ould be a union or mixture of the
negroes with the Indian tribes. If this were to take place, the
population would, in all probability, rapidly increase, instead of
falling away as it now does; as then the negro population would till the
ground sufficiently for the support of themselves and the Indians, as
they now do among the Creek and Seminole tribes, who have plenty of
cattle and corn. The American Indian in his natural state suffers much
from hunger, and this is one cause of the non-increase of their
population. What might be effected by the bands now concentrated on the
American frontier, if at any future time they should become amalgamated
with the negroes, will be fairly estimated by the reader when he has
read the account I am about to lay before him of the war in Florida.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER NINE.

CAUSES OF THE FLORIDA WAR.

Most of my countrymen are aware that the Americans have been carrying on
a war against the Florida Indians for the last two or three years; the
details, however, are not so well known; and as this Florida war ought
to be a lesson to the Americans, and may, as a precedent to the other
Indians, prove of great importance, I shall enter into the particulars
of it. I am moved, indeed, so to do, as it will afford the reader a
very fair specimen of the general policy and mode of treatment shewn to
the Indians by the American Government. Florida was ceded by Spain to
the United States as a set-off against 500,000 dollars, claimed by the
Americans for spoliations committed on her commerce. The white
population of Florida is not very numerous even now; the census of 1830
gave 18,000 whites and 16,000 slaves, independent of the Florida
Indians, or Seminoles. Seminoles is a term for runaways or wanderers;
the Indian tribes in Florida being a compound of the old Florida
Indians, two varieties of Creeks, who quitted their tribe previous to
their removal west of the Mississippi, and Africans who are slaves to
the Indians. Their numbers at the commencement of the war were
estimated as follows:--

The Mico-sukee Indians, of which Osseola, or Asseola, was one of the
principal chiefs, 400 warriors.

Creek and Spanish Indians, 850 warriors.

Negroes, 600 to 700 warriors.

In all about 1900 warriors.

The chief of the whole Seminole nation is Mic-e-no-pah, and next to him
in consequence, as orator of the nation, is an Indian of the name of
Jumper. It must be observed that these India