Slaveholders

News of the agreement outraged the slaveholders of Florida. In public meetings they vilified General Jesup. Whites believed -- or said they believed -- that every African among the Indians had a white owner. The citizens were more interested in recovering these blacks than ending the war. To them, this was the object of the war, as they expressed in meetings and petitions:

"The regaining of our slaves constitutes an object of scarcely less moment than that of the peace of the country." -- St. Augustine Florida Herald, April 27, 1837