Black Creek. Paul Varnes

      July 6, 1817

      When Ma saw it was Pa and me returning from the raid, she leaned the musket she was holding against the cabin and stood in the yard while we got the horses and cattle we had brought into pens. Asa, age thirteen, and George, age ten, ran to open and close the pole gates to the pens. Samuel, age six, was with Ma. He was jumping up and down and clapping.

      As soon as I swung down from my mare, Ma grabbed and hugged me. The kids also gathered around.

      I said, “You all best go take on about Pa. He’s the one who always carries the heavy load around here.”

      Using Ma’s name for me, Pa said, “I. J. more than carried his end of the load on this trip. He’ll have lots of tales for you kids.”

      Ma said, “That talk can wait. I’ll have the food on the table in a few minutes. You two wash up.”

      But the tales couldn’t wait. The kids were dying to know everything. They were asking new questions even before I could start to answer the previous ones. After twenty minutes Ma called us in to eat. When the evening chores were done, the questions and tales started again. We were up that night until almost ten.

      Pa then said, “Boys, there’s work to do tomorrow and we’re behind schedule. Everyone get to bed.”

      Still, Asa and I whispered in the bed until we went to sleep.

      The next two months were quiet compared to our trip to Florida. There’s always enough work to keep everyone busy on a farm, but it being July and August, the farm work slowed some. We then took some time for fishing. Additionally, Pa did some survey work and some property trading. He had some kind of deal going about property all the time.

      Pa couldn’t read much English and was only fair with German. There wasn’t much call for reading German in Camden County, Georgia, then. Actually, there wasn’t much call for reading English either. Ma did most of the paperwork for Pa, or he hired it done. Pa was mighty sharp with numbers though, in English and German. I don’t recall anyone ever getting the best of Pa where numbers were concerned.

      There was no school to go to and we didn’t have much time for it. Ma taught us about reading English from the Bible, and taught us to write some, too. There wasn’t much to read but the Bible and property-related records. Ma did have a couple of books of her own; one of which only had poetry in it. She let us kids read those books as long as we were careful with them. Ma also encouraged us to read anything else she got her hands on. Due to Pa’s efforts, we also learned to do numbers, using German and English. Since 1776, English was the official language in the United States. Before 1776 almost as many people in the United States spoke German as spoke English. Many of the people in South Carolina, where Pa moved to Georgia from, spoke mostly German.

      Pa also taught us lots of other things. He seemed to know everything there was about living in the woods and using the things nature provided. There wasn’t an animal that Pa didn’t know everything about: what it ate, where it slept, its mating habits, the kinds of tracks it left, the kinds of calls it made, and any other peculiarity. An example of the kinds of things Pa knew happened when I was ten years old. It was a dry night, so we had been sleeping without a shelter while away from the house on a hunt. I awoke that morning to Pa’s gentle, but firm, voice.

      Pa was saying, “Boy, I want you to remain perfectly still when you wake up. Don’t move a muscle.”

      Opening my eyes, I looked at him without otherwise moving. He was sitting in his sleeping roll, a musket in his hands, and was staring just inches over me.

      Seeing I was awake, Pa said, “Don’t move a muscle until I say, ‘now.’ Then, roll toward me as quick as you can.”

      I said, “What is it, Pa.?”

      “A snake. Get yourself ready to move quickly. Are you ready?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Pa then tossed his hat over me toward the snake and said, “Now.”

      When I had rolled clear, Pa shot the head off the rattler.

      Later, when things had settled down a little, I said, “Pa, why did you throw your hat at the snake? Why didn’t you just shoot it?”

      He said, “I didn’t throw it at the snake. I threw it beyond the snake. The rattler was coiled, had his head up, and was staring at you. When I threw the hat past the snake, he turned to stare at the hat. That’s just an old trick to freeze a snake in place. He would probably have stayed still, staring at that hat, for a half-hour if you hadn’t moved and I hadn’t shot him. If you had moved while he was staring at you, he might have struck. I didn’t shoot before you rolled over because I would have been shooting only an inch or so above you.”

      Even as we were having a peaceful summer, trouble was still brewing between the white Americans and the blacks and Indians. There were continuing small raids by the Indians and free blacks and return raids by the whites. Also, many of the raids by whites were not return raids; they were raids to steal something. Food, slaves, and animals were stolen and carried off by both sides. Adding to the distrust of the Indians, General Gaines had decided that the Indians in Florida were holding a large number of runaway slaves. He sent a message to the Indians seeking permission to enter their lands and kill or capture the slaves. Gaines also charged the Indians with several murders and demanded they deliver the guilty parties to him for justice.

      The Indians blamed the whites for the troubles, saying the whites sold them slaves and then claimed them back as runaways. Indian leaders Peter McCloud and Chief Kinuche sent the general a message that the Indians would kill, or drive out with force, anyone trespassing on their lands. Those particular Indians had been neutral up to that point so their announcement presented a new problem. Since those Indian tribes were thought to have almost three thousand fighters, counting runaway and free blacks, it was a serious threat. Though many blacks were then slaves to the Indians, the blacks fought on the Indians’ side to keep from having to return to their white masters.

      General Gaines then announced that he would enter Spanish territory to gather all the slaves and return them to Georgia. Major D. E. Twiggs, the commander of Fort Scott, said about that time that he had been ordered by Neamathla not to cross the Flint River or his men would all be killed.

      While this was going on, we were busy with our fall planting. Duties with these activities carried us on into the winter. Once the first cold spell hit, we set our trap lines and began tending them. Raccoon and fox hides, bringing ten to fifteen cents each, were valuable once the animals had acquired their winter coats.

      While we were tending trap lines, General Gaines ordered Major Twiggs to attack Fowltown, the Indian village of which Neamathla was chief. Fowltown was located on American treaty land, about fifteen miles south of Fort Scott and the same distance north of Tallahassee, Florida. The Indians living there were trespassing. Twiggs carried out the attack in November with over 250 men. They only killed five Indians. The others escaped. Though the fighting had been going on for several years, that battle is considered by some to be the initial battle of the First Seminole War.

      The Indians immediately set out to get revenge in any way they could. Some small parties raided farms and plantations in Georgia. Their most effective strategy in getting revenge was to line the banks of the Apalachicola River with warriors and shoot at passing boats. In addition to killing a number of Americans, this also caused the