government will make arrangements for their emigration, satisfactory to
the Seminole nation." They of course had no authority to act on their
own initiative, and when all returned in April, 1833, and Phagan
explained what had happened, the Seminoles expressed themselves in no
uncertain terms. The chiefs who had gone West denied strenuously that
they had signed away any rights to land, but they were nevertheless
upbraided as the agents of deception. Some of the old chiefs, of whom
Micanopy was the highest authority, resolved to resist the efforts to
dispossess them; and John Hicks, who seems to have been substituted for
Sam Jones on the commission, was killed because he argued too strongly
for migration. Meanwhile the treaty of Payne's Landing was ratified by
the Senate of the United States and proclaimed as in force by President
Jackson April 12, 1834, and in connection with it the supplementary
treaty of Fort Gibson was also ratified. The Seminoles, however, were
not showing any haste about removing, and ninety of the white citizens
of Alachua County sent a protest to the President alleging that the
Indians were not returning their fugitive slaves. Jackson was made
angry, and without even waiting for the formal ratification of the
treaties, he sent the document to the Secretary of War, with an
endorsement on the back directing him "to inquire into the alleged
facts, and if found to be true, to direct the Seminoles to prepare to
remove West and join the Creeks." General Wiley Thompson was appointed
to succeed Phagan as agent, and General Duncan L. Clinch was placed in
command of the troops whose services it was thought might be needed. It
was at this juncture that Osceola stepped forward as the leading spirit
of his people.


4. _Osceola and the Second Seminole War_