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COLORED PATRIOTS
of the
AMERICAN REVOLUTION,
with sketches of several
DISTINGUISHED COLORED PERSONS:
to which is added a brief survey of the
Condition and Prospects of Colored Americans.
By Wm. C. Nell,
with an introduction by
Harriet Beacher Stowe
Published
Boston:
Published by Robert R. Wallcut
1855.

CHAPTER XIV.

GEORGIA.

MASSACRE AT BLOUNT'S - MONSIEUR DE BORDEAUX
 - FREED BY THE LEGISLATURE

On the West side of the Apalachicola River, (says the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, in a narrative from which this account is taken,) some forty miles below the line of Georgia, are yet found the ruins of what was once called "Blount's Fort." Its ramparts are now covered with a dense growth of underbush 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 whichever 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

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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 reënslave 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 forests, 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 scarred by the lash of the savage overseer, had passed to that spirit land, where clanking of chains is not heard, where slavery is not known.  Some few of that class yet remained.  Their grey 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 the slave States, were liable to suffer the same outrage to which their ancestors had been subjected.
     The slaveholders, finding they could not themselves obtain possession of their intended victims, called on the President of the United States for assistance to perpetrate the crime of enslaving their fellow-men.
     General Jackson, Commander of the Southern Military District, directed Lieutenant-Colonel Clinch to perform the barbarous task.  I was at one time personally acquainted with that officer, and know the impulses of his generous na-

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ture, and can readily account for the failure of his expedition.  He marched to the fort, made the necessary reconnoisance, and returned, making report that " the fortification was not accessible by land."
     Orders were then issued to Commodore Patterson, directing him to carry out the orders of the Secretary of War.  He, at that time, commanded the American flotilla lying in "Mobile Bay," and instantly issued an order to Lieutenant Loomis to ascend the Apalachicola River with two gun boats, "to seize the people in Blount's Fort, deliver them to their owners, and destroy the fort."
     On the morning of the 17th of September, 1816, a spectator might have seen several individuals standing upon the walls of that fortress, watching with intense interest the approach of two small vessels that were slowly ascending the river under full spread canvass, by the aid of a light southern breeze.  They were in sight at early dawn, but it was ten o' clock when they furled their sails and cast anchor opposite the fort, and some four or five hundred yards distant from it.
     A boat was lowered, and soon a midshipman and twelve men were observed making for the shore.  They were met at the water's edge by some half-dozen of the principal men in the fort, and their errand demanded.
     The young officer told them he was sent to make a demand of the fort, and its inmates were to be given up to the "slaveholders, then on board the gun-boat, who claimed them as fugitive slaves!"  The demand was instantly re-

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jected, and the midshipman and his men returned to the gun-boats, and informed Lieutenant Loomis of the answer he had received.
     As the colored men entered the fort, they related to their companions the demand that had been made.  Great was the consternation manifested by the females, and even a portion of the sterner sex began to be distressed at their situation.  This was observed by an old patriarch, who had drank the bitter cup of servitude — one who bore on his person the visible marks of the thong, as well as the brand of his master upon his shoulder.  He saw his friends falter, and he spoke cheerfully to them.  He assured them that they were safe from the cannon-shot of the enemy — that there were not men enough on board to storm their fort; and, finally, closed with the emphatic declaration, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" This saying was repeated by many agonized fathers and mothers on that bloody day.
     A cannonade was soon commenced upon the fort, but without much apparent effect.  The shots were harmless; they penetrated the earth of which the walls were composed, and were there buried without further injury.  Some two hours were thus spent, without injuring any person in the fort.  They then commenced throwing bombs.  The bursting of these shells had more effect; there was no shelter from these fatal messengers.  Mothers gathered their little ones around them, and pressed their babes more closely to their bosoms, as one explosion after another warned them of their imminent danger.  By these explosions, some were

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occasionally wounded, and a few killed, until, at length, the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying were heard in various parts of the fortress.
     Do you ask why those mothers and children were thus butchered in cold blood?  I answer, they were slain for adhering to the doctrine that "all men are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right to enjoy life and liberty."  Holding to this doctrine of Hancock and Jefferson, the power of the nation was arrayed against them, and our army employed to deprive them of life.
     The bombardment was continued some hours with but little effect, so far as the assailants could discover.  They manifested no disposition to surrender.  The day was passing away.  Lieutenant Loomis called a council of officers, and put to them the question, " what further shall be done?"  An under officer suggested the propriety of firing "hot shot at the magazine."  The proposition was agreed to.  The furnaces were heated, balls were prepared, and the cannonade was resumed.  The occupants of the fort felt relieved by the change.  They could hear the deep humming sound of the cannon balls, to which they had become accustomed in the early part of the day, and some made themselves merry at the supposed folly of their assailants.  They knew not that the shot were heated, and were, therefore, unconscious of the danger which threatened them.
     Suddenly, a startling phenomenon presented itself to their astonished view. The heavy embankment and timbers protecting the magazine appeared to rise from the earth, and

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the next instant the dreadful explosion overwhelmed them, and the next found two hundred and seventy parents and children in the immediate presence of God, making their appeal for retributive justice upon the government which had murdered them, and the freemen of the North who sustained such unutterable crime.*
     Many were crushed by the falling earth and timbers; many were entirely buried in the ruins.  Some were horribly mangled by the fragments of timber and the explosion of charged shells that were in the magazine.  Limbs were torn from the bodies to which they had been attached; others and babes lay beside each other, wrapped in that sleep which knows no waking.  The sun had set, and the twilight of evening was closing around, when some sixty sailors, under the officer second in command, landed, and, without opposition, entered the fort.  The veteran soldiers, accustomed to blood and carnage, were horror-stricken as they viewed the scene before them. They were accompanied, however, by some twenty slaveholders, all anxious for their prey.  These paid little attention to the dead and dying, but anxiously seized upon the living, and, fastening the fetters upon their limbs, hurried them from the fort, and instantly commenced their return toward the frontier of Georgia.  Some fifteen persons in the fort survived the terrible explosion, and they now sleep in servile graves, or moan and weep
in bondage.
-------------------------
     * That Is the number officially reported by the officer In command.  Vide Executive Document of the 13th Congress.

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     The officer in command of the party, with his men, returned to the boats as soon as the slaveholders were fairly in possession of their victims.  The sailors appeared gloomy and thoughtful as they returned to their vessels.  The anchors were weighed, the sails unfurled, and both vessels hurried from the scene of butchery as rapidly as they were able."  After the officers had retired to their cabins, the rough-featured sailors gathered before the mast, and loud and bitter were the curses they uttered against slavery, and against those officers of government who had thus constrained them to murder women and helpless children, merely for their love of liberty.
     But the dead remained unburied; and the next day, the vultures were feeding upon the carcasses of young men and young women, whose hearts on the previous morning had beaten high with expectation.  Their bones have been bleached in the sun for thirty-seven years, and may yet be seen scattered among the ruins of that ancient fortification.
     Twenty-two years have elapsed, and a Representative in Congress, from one of the free States, reported a bill, giving to the perpetrators of these murders a gratuity of five thousand dollars from the public treasury, as a token of the gratitude which the people of the nation felt for the soldierly and gallant manner in which the crime was committed toward them. The bill passed both Houses of Congress, was approved by the President, and now stands upon the records of the third session of the Twenty-Fifth Congress.
     These facts are all found scattered among the various

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public documents which repose in the alcoves of our national library.  But no historian has been willing to collect and publish them, in consequence of the deep disgrace which they reflect upon the American arms, and upon those who then controlled the government.

     The Savannah Republican of February, 1855, makes the following mention of a venerable colored patriarch : —
     "Monsieur De Bordeaux is a native of St. Domingo.  He left that island when about thirty or thirty-five years old, during our Revolutionary War, in company with many French volunteers, and was present at the siege of Savannah, in 1779.  He did not play the part of a mere 'lookeron
in Venice,' but took part in the struggle, and received a severe and dangerous wound in the hip, which rendered him a cripple for life.  He was near Pulaski when he was wounded, and saw the gallant Pole fall.  The old man can satisfy the curious, probably, as to where Pulaski died, and
what disposition was made of his venerable remains.  After the war, Monsieur de Bordeaux returned to St. Domingo.  He left the island again, however, during the insurrection, and by a profitable mistake of the captain of the vessel in which he took passage, he was a second time landed at Savannah, where he spent many years with his friend, the late Daniel Leons, of this city.  Some fifty or sixty years since he removed to South Carolina, where he has resided ever since.
     "Monsieur de Bordeaux is considerable over one hundred
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years of age; still, he retains a distinct recollection of his vernacular tongue, the French, and possesses all the vivacity of that nation, no one ever having seen him depressed in spirits.  He has ever enjoyed the highest character for integrity and truth."

     A few years since, a slave, at great hazard, saved the State House at Milledgeville, when in flames.  The Legislature purchased him of his master for $1800, and set him free, — thus showing their appreciation of the value of liberty, even to the mind of a slave.
 

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