Baton-Rouge gazette. [volume] (Baton-Rouge, La.) 1819-1856, 1846-01-10
TUE INDIAN CHIEFS REVENGE.

The following interesting anesdoye is take
irorn the notebook Of an officer Who served i
Florida
At the commencement of The war in Fiori
ia, thsie were among tho indians mn.
slaves who had escaped from their masters il
Florida and Georgia, and taken refuge in til,
everglades and tlicke,s with the Indians. II
most cases they were more blood-ihirsfy ant
desperate in their attacks upon the whi'er
than the abortginals themselves, and wAer
ever a settlement was to be burned or at
outpost attacked, they always led tEa van
and, If successful, woe TO every mans woman
or child that fell 10 their ccwer,
A powerful aSdaathletic negro, nicknamed
Jim BoWlegs, from a more than ordinary cur
VaIure Of his lower limbs, had run away from
his master, Dr. S., Of st. Augustine,
and joined the Indians some three months be.
fore the war broke out. He was by nature a
cruel and bloody fellow; Of great strength and
most brutal sensuati;y. Indeed, the CHIEF
cause of his flight was for attempting an un-
natural outrage Upon defenceless white no.
man, who was fortunately rescued, when
nearly exhausted, by the apr. zach of some
men who were drawn hither By her screams
for aid.
At Dads's massaere-a massacre that will
long be famous in the annals of the Florida
penisuIa-JIm fred the first shot that killed
the commanding officer, and during the rest
of the conflict, 60 g~alisntIy maintained by the
little band of one hundred and twelve reau-
lars against a thousand concealed Indians and
negroes, the prowless of Jim was conspicuous.
and his voice pealed the loudeat in the war
r,bp,n nm fh,t bt,.I, I'D E.t.J l.. NTI...
Passenger; the last surviving officer, fell Jim
led the Indians over the temporary breast.
work erected by the soldiers, and tomahawk
Glove in twain many a heart yet throbbing
with - fur vain and idle was the cry from
The whites for quarter.
BY bis desperate vaIor and his cunning, on
a hundred occasions, Jim gained great power
over the Indian bands, and from his khowl-
edge. of the whites, and thrir most defenceIess
locations, he was truly an ally of no omruon
importance and pretensions. But Jim's SEN
suallfy and lust were destined TO work his
destruction, even from his indian friends.
A MtCanopy chief called Grey Wolf had
lone fair daaghter,," about sixteen years old,
remarkable for her beauty. JIm's brutal pas.
sIOns getting the better of his fears, he one
day surprised the maiden whilr gathering ber-
res alone on the edge of a swamp, and by
main force violated her person, She escaped
l." her tribe-with sobs and shrieks related
her melancholy talei and hen, like The Ro-
man matron Lucrelia, ended her life by plum
ging into the adjoining disappearing death
TO surviving the loss Of her virgin purity.
Among the Indians, no crime is considered
80 hidaous and exerabie as that Of violating a
woman oftfleir tribe no matter who the
criminal is, his death is certain. Jim knew
this and fed but the warrioFs of the tribe
we're on his traib and they tracked him as the
wolf follows the deer, until, from sheer ne
c~essity, he vas obliged 10 Fly into the power.
Of his enemies, the whites, by taking refuge
in a slna advance fort or stockade, o~ccupIed
by a few United States dragons ard twdor
hundred Georgia volunteers. Jim was too
well known for his murderous c~rueltiss to re.
ceive any mercy from those among whom he
sought shelter ; a brief drum-head court mar
tatconvencd, and closed with sentencing him
to be hung in two hours. After a consulta-
ton with his officers, Maj. II told Jim that be-
would pardon him on the condition that he
would pilot two hundred picked men to the
shelter Of the tribe from winch he fed. To
this he Consented.
! he night but one ensuing, two hundred yoi-I
.unteers issued from the stockade, led by jim,
with a file of men prepared on the instant to
shoot him dead, if he led them into an ambus.
cade.
The second morning after, at daylight, they
reached the Businesses of the Iriians on the
borders of Lake Micanopy. The attack was
instantly made BY the soldiers, aud a bloody
slaughter ensuedi tor the tribe little expected
the discovery of their retreat. One by one
t:1ir warriors fell, and their ammunitions be-
ing being speedily exhausted, they we're for
ced to use their bows and arrows ; but all
was in vain, the whites triumphed, and but
two or three warriors out of the many hum |
dreds that saw the moIning lig t, in The |
of an hour survived one Of these was
Gray Wolf
Suddenly his eyes gIared with unwanted !
lustre from behind the shelter Of a palmetto
tree he beheId the negro Jim the ~vioiator of
his daughter was also the betrayor of his trib!
with terrific yell he fitted an arrow TO his
bow, and took deadly aim. The barbed reed
passed with ~unerring precision into the heart |
Of the negro. Jim leaped IRON the earth and
in agony and fell DOWN DEAD. With one
Grey Wolf was beside him, his scalp
ing knife passed round bis skull, he held aloft
the bleeding scalp for an instant, then gave
war Whoop, plunged into the thicket, and
seen no more. HIS revenge was accom-