Econchattimico's long journey on the Trail of Tears

"They have suffered very much."

by Dale Cox

Econchattimico's Town was sketched in 1838 by a visiting
French nobleman. It stood north of today's Sneads, Florida.

Yesterday's article focused on the forced removal of Econchattimico's and John Walker's bands from their lands in Jackson County, Floria, by U.S. troops under Brig. Gen. Zachary Taylor. Please see Zachary Taylor and the Red Ground King.

Today we continue the story of this humanitarian tragedy with the departure of the Native Americans from Florida and their arrival in Oklahoma, as well as the failure of the United States government to ever pay them for their lost homes and fields.

The following is excerpted from my book: The History Of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

-Excerpt-

The people from Econchattimico’s and John Walker’s reserves were joined near the mouth of the Apalachicola River by 34 refugee Creeks who had been captured following their flight from Jackson County earlier in the year. Brought from a concentration camp on Dog Island in the Gulf of Mexico, they brought the total number of men, women, and children in the group to more than 300 souls.

Dog Island is visible on the horizon in this photo taken from
top of the Crooked River Lighthouse at Carrabelle, Florida.
Creek Indian refugees were held there in 1838.

Brig. Gen. Taylor had reservations about the safety of moving more than 300 men, women, and children through the Gulf aboard the steamboat Rodney, so Daniel Boyd contracted two additional vessels, the schooners Octavia and Vesper. After a brief stop in St. Joseph (today's Port St. Joe), the entire party moved on to Pensacola:

We left Pensacola on the 29th ult. and arrived at New Orleans on the 2d inst. At New Orleans we took on board the Rodney the Indians shipped per schooner Octavia and Vespar, and next morning proceeded on our voyage and reached Natchez on the 5th. We remained at Natchez one day in order to procure supplies, and to afford the Indians an opportunity to purchase clothing which they stood very much in need of. To those who had not the means to purchase for themselves I supplied such articles as were absolutely necessary for their comfort on the voyage.

They have suffered very much from sickness. Six have died since we left Chattahoochee and more than twenty are now upon the sick list. The weather has been unusually cold for the season, which has no doubt increased the number of invalids.

The water in the Mississippi River is very low; we lay two days upon a sand bar about twenty five miles above Vicksburg. If the Arkansas River continues as low as it is reported to be at present, I will disembark the Indians at the first convenient point where transportation can be procured and proceed by land to Fort Gibson. [1]

Fortunately for the suffering men, women, and children, the Rodney was able to steam up the Arkansas River as far as Little Rock. The Native Americans transferred there to the steamboat North St. Louis to continue the trip upriver, but the second vessel ran aground at nearby Cadron, Arkansas. [2]

The Arkansas River, seen here at Van Buren,
Arkansas, was too shallow for the steamboat
carrying the Apalachicola survivors and they
had to walk through brutal winter weather.

Left with no choice but to continue overland through bitterly cold conditions, the exhausted emigrants finally reached Fort Gibson in present-day Oklahoma on January 10, 1839. A muster roll prepared that same day revealed that 272 of the original 393 survived the trip. Econchattimico and John Walker were among the survivors, but many of their followers were not. Of the African Americans or Black Seminoles who once lived under the protection of the two chiefs, only one made it to Fort Gibson. [3]

The final tally of emigrants included 126 residents of Walker’s Town, 81 from Econchattimico’s village, 34 refugee Creeks, and 32 holdovers from John Blunt’s band. The latter individuals remained behind on the Apalachicola when their chief and most of his followers left for Texas in 1834. Among the residents of Econchattimico’s town was George Perryman, a well-known figure on the early frontier and the son of former principal Seminole chief Thomas Perryman. [4]

Fort Gibson in what is now Oklahoma was the western end of
the Trail of Tears for the survivors under Econchattimico and
John Walker. 

The little group settled in the eastern edge of the Creek Nation, not far from present-day Muskogee, Oklahoma. They built cabins and started clearing lands for themselves, but their winter arrival did not help them acclimate to the new country. Many died from illness and starvation over the coming months.

Three months after they arrived in today's Muscogee (Creek) Nation, the emigrants submitted a list of claims to the government seeking reimbursement for the value of the property they left behind in Florida. Their claims totaled $3,042.80. The amount may not seem significant but is worth $84,403.67 today (excluding interest). The losses included dozens of cabins, corn cribs, sheds, and acres of crops and fruit orchards. The government also still owed $15,000 to them for giving up their lands and moving west.  The money was still owed 22 years later when the War Between the States or Civil War broke out in 1861. [5]

The new Confederate government entered separate negotiations with the Apalachicolas, treating them as a sixth "civilized tribe" alongside the Creeks, Seminoles, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The Confederates secured a separate treaty with them by promising to pay the long overdue claim at the end of the war in exchange for their support and military service. The Apalachicola warriors finally took up arms against the United States, turning out to fight the government that they had tried so long to appease:

The Apalachicola warriors fought on the Confederate side in a
number of engagements west of the Mississippi, including the
bloody Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas.

…The said Apalachicola band remained loyal to the United States, and maintained their peace and friendship unbroken; but in the year 1837 they were induced, by the urgent solicitation of the emigrating agent of the United States, to remove from the country occupied by them in Florida to the Indian country west of Arkansas, leaving the lands…and a large number of horses, mules, cattle, hogs, wagons, and other articles which they could not collect together and carry with them, and which the said emigrating agent persuaded them to leave in his charge, on his promise that the owners should be paid the value of all such their property in money by the agent of the United States on their arrival in the country provided for them on the west side of the Mississippi. [6] 

The Apalachicola chiefs and warriors fought on the side of the Confederacy in numerous battles across the modern states of Arkansas and Oklahoma. They never received the money they were promised. The collapse of the Confederate government ended any remaining hope.

The Apalachicola served in the Creek regiments raised in the Indian Nations during the war and were among the last Confederate soldiers anywhere to give up their arms. Their war finally ended when their commander, Brig. Gen. Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender on June 23, 1865.

-End of Excerpt-

The sites of Econchattamico's and John Walker's reservations in Jackson County are unmarked. Walker's lands were along the Apalachicola River just east of present-day Sneads, Florida. Econchattimico's grounds were north of Sneads along today's River Road. Significant portions of both parcels remain in the hands of the Federal and state governments today.

To learn more about the Trail of Tears in Jackson County, Florida, please consider:

References:

[1] Daniel Boyd to C.A. Harris, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 11, 1838.

[2] Arkansas Gazette, November 28, 1838.

[3] J.R. Stephenson, “Muster Roll of a Company Seminole who have emigrated West of the Mississippi River,” January 10, 1839.

[4] Ibid.

[5] J.R. Stephenson to T.H. Crawford, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 6, 1839.

[6] Supplementary Article to Treaty between the Confederate States of America and the Creek Nation, July 10, 1861.

A Second Seminole War attack on the Wakulla River

Creek warriors strike in the summer of 1839.

by Dale Cox

The Wakulla River was on the frontlines of war in 1839.

The summer of 1839 was the bloodiest of the Second Seminole War for families living in and on the borders of the Forbes Purchase in the Big Bend Region of Florida. Much of the Purchase area is recognizable today as the Apalachicola National Forest.

Native American warriors emerged from hiding places in the vast wilderness between the Apalachicola and Wakulla Rivers that year to strike against isolated homes and settlements. More than one dozen people, for example, were killed in a single attack at Estiffanulga Bluff in today's Liberty County. Others died in an attack on the Chaires' settlement within the fringes of the modern city of Tallahassee.

United States troops and Florida militia forces tried to strike back, carrying out raids deep into the swamps between the populated areas of Gadsden and Leon Counties and the coast. They generally failed, however, to bring the warriors to battle.

The American Indian warriors involved in these incidents were not Seminoles. They were members of Muscogee (Creek) bands that fled Alabama in 1837, hoping to escape atrocities being committed on their families at concentration or "emigration" camps. All of the remaining Muscogee people in Alabama were ordered into such camps in the fall of 1836 by U.S. officials intent on forcing them west on the Trail of Tears.

White outlaws raided some of the camps, however, killing elderly men and attacking girls and women. They even slit the noses and ears of Creek people to take their gold earrings and nose rings.

Leon County extended to the Gulf in 1839.

Determined to save their families from such outrages, several chiefs gathered their followers and broke from free from the concentration camps and broke for the swamps of the Pea River. Attacked by militia troops, they fought a slow retreat south across the border into the Walton, Okaloosa and Holmes County area of Florida where Florida troops joined the battle. Severe fighting took place in the Florida Panhandle during the spring and summer of 1837, as white soldiers and volunteers drove the desperate Creeks east to the Apalachicola River.

By the summer of 1839, several of the Muscogee (Creek) bands were in the Forbes Purchase, which for the most part was a vast, unsettled wilderness. They were desperate for food and other supplies, the necessity of which drove them to raid homes and settlements throughout the region.

One such raid took place 180-years ago this month in what is now Wakulla County, Florida:

On Friday the 27^th ultimo a party of Indians attacked the house of Mr. Bunch on the Wakulla, murdered Mrs. Bunch and one child and burned the house; also fired on, and wounded badly, Mrs. Whitaker living neighbour to Mr. Bunch. A detachment of the ‘Minute men,’ started on Monday morning in pursuit of the Indians; the sad news not having reached town until Sunday night at 1 o’clock from the circumstance of Mr. Bunch living distant from any settlement. - Tallahassee Star, October 2, 1839.

The Wakulla River, where the attack reportedly took place, is
a place of spectacular natural beauty. The head spring is the
centerpiece of Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park.

Census records show that John J. Bunch lived near Shell Point on the Wakulla County coast by 1850. It is unclear if the attack was in that vicinity or actually on the Wakulla River as reported by local newspapers.

The "Minute men" sent to pursue the warriors failed to come up with them. Having obtained necessary supplies, the Creeks withdrew into the swamps and could not be found.

The editor of the Tallahassee Star lamented the ability of the warriors to strike almost at will along the frontier, and the inability of Gov. Richard Keith Call to stop them:

How these vagabond Indians are to be caught and captured is more than we can tell. The country seems to be their own; no sooner does the Governor start for the Suwannee with a force of 250 men, than the Indians break out on the Wakulla, in quite an opposite direction! It would appear that the Indians are apprised of every movement by the whites! We hope the Governor may come across them, and whip them severely, and we are sure if the ‘Minute Men’ overhaul them they will soon cry for quarters. Florida is sorely harassed and deserves the pity of the nation. - Tallahassee Star, October 2, 1839.

Col. William Davenport of the U.S. Army led regular troops into today's Apalachicola National Forest during the winter of 1839-1840 but utterly failed to locate and kill or capture the Creek people clinging to life there.

In fact, it was 1843 before they finally "came in" and agreed to go west on the Trail of Tears. The chief Pascola led them in a fight that continued well after the technical end of the Second Seminole War. Lt. Col. Ethan Allen Hitchcock finally used diplomacy instead of bayonets to convince Pascofa of the futility of continuing the fight. 

Pascofa's band boarded the steamboat William Gaston at Hitchcock Landing on the Ochlockonee River in January 1843. Soldiers reported that tears filled their eyes as they caught their last view of the lands east of the Mississippi that had belonged to their nation for more than 1,000 years.

The survivors of Pascofa's group reached what is now Oklahoma after a long journey by boat and on foot. They are remembered today as the ancestors of the Thomas Palmer Band of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.