INDIAN AND NEGRO


It is not the purpose of the present chapter to give a history of the
Seminole Wars, or even to trace fully the connection of the Negro with
these contests. We do hope to show at least, however, that the Negro was
more important than anything else as an immediate cause of controversy,
though the general pressure of the white man upon the Indian would
in time of course have made trouble in any case. Strange parallels
constantly present themselves, and incidentally it may be seen that the
policy of the Government in force in other and even later years with
reference to the Negro was at this time also very largely applied in the
case of the Indian.


1. _Creek, Seminole, and Negro to 1817: The War of 1812_

On August 7, 1786, the Continental Congress by a definite and
far-reaching ordinance sought to regulate for the future the whole
conduct of Indian affairs. Two great districts were formed, one
including the territory north of the Ohio and west of the Hudson, and
the other including that south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi;
and for anything pertaining to the Indian in each of these two great
tracts a superintendent was appointed. As affecting the Negro the
southern district was naturally of vastly more importance than the
northern. In the eastern portion of this, mainly in what are now
Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and eastern Alabama, were the Cherokees
and the great confederacy of the Creeks, while toward the west, in the
present Mississippi and western Alabama, were the Chickasaws and the
Choctaws. Of Muskhogean stock, and originally a part of the Creeks, were