Annexation

Over the same period, the government was pressuring Indians to hand over plantation runaways. In 1823 and again in 1826, Seminole chiefs promised to surrender all fugitives within the nation. In theory, the promise applied only to recent runaways, not "Seminole Negroes" like John Horse and his family, who had long-standing ties to the tribe. But white men who claimed to be pursuing runaways were hardly concerned with the fine points of individual histories. The blacks, meanwhile, had developed an all-too clear view of American justice, based on the brutal slave raids of 1821.