OCR Text |
Show ~tuszarr.e nt ~lount's ~od. oN the west side of the Appalachicola River, some forty miles below the line of Georgia, nrc yet found the ruins of what was once called "BLOUNT's FonT." Its ramparts are now covered with a dense growth of underbrush and small trees. You may yet trace out its bastions, curtains, and magazine. .At this time the country adjacent presents tho appearance of an nnbroken wilderness, and the whole scene is one of gloomy solitude, associated as it is with one of the most cruel massacres which ever disgraced the Amcri· can arms. The fort had originally been erected by civilized troops, and, when abandoned by its occupants at the close of the war, in 1815, it was taken possession of by tho refugees from Georgia. But little is yet known of that persecuted people ; their history can only be AT BLOUNT's FoR'r. 17 found in the mlional archives at Washington. They had been ldd as shvcs in the S~ato referred to: but during tbc Revolution they caught the spint of libcrry, at that time so prevalent throughout our bud, and fled from their oppressors and found an asylum among the n.borigincr: EYing in Floric..b. During forty years they bad efrcctually eluded, or resisted, all attcrripts to rc·cnslavc them. They were true to themselves, to the instinctiYc loYc of liberty, which is planted in every human heart. hlost of them had been born amidst perils, reared in the forest, and taught from their childhood. to hate the oppress· ors of their race. Most of those who bad been per· sonally held in degrading servitude, whose backs had been seared by the lx;b of the savage overseer, bad passed to that spirit·lund where the clanking of chains is not heard, where slavery is not known. Some few of that class yet remained. Their gray hairs and feeble limbs, however, indicated that they, too, must soon pass away. Of the three hundred and eleven persons residing in "Blount's Fort 11 not more than twenty had been actually held in servitude. The others were descended from slave parents, who fleil from Georgia, and, according to the laws of slave |