sentences:  He also began objecting to what he deemed the army's unauthorized protection of the Seminole blacks, including allowing them to remain in their makeshift settlement under Fort Gibson's walls.Some time after John Horse's return from his second mission to Washington, and Jesup's own visit and subsequent return east, John Y. Mason, US Attorney-General at the time, was designated by President James K. Polk to rule on the legitimacy of Jesup's emancipation of the former Seminole slaves.The demand for such a ruling was being pushed by Duval and his allies and urged by his brother, the attorney William Duval, who had been retained by the Seminole tribal council, at the sub-agent's urging, to reclaim their rights to their former slaves.