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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