Chapter V: The Treaty of Payne's Landing

One day when Osceola was at Fort King he was told that a great council was to be held at Payne's Landing, about twenty miles from the fort. The Indians' "white father" had sent special messengers to talk with the Seminoles, and all the leading men of the nation were summoned to come to hear his words.

Osceola knew that the message was about the Seminoles' leaving Florida. He was bitterly opposed to that project. He knew that some of the old chiefs were very easily influenced, and that the white men had a way of getting them to make promises in council which they afterwards regretted. He therefore wished that none of the Indians would attend the council. Then no action could be taken.

He went around advising men not to go to Payne's Landing. But the white men sent their messengers near and far, calling in the chiefs and head men. Early in May the streams were full of canoes and the forest paths were traveled by bands of Indians on their way to Payne's Landing. Seeing this, Osceola decided to go to the council himself, and do what he could there to prevent the chiefs from making any rash agreements.

Osceola was not a chief, but he was a recognized leader of the young men, and as he sat in the council house, stern and alert, many a glance was cast in his direction to see how he was impressed by the white man's talk.

He listened to the interpreter eagerly and learned that the President wished the Seminoles to give up the land that had been reserved for them by the treaty of Camp Moultrie. In exchange they were to occupy a tract of land of the same extent west of the Mississippi River in Arkansas among the Creek Indians. A delegation of chiefs was to visit the country and if "they" were satisfied with the country, the Seminoles were to be transported to it in three divisions, one in 1833, one in 1834, and the last in 1835. Something was said about the payment of annuities, about the distribution of blankets and homespun frocks, and compensation for cattle and slaves stolen by the whites. But the point that concerned Osceola most of all was that the Seminoles were expected to leave Florida and live among the Creeks west of the Mississippi! Still there was no reason to be distressed about it, he thought, for it was to be done only if the Florida Indians were willing to make the change, and he knew that the Seminoles would never consent to leave Florida. With arms folded across his breast and a calm eye he watched one chief after another take the pen and make at the end of the treaty his mark or signature.

A short time afterwards seven chiefs and the faithful negro interpreter, Abraham, left for Arkansas to examine the new country. The delegation returned in April, 1833.

Then the Indians asked, "When will the white men meet the red to hear what they think about going towards the setting sun?"

"There will be no council," said the agent. "You promised to go if the delegates liked the land. They like the land. Now you must go without any more talk."

"No, no! We promised to go if we were suited with the land when they told us about it!" exclaimed the Indians.

The agent repeated, "You gave your word to your white father that you would go if the country pleased your chiefs. The chiefs were well pleased." Then he added, "They met your white father's messengers on the new land and pledged their faith that you would go. They promised for you. They signed another treaty. You agreed to do as your chiefs wished. Your chiefs have promised your white father. There is no help for it. You must go."

When Osceola heard this he was in a rage. The white men had got the chiefs away from their own people and induced them to make promises they had no right to make. What right had Charley A. Mathla to promise for him or to promise for Micanopy, the head chief of the nation?

Osceola was not the only indignant one. All the Indians were in a fury with the government agents. They felt that they had been tricked, caught by a phrase they did not understand. They believed that undue influence had been brought to bear upon their chiefs. Had the delegates been allowed to return to Florida to give their report, some Indians would have heard it with favor, but all were angered because the chiefs had been influenced to make an additional treaty at Fort Gibson without consulting their people. But the Indians were usually as severe in their judgment of their own race as in their condemnation of another and they did not spare the chiefs who had signed the additional treaty. Men and women alike held them in supreme contempt. They scolded, they ridiculed till the men in self defense declared that they had not signed the treaty, and gave so many reasons why the Seminoles should not go west that the spirit against emigration was more positive than ever.

The faith of even those Indians who had striven to keep peace with the United States was destroyed by the "Additional Treaty" and a general feeling of ill will prevailed. The Indians refused to surrender negroes claimed as slaves by the white people, and were so hostile that in 1834 General Jackson, then president of the United States, determined to force them to leave if necessary. He had the treaties ratified by the Senate, appointed a new Indian agent, and ordered that preparations for the removal of the Indians should be pushed with all speed.

In October the new Indian agent called a council. This time Osceola went about urging the Indians to attend and advising the chiefs about their talks. In the council the slender, energetic, young warrior sat next to the fat, inactive old chief, Micanopy. Osceola had no right to speak in council, but there was no man there who had more influence. If Micanopy wavered under the stern eye of the white man, he heard the voice of Osceola in his ear and did the young man's bidding.

Micanopy denied signing the treaty of Payne's Landing. When shown his mark he declared that he had not touched the pen, though he had been on the point of doing so, "for," he said, "the treaty was to examine the country and I believed that when the delegation returned, the report would be unfavorable. It is a white man's treaty, and the white man did not make the Indian understand it as he meant it." He finished by saying that he had agreed to the treaty of Camp Moultrie and that by the terms of that treaty southern Florida belonged to the Seminoles for twenty years, scarcely half of which had passed.

Other chiefs spoke and said bitter things. The agent became angry and threatened to withhold the annuity unless the Indians signed a paper agreeing to leave without further trouble.

At this Osceola's eyes flashed fire; he sprang up like a tiger and declared that he did not care if the Indians never received another dollar of the white man's money; he and his warriors would never sign away their liberty and land for gold. Then, drawing his knife from his belt, he raised it high in the air and plunged it through document and table, exclaiming, "The only treaty I will sign is with this!"