Important in this general connection was the fate of the deputation that
the influential John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, was persuaded to
send from his nation to induce the Seminoles to think more favorably of
migration. Micanopy, twelve other chieftains, and a number of warriors
accompanied the Cherokee deputation to the headquarters of the United
States Army at Fort Mellon, where they were to discuss the matter. These
warriors also Jessup seized, and Ross wrote to the Secretary of War
a dignified but bitter letter protesting against this "unprecedented
violation of that sacred rule which has ever been recognized by every
nation, civilized and uncivilized, of treating with all due respect
those who had ever presented themselves under a flag of truce before the
enemy, for the purpose of proposing the termination of warfare." He had
indeed been most basely used as the agent of deception.

This chapter, we trust, has shown something of the real nature of the
points at issue in the Seminole Wars. In the course of these contests
the rights of Indian and Negro alike were ruthlessly disregarded. There
was redress for neither before the courts, and at the end in dealing
with them every honorable principle of men and nations was violated. It
is interesting that the three representatives of colored peoples who
in the course of the nineteenth century it was most difficult to
capture--Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Negro, Osceola, the Indian, and
Aguinaldo, the Filipino--were all taken through treachery; and on two of
the three occasions this treachery was practiced by responsible officers
of the United States Army.




CHAPTER VI