go.”
“Yes, I have met several. Still, I am surprised to see a woman warrior,” said Virgil. “Especially one raised by missionaries.”
“There are many women fighters among us. All Estelusti women know how to fight. Seminole women do too, but not as well as Estelusti. No women fight as well as Estelusti women,” she said. “Does your Naomi know how to fight?”
“There wasn’t no fighting against what was beating on us,” he said. “Not unless you count just not losing her mind, I reckon.”
“The MacCuaigs will pay for their crimes one day,” said Willet.
“I hope to be there on that day,” said Virgil. “What war was that you were talking about, the Horseshoe Bend?”
“The Red Stick War, that is what they call the Creek Civil War. You don’t know the wars?”
“They ain’t much of a concern to us down there chopping cane,” said Virgil. “We got our own worries.”
“Yes, I guess you would. But that is the war that created the situation we are now in. That is when Laughing Boy’s father first allied with Andrew Jackson and became rich and powerful.”
“I’ve heard plenty about Jackson and know plenty about them vile MacCuaigs and their business, but never knew about no war and them back there. How did that happen?”
“Laughing Boy’s father William MacCuaig was patriarch of the largest clan of the Creek. MacCuaig and some other Lower Creek chiefs wanted large plantations with many slaves like the rich Americans. They wanted to establish towns and become civilized,” said Willet. “My people, the Red Sticks, opposed becoming servile to Jackson and his gold and the planters. We wanted to live in our traditional way. We had no desire for slaves or owning the land.”
“That was enough to cause a war?”
“Yes. It was very bitter. They raided our villages, and we attacked them back. There were many vicious battles. Families were divided. Much gold and many bribes were paid to the MacCuaig traitors to steal our land. William MacCuaig was one of Jackson’s generals and led a thousand Lower Creek soldiers, trained and supplied by Jackson. Laughing Boy, the most diabolical of William’s sons, has always been his favorite, and second in command. Laughing Boy led his own battalion of the cruelest barbarians. By war’s end, my people were either dead, in prison camps, or here in Florida with the Seminole.”
“But that wasn’t enough for ‘em, was it?” said Virgil.
“No, it is never enough for the lusts and greed of the MacCuaigs. After the war, William MacCuaig signed illegal treaties with Andrew Jackson, giving almost all the Creek land. MacCuaig and his captains split hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. MacCuaig was a powerful man but did not speak for the majority of Creek chiefs. Many Creeks protested, some of the chiefs even went to Washington, but MacCuaig’s henchmen beat them, burned their homes, even killed them. Eventually the Creek Council assassinated William MacCuaig but the damage was done. The land was gone. The Creek were on their way west with everyone else.”
“It’s mighty funny how them treaties with the Americans seems to work out,” said Virgil. “How is Laughing Boy even considered an Indian? His hair is red as a strawberry and skin as white as a wading bird. And there’s so many of them.”
“His blood is much more Scottish than Creek. His father’s grandfather came from Scotland as a trader more than a hundred years ago. Such mixed-breeds control the Creek nation. They are really white and want to live as the whites live. That is why they wear the blue Tam o' Shanter bonnets and clan tartans.”
###
Willet no longer spoke of the horrors she had suffered at the hands of the MacCuaigs two years before. On that day she and her sister Chechoter had gone to Rogers’ Trading Post to buy coffee and flour. Chebona Bula MacCuaig and a gang of his brothers and cousins were there, harassing peaceful Seminole and Estelusti farmers as they often did.
The MacCuaigs were infamous for kidnapping vulnerable Estelusti and threatening to sell us to the highest bidder, which meant plantation slavery. The soldiers and Indians agents rarely got involved since our Seminole owners did not keep the titleship papers of us that were recognized by American courts. The kidnap victims were seldom actually sold. Instead, the families paid the ransom demanded by the MacCuaigs.
The forts and trading posts were off-limits to their attacks. Before, the MacCuaigs had only snatched isolated Estelusti who were not well known to the Americans. At the settlements, the MacCuaigs bullied and insulted our men and made lewd comments to the women, but the army protected us from physical attacks. Those were the written and unwritten rules up until that day. But Chebona Bula MacCuaig knew exactly who Chechoter and Willet were when claimed they were runaways and demanded a huge ransom.
Osceola had charged into the fort and tried to kill Laughing Boy, but he was clubbed with rifle butts and stomped. He was slapped into irons and thrown into the stockade. Osceola would not pay the ransom and had no money even if he had wanted to. He pleaded with Thompson to free his family, but Thompson found the whole incident amusing and refused to intervene. Over the next days the women were subjected to the vilest abuses by the MacCuaigs. Turns on the women were sold to other ruffians that loitered around the fort. The men stood drunkenly in line for hours, leering and cheering. Trapped in the cages, the children had witnessed the brutal ruttings.
From his jail cell, Osceola could hear the screams and sobs. After a week, Osceola bowed his head. He groveled and begged. He agreed to pay ten cattle and a prize breeding bull for the release of his family. Osceola was not a wealthy man. He did not own a breeding bull. He had to accept charity, which further humiliated him. Wiley Thompson thought an apology and the gift of a fancy rifle could make up for all that.
Willet’s physical injuries took months to heal. Some unseen ones I think not yet had. The abuse had taken her mind and spirit to a dark, distant place for many months. My mother and the women of nearby villages had sat with her day and night, holding her through long episodes of sobbing and soothing. They nursed her, bathed her, read to her, and lined her bed with fresh flowers. It was the same with Chechoter.
Willet regained herself by returning to what she had always enjoyed the most. She immersed herself in the wonders of our forests and swamps. As spring bloomed, she spent many hours alone, sitting in the meadows of wildflowers and sunlight. Then she walked the game trails and paddled the streams, silently and alone. After time, she picked up the tools Mateo had painstakingly crafted for her: the bow, the straightest arrows, the perfectly balanced steel knife, and the weighted war ax. She spent hours prowling through the worst of the swamps, honing her hunting skills. As her prowess grew, she supplied several villages with fresh venison and bear meat. She was praised as a hunter, but I knew she was preparing to kill men.
