Jackson Seizes Pensacola

Jackson marched on Pensacola. He received on the way, a protest from the Spanish Governor against the invasion of Florida.

Continuing USA Acquires Florida,
our selection from History of the United States of America by Richard Hildreth published in 1853. The selection is presented in three easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in USA Acquires Florida.

Time: 1821
Place: Florida

Notice of this intended attack had been sent to Suwanee by Arbuthnot, a Scotchman, last from the Bahamas, employed in trade with the Seminoles, whom Jackson had found at the fort at St. Mark’s. Ambrister, a native of New Providence, who had served in Florida during the late war, and who had lately re turned thither, apparently on some trading enterprises, in which he was connected with Arbuthnot, had headed the Indians and negroes in the defense of Suwanee and had been taken prisoner there. There seems to have been much rivalry for the Seminole trade between Arbuthnot and one Hambley, also a British subject, but who had espoused the American interest. On Jackson’s return to St. Mark’s —- since neither the exhausted state of his men nor the failure of provisions would allow him to march against the more southern Indian towns —- he put Arbuthnot and Ambrister on trial for their lives before a court-martial, of which Gaines was president. The court acquitted Arbuthnot of the charge of being a spy. Of the charge of stirring up the Indians to arrest the person and to seize the property of Hambley, they declined to take cognizance, as not within the range of a military court. Of the two charges of exciting and stirring up the Indians to war with the United States, and of furnishing the means of carrying it on, they found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

The proof consisted, first, in a letter of Arbuthnot’s to one of the chiefs of the Lower Creeks, in which he insisted that, by the Treaty of Ghent, the Creeks were entitled to all the territories in their possession previous to the war; and, secondly, of copies of certain other letters found among Arbuthnot’s papers, addressed to Bagot, the British ambassador at Washington, and to the Governor of New Providence, endeavoring to obtain some British aid and protection for these late British allies. To this was added the testimony of a discarded clerk of his, that Arbuthnot had supplied the Indians with powder. Ambrister was also found guilty of aiding, abetting, and comforting the enemy, sup plying them with the means of war, and aiding them in it, and by two- thirds of the court was also sentenced to death; but, on reconsideration, the sentence was changed to fifty stripes on the bare back, and confinement at hard labor, with a ball and chain, for twelve months.

This last sentence was disapproved by Jackson, who reinstated the first one, and ordered the execution of both the unfortunate traders, on the extraordinary pretense that it was ” an established principle of the law of nations, that an individual making war against the citizens of any other nation, the two nations being at peace, forfeits his allegiance, and becomes an outlaw and a pirate” —- a principle which would have justified the British in hanging Lafayette and Kosciuszko, had they been taken prisoners in the war of the Revolution.

Jackson, meanwhile, on some rumor or pretended rumor, of encouragement from Pensacola to Indian inroads into Alabama, had marched for that place. He received, on the way, a protest from the Spanish Governor against the invasion of Florida, and a declaration of his intention to resist it; but this was construed by Jackson into an additional reason for seizing Pensacola, which he entered the next day, with only a show of opposition. The Governor fled to the fort at the Barancas, but, Jackson having erected batteries and begun a cannonade, he judged it best to capitulate.

Upon the arrival at Washington of the news of these proceedings, the Spanish minister protested against this violation of the Spanish territory pending a negotiation. In a cabinet council, Calhoun, Secretary of War, proposed bringing General Jackson to a trial; but this proposition met with no favor. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, replied to the Spanish minister by setting up the unfulfilled treaty obligation of Spain to restrain the Indians within her limits. The seizure of St. Mark’s and Pensacola, though an act of the General’s without orders, yet, considering the aid and encouragement afforded by these posts to the hostile Indians, was abundantly justified on the principle of self-defense. But as the war with the Seminoles was now ended, it was offered to restore Pensacola at once, and St. Mark’s whenever Spain had a force ready to be stationed there competent to control the neighboring Indians.

A tardy ratification having arrived of the convention of indemnities of 1802, with additional instructions to Don Onis, the negotiation for the discharge of the American claims by the cession of Florida was presently renewed. Onis insisted upon a preliminary apology and indemnity for the seizure of St. Mark’s and Pensacola; upon a confirmation of all the Spanish Floridian grants; and that the limits west of the Mississippi, between the United States and Spain, should be a due north line beginning on the Gulf east of the Sabine, between the Mermentau and Calcasiu, crossing the Red River at Natchitoches, and extending to the Missouri, that river thence to its source to be the boundary. Adams offered, as his ultimatum, to accept as a boundary the Sabine as far as 320 north latitude, a line thence due north to the Red River, that river to its source, the crest of the Rocky Mountains to 410 north latitude, and a line thence due west to the Pacific.

Onis offered to agree to the Sabine and a line due north to the Missouri, and the course of that river to its head. The American claim to extend to the Pacific he pronounced a novelty, now heard of for the first time, and as to which he had no instructions. Adams rejoined by withdrawing his late offer as to boundary, proposing to let that question He over for the present, and to settle the other points first. He took occasion, at the same time, to go into a long and very warm vindication of all Jackson’s proceedings in Florida, which he defended on the ground taken by Jackson himself, that the war with the Seminoles had originated entirely in the instigations of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, who were described as only “pretended traders,” and by implication as British emissaries, whom the Spanish commander was accused of having encouraged and abetted; a view of the case still more elaborately and zealously maintained in a dispatch of the same date to Erving, the American minister in Spain.

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