About the Seminole, James Horan wrote:

“It was April 22, 1835, and General Wiley Thompson, agent for the Seminole in the Florida territory, was reading a presidential message to the seven hundred warriors who had gathered to protest the treaty of Payne's Landing, Fort Gibson. . . . Indian commissioners under pressure from Washington had forced a handful of chiefs to sign the Payne's Landing treaty and yield up their lands in return for territory across the Mississippi. . . . Prior to the Payne's Landing Council in 1833, the Seminole had agreed to send seven chiefs to inspect the western land offered by the United States. . . . [General James Gadsden told the secretary of war that] ‘the final ratification of the treaty will depend upon the opinion of the seven chiefs. . . .’ Gadsden and his agents carefully selected chiefs they knew could be bribed or who would bend under pressure. One, a distinguished war captain, was Foke Luste Hajo, whose name meant Black Dirt. The seven chiefs returned to Payne's Landing . . . , but, instead of reporting back to the council of their people, were persuaded to sign the treaty that doomed their nation. . . . As McKenney had predicted, the Seminole War broke out. After the 1835 council Foke Luste Hajo received his death sentence . . . , [and] the Seminole chief fled to Fort Brooke where he and his followers sat out the war.”