Читать книгу The Seminoles of Florida онлайн

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OSCEOLA

A copy from Catlin’s painting.

Our soldiers fighting in an unexplored wilderness, along the dark borders of swamp and morass, crawling many times on hands and knees through the tangled matted underbrush, fighting these children of the forest who knew every inch of their ground could hope for little less than defeat. Even General Jessup in writing to the President said: “We are attempting to remove the Indians when they are not in the way of the white settlers, and when the greater portion of the country is an unexplored wilderness, of the interior of which we are as ignorant as of the interior of China.”

By way of illustrating the enormity of the task the government had in subduing the Seminoles, it is only necessary to describe one of the many Indian strongholds in the swamps of Florida. About ten miles from Kissimmee, west by south, is a cypress swamp made by the junction of the Davenport, Reedy and Bonnett creeks. It is an aquatic jungle, full of fallen trees, brush, vines and tangled undergrowth, all darkened by the dense shadows of the tall cypress trees. The surface is covered with water, which, from appearance may be any depth, from six inches to six feet; this infested with alligators and moccasins would have been an unsurmountable barrier to the white troops.