A similar case was that of John Walker, an Appalachicola chief, who wrote to Thompson under date July 28, 1835:  “I am induced to write you in consequence of the depredations making and attempted to be made upon my property, by a company of Negro stealers, some of whom are from Columbus, Ga., and have connected themselves with Brown and Douglass....  I should like your advice how I am to act.  I dislike to make or to have any difficulty with the white people.  But if they trespass upon my premises and my rights, I must defend myself the best way I can.  If they do make this attempt, and I have no doubt they will, they must bear the consequences. But is there no civil law to protect me?  Are the free Negroes and the Negroes belonging to this town to be stolen away publicly, and in the face of law and justice, carried off and sold to fill the pockets of these worse than land pirates?  Douglass and his company hired a man who has two large trained dogs for the purpose to come down and take Billy.  He is from Mobile and follows for a livelihood catching runaway Negroes.”

Such were the motives, fears and incidents in the years immediately after the treaty of Payne’s Landing.  Beginning at the close of 1834 and continuing through April, 1835, Thompson had a series of conferences with the Seminole chiefs.  At these meetings Micanopy, influenced by Osceola and other young Seminoles, took a more definite stand than he might otherwise have assumed.  Especially did he insist with reference to the treaty that he understood that the chiefs who went West were to examine the country, and for his part he knew that when they returned they would report unfavorably.  Thompson then, becoming angry, delivered an ultimatum to the effect that if the treaty was not observed the annuity from the great father in Washington would cease.  To this, Osceola, stepping forward, replied that he and his warriors did not care if they never received another dollar from the great father, and drawing his knife, he plunged it in the table and said, “The only treaty I will execute is with this.”  Henceforward there was deadly enmity between the young Seminole and Thompson.  More and more Osceola made his personality felt, constantly asserting to the men of his nation that whoever recommended emigration was an enemy of the Seminoles, and he finally arrived at an understanding with many of them that the treaty would be resisted with their very lives.  Thompson, however, on April 23, 1835, had a sort of secret conference with sixteen of the chiefs who seemed favorably disposed toward migration, and he persuaded them to sign a document “freely and fully” assenting to the treaties of Payne’s Landing and Fort Gibson.  The next day there was a formal meeting at which the agent, backed up by Clinch and his soldiers, upbraided the Indians in a very harsh manner.  His words were met by groans, angry gesticulations, and only half-muffled imprecations.  Clinch endeavored to appeal to the