A Bit of History

Treaty of Payne’s Landing

1832

Tanner's 1833 map of Florida showing the newly created Columbia county in the north and the Indian Reservation in the south.  Also highlight in red: Micanopy in the Arrendo Grant,  Dells Post Office became Newnansville,  and Picolatti on the St. John’s River.
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With the Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1823, the Seminoles had relinquished claims to their traditional land in the Florida Territory in return for a reservation in the center of the Florida as well as payments, supplies and services to be provided by the U.S. government, guaranteed for twenty years. The treaty had problems from the start, the Indians didn’t want to move and were in no hurry to do so. A problem with the treaty was it did not specify how quickly they had to move.  The Indians insisted they could not subsist on the reservation land and after examining the land, Governor DuVal said,  "Nineteen-twentieths of their whole country within the present boundary is by far the poorest and most miserable region I ever beheld.”[quote article]  The migration was mixed, some entered  and then left, others never entered at all, few stayed.

In 1825 severe drought in Florida greatly reduced the Seminoles crops which they turned to foraging in the forests for substance, forests that did not exist on the reservation. The Moultrie Creek treaty stipulated that rations would be provided to those moving to the reservation, but those rations were not sufficient to live on, so the Indians traveled outside their reservation, increasingly killing the white men’s cattle to sustain themselves.

By 1827 it was clear that the Moultrie Creek treaty wasn’t working and stern laws were enacted to keep white men out of the reservation and vice versa, although the punishment for an Indian found outside the reservation was far worse as they could be seized and given thirty-nine lashes. The new laws generally led to increased conflict. After a visit by the territorial Delegate to Congress to talk to the Seminole chiefs, Chief Micanopy said about refusing to leave their homeland, "Here my naval string was cut. The earth drank the blood which makes me love it."

In 1828 Andrew Jackson was elected President and, being a long proponent for moving the Indians West, the movement to transfer all Indians in the United States to west of the Mississippi River grew until 1830 when the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. While the more northern tribes like the Choctaw began  migration in 1831, there was a problem with Seminoles in Florida in that they already were given a reservation in Florida which, as they pointed out, the Treaty of Moultrie Creek in 1823 gave them for twenty years.

But the white me wanted them gone. In January of 1832 a petition to Congress from the Alachua County for the removal of the Indians stated in support of relocating them out west:

The Treaty of 1823 deprived them of their cultivated fields and of a region of country fruitful of game, and has placed them in a wilderness where the earth yields no corn, and where even the precarious advantages of the chase are in a great measure denied them. . . . they are thus left the wretched alternative of Starving within their limits, or roaming among the whites, to prey upon their cattle. Many in the Nation, it seems, annually die of Starvation; but as might be expected, the much greater proportion of those who are threatened with want, leave their boundaries in pursuit of the means of subsistence, and between these and the white settlers is kept up an unceasing contest

Determine to move the Seminoles west, the US War Department appointed James Gadsden to negotiate a new treaty with them. A meeting in May of 1832 was held at Payne’s Landing on the Oklawaha River where the negotiations were conducted with no minutes being taken, nor were any detailed accounts of the negotiations ever published. This would lead to trouble later.  The “marks”, as none could read nor write, of seven chiefs and eight subchiefs appear on the treaty against names written by the white men.  Much fewer than the thirty-two that signed the Moultrie Creek agreement of 1823. Chief Micanopy later declared he had not put his mark on the treaty, even though his name appeared on the document. There were further claims that the chiefs were coerced into signing.

The first article of the treaty[1] called for the Seminoles to move west if the land were found to be “suitable” by  a delegation of seven Seminole chiefs. Only after this would the remaining articles apply. One problem with the land was much of it had already been given to the Creeks who the Seminoles hated after they joined with Andew Jackson against the Seminoles in 1818.  

The seven chiefs or their representatives,  Jumper, Charley Emarthla, Coihadjo (Alligator), Holati Emarthla, John Hicks, and Nehathoclo, left in October 1832 and after a long hard trip arrived at the “promised land” only to have to wait for several weeks before inspecting the land upon which chief Jumper said they found “bad Indians”, likely Creeks.

After viewing the land, they retreated to Ft. Gibson where they held meetings with the government representatives. The government had intended to merge the Creek and Seminole on the same land and under the same government subsidies.  The Seminoles would not agree to this and insisted they have a tract of land to themselves and subsidies separate from the Creeks. Little else was recorded about the meeting and negotiations with the delegation signing on March 28 and became known as the “Treaty of Ft. Gibson.”  It was a rather simple document stating that the delegation was satisfied with the land allocated to them and defining the boundaries. It also stated the Seminoles would move as soon as the Government could make satisfactory arrangements.

Many would later describe the treaty as a fraud. Once again several of the chiefs said they did not sign. Not that it mattered if they did. Upon returning to Florida the many other chiefs said the seven did not speak for them. The Seminoles of the time were not one cohesive tribe but rather there were many localized tribes throughout Florida, each with their own chief. Micanopy was the chief of the Alachua area. Although somewhat loosely connected and called Seminoles, there was not one overall chief. Upon the seven chiefs return, many of the other chiefs that remained in Florida said the seven did not have the power to speak for them.

So then who was the delegation representing? The government of course said that the whole purpose of sending a delegation was to represent all the Seminoles and thus the decision was final. After a two-year delay from the initial signing at Paynes Creek, on April 8, 1834 the Senate approved the treaty.   The government stated, “tribe, it is expected, will remove immediately to the lands assigned them” and wished them a happy reunion with their “kindred friends” the Creeks.

Maj. Ethan Allen Hitchcock recorded in his journal, "The treaty of Payne's Landing in 1832 by which it was attempted to remove the Indians, was a fraud upon them and they have in fact never agreed to emigrate. I say therefore that the Indians are in the right to defend themselves in the country to the best of their ability."[2]  And so they would.

[1] Full text of 1832 Treaty of Payne's Landing.
[2] "The unconquered Seminole Indians; pictorial history of the Seminole Indians". HathiTrust. p. 23.

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