The Old Country
Treaty of Moultrie Creek
1823
1829 Florida map showing the Indian Reservation and Arrendondo Grant
containing
Micanopy and Wanton’s in Alachua County (yellow) which extended from
the Georgia border southward to Charlotte Harbor.
<Click map for larger view>
In 1823 the U.S. government decided to settle what remained of the Seminoles and other native tribes in Florida southward to a reservation in the central part of Florida. Jackson’s “victory” in north Florida was instrumental in convincing the Seminoles to sign the Treaty of Moultrie Creek in September 18, 1823. Although seemingly large at four million acres, the land was of poor quality with much of it scrub forest which Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings described as, "There is no human habitation—there never has been and probably never will be—in the scrub itself." She called the scrub "a vast wall, keeping out the timid and the alien." If you ever have traveled through the now Ocala National Forest you would know what it is like.
The reservation was well inland from the coasts isolating the Indians from contact with outsiders. About 425 Natives attended the treaty which they chose chief Neamathia to represent them. Other than a few villages along the Apalachicola River, they gave up all claim to lands in Florida including the Arrendondo Grant, Micanopy and Pilgrimage and were forced to place themselves under the protection of the United States. In return, if the Seminoles remained peaceful and law-abiding, the government was supposed to distribute $6,000 of farm tools, cattle and hogs to the Seminoles and pay them for relocating and provide rations for a year until they could plant new crops which was no easy task considering new land would have to be cleared and the poor quality of the land. No white men were allowed to settle, farm or hunt on the reservation as well. Of course the Indians had no way to stop white men from doing so, and if they did it would have been violation of them being “peaceful and law-abiding”. Indians living in the Apalachicola area resisted moving to the reservation and, even with limited migration, the Indians soon insisted the reservation was not large enough to support them, which even the Florida Governor Duval concurred. A severe drought in 1825 caused food shortages and some have started to death. After continued shortages Governor Duval permitted the Natives to leave the reservation to fish along the Gulf coast. In 1827, even with the limited migration, government funds for the Indians ran out and money was taken from the salaries of the subagent, blacksmith and interpreter for the Indians resulting them all resigning.