Alexander George Arbuthnot
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- For others of the same name, see Alexander Arbuthnot.
Alexander George Arbuthnot. A trader from Montrose born 1748. Emigrated to Florida 1803 to trade with the Seminole Indians and represent their cause to the English. He had a store near St Augustine on the Spanish/Florida border; its exact location is unknown and the area has been greatly developed.
On 26 April 1818, Arbuthnot and Robert C Ambrister were illegally tried in their absence for aiding hostile Indians by an army court (presided over by General Edmund Gaines) which failed to reach a conclusion. Andrew Jackson determined that they were guilty and they were sentenced to death. Shortly afterwards they were captured. The trader then sent a word of warning to his Indian friends under Chief Bowlegs: "The main drift of the Americans is to destroy the black population of Suwannee. Tell my friend Boleck, that it is throwing away his people to attempt to resist such a powerful force as will be down on Suwannee." Unfortunately for Arbuthnot, Jackson's men found the letter and other papers when they attacked the Suwannee. These papers were dangerous materials for General Jackson. They threw, in the delicate phrasing of historian John Mahon, "some doubt on the official American position that the cause of the trouble rested solely on the Indians and their European abettors." Arbuthnot, for example, painted a clear (and we now know credible) picture of how filibusters from Georgia incited the war by settling on Spanish and Seminole lands in Florida, while launching raids into the colony for cattle and slaves.
Ambrister was shot by firing squad and Arbuthnot was hanged from the masthead of his schooner 29 April 1818. Jackson was much criticised for the execution on Spanish land which caused consternation in Washington and uproar in London. Congressmen did not probe too deeply into the causes of the Seminole war, but under international pressure they did pass a resolution condemning the executions. The incident caused trouble for Jackson throughout his life.
Alexander is thought to have been son of Dr Thomas Arbuthnot of Balglassie and of Arbuthnottshaugh. Alexander married Mary Ann (maiden name unknown) and had sons John James Arbuthnot and R Arbuthnot.
