Our present duty, however, is to record facts, without asking attention to the intended treachery or fraud of individuals; but this avowed intention of entrapping the negroes by inducing them to come in under the expectation of emigrating West with their Seminole friends, and then consign them to bondage, must attract the attention and excite the wonder of Christian men. This wonder is increased by the fact, that language is constantly used by slaveholders apparently intended to mislead the Northern reader. For instance, General Jessup speaks of slaves "_captured during the war_," as though the Indians made prisoners of slaves. This is believed to be entirely without foundation. Slaves being regarded by Southern men as _property_, incapable of thought, whenever they fled from their masters and sought an asylum with the Indians, the masters spoke of them as _captured_.
Soon us it was known that slaves were to be seized and returned, claims were preferred from all quarters. The correspondence on this subject, now in the Department of War, would of itself form a volume, if quoted at length. Spaniards sent in claims for slaves lost while the Territory was in possession of Spain, in 1802 and 1803. Claims from South Carolina, from Georgia, Alabama and Florida, and from Creek Indians, were presented to the commandants of different posts. Slaveholders evidently felt that they were to be permitted to seize such colored prisoners as they could lay their hands upon, and enslave them. They no longer waited for black prisoners to be brought to the St. John's, or other posts, but like wolves greedy for their prey, they hurried into the Indian Country, and risked their lives in order to secure victims for the slave-markets.
The Legislative Council of Florida became affected with this general mania, and in the most formal manner declared the right of masters to regain possession of their slaves, without regard to the Federal Government or its officers.
Finding General Jessup incapable of resisting the popular clamor, the claimants for slaves openly demanded a revocation of the General Order, by which they were prohibited from entering the Indian territory for the purpose of seizing slaves. A public meeting of the citizens of various parts of Florida, was held at San Augustine, and a committee appointed to remonstrate with General Jessup, and procure a rescission of his order, No. 79, prohibiting them from entering the Territory, between the St. John's River and the Gulf of Mexico, south of Fort Drane. The committee addressed him in a long, written protest, in which they declare, "the regaining of their slaves constitutes an object of scarcely less moment than that of peace to the country."[96]