nderbrush and small trees. You may yet trace out its bastions,
curtains, and magazine. At this time the country adjacent presents the
appearance of an unbroken wilderness, and the whole scene is one of
gloomy solitude, associated as it is with one of the most cruel
massacres which ever disgraced the American arms.

The fort had originally been erected by civilized troops, and, when
abandoned by its occupants at the close of the war, in 1815, it was
taken possession of by the refugees from Georgia. But little is yet
known of that persecuted people; their history can only be found in
the national archives at Washington. They had been held as slaves in
the State referred to; but during the Revolution they caught the
spirit of liberty, at that time so prevalent throughout our land, and
fled from their oppressors and found an asylum among the aborigines
living in Florida.

During forty years they had effectually eluded, or resisted, all
attempts to re-enslave them. They were true to themselves, to the
instinctive love of liberty, which is planted in every human heart.
Most of them had been born amidst perils, reared in the forest, and
taught from their childhood to hate the oppressors of their race. Most
of those who had been personally held in degrading servitude, whose
backs had been seared by the lash of the savage overseer, had passed
to that spirit-land where the clanking of chains is not heard, where
slavery is not known. Some few of that class yet remained. Their gray
hairs and feeble limbs, however, indicated that they, too, must soon
pass away. Of the three hundred and eleven persons residing in
"Blount's Fort" not more than twenty had been actually held in
servitude. The others were descended from slave parents, who fled from
Georgia, and, according to the laws of slave States, were liable to
suffer the same outrages to which their ancestors had been subjected.

It is a most singular feature in slave-holding morals, that if the
parents be robbed of their liberty, deprived of the rights with which
their Creator has endowed them, the perpetrator of these wrongs
becomes entitled to repeat them upon the children of their former
victims. There were also some few parents and grandchildren, as well
as middle-aged persons, who sought protection within the walls of the
Fort against the vigilant slave-catchers who occasionally were seen
prowling around the fortifications, but who dare not venture within
the power of those