Battle of Negro Fort
Part of theSeminole Wars
Map of Fort Gadsden, inside the breastwork that surrounded the original Negro Fort
Date July 27, 1816 Location Negro Fort,Apalachicola Forest,Florida 29°56′18″N85°00′41″W / 29.93824°N 85.01127°W /29.93824; -85.01127 Result United States-Creek victory Negro Fort destroyed All captured slaves forced back intoslavery
Belligerents
United States Creek	Fugitive slaves Choctaw
Commanders and leaders
Andrew Jackson Edmund Gaines	Garçon †
Strength
267 2 gunboats	334
Casualties and losses
3 killed 1 captured	334 killed, wounded and captured
The fugitive slave and Choctaw casualties include women and children.
class=notpageimage| Location within Florida

Negro Fort was a short-lived fortification built by theBritish in 1814, during theWar of 1812, in a remote part of what was at the timeSpanish Florida. It was intended to support a never-realized British attack on the U.S. via its southwest border,^[1] by means of which they could "free all these Southern Countries [states] from the Yoke of the Americans".^[2]

Built on a site overlooking theApalachicola River, about 15 miles north of present-dayApalachicola, Florida, it was the largest structure between St. Augustine and Pensacola.^[3] Trading posts ofPanton, Leslie and Company and thenJohn Forbes and Company,loyalists hostile to the United States, had existed since the late eighteenth century there and at theSan Marcos fort, serving local Native Americans andfugitive slaves. The latter, runaway or freed black slaves fromplantations in the American South, used their experience of farming and animal husbandry to set up farms stretching for miles along the river.

When withdrawing in 1815, at the end of the war, later American histories would accuse the British commanderEdward Nicolls of ensuring that "the fort was left intact for the use of the Indians. Instead, it came into the possession of a band of free renegadeNegroes."^[4] It is the largest and best-known instance before theAmerican Civil War in which armed African escapees from North American slavery resistedEuropean Americans who sought to return them to slavery. (A much smaller example wasFort Mose, nearSt. Augustine.)

The fort was destroyed in 1816 when a "hot cannon ball"^[5] landed in the magazine, leading to a huge explosion. This action is also sometimes referred to as theBattle of Negro Fort (also called theBattle of Prospect Bluff or theBattle of African Fort). ColonelDuncan L. Clinch, the attacking commander, reported salvaging approximately "2,500 muskets, 50 carbines, [and] 400 pistols"^[5] from the ruins; as well as inflicting nearly 300 casualties to the fort's occupants. The salvagedarms were given to Colonel Clinch's allies, theCreeks, aswar booty for their help in taking the fort.^[5]

This is the only time in its history in which the United States destroyed a community of escaped formerly enslaved Black Americans in another country.^[6] However, the area continued to attract escaped Africans until the U.S. construction ofFort Gadsden in 1818.

Construction of the fort began in May 1814, when the British seized thetrading post ofJohn Forbes and Company.^[7] By September, there was a squaremoat enclosing a large field severalacres in size. There was a 4 feet (1.2 m) woodenstockade the length of the moat, with bastions at its eastern corners. There was a stone building containing soldiers' barracks and a large warehouse, 48 feet (15 m) by 24 feet (7.3 m). Several hundred feet inland was themagazine, in which stands of arms and 73 kegs of gunpowder were stored.^[8]

The fort also had "dozens of axes, carts, harnesses, hoes, shovels, and saws," along with many uniforms, belts, and shoes. The British left all these behind.^[9] There were over a dozenschooners,barques, and canoes, one 45 feet (14 m) long, along with sails, anchors, and other equipment, and "a number of experienced sailors and shipwrights".^[10]

To attract recruits, the British visited the Creek, Seminole, and "negro settlements" along the river and its tributaries, distributing guns, uniforms, and other goods. The Creeks were enthusiastic about this opportunity to attack the United States, whose settlers had taken their land. At the request of the British, they started inviting Blacks to join them. Enslaved Africans of the Spanish in Pensacola were also invited, and came by the hundreds. As a result, the British Post was a "beehive of activity" in 1814.^[11] ColonelNicolls had under his command, at Prospect Bluff, or living up the river, some 3,500 men eager to attack the Americans.^[12] Most of the Africans/Blacks did not want to return to be slaves of the Spanish in Pensacola, some of them adopting English names and claiming to be fugitives from the United States so that they would not be returned.^[13]

Fugitive slaves had been seeking refuge in Florida for generations, and they were well received by the Seminoles and treated as free by the Spaniards if they converted to Catholicism; the origins of the futureUnderground Railroad are here. The Spaniards wanted their own Pensacola slaves back, but as far as American slaves they did not much care. In any event, they lacked the resources to find and "recover" them, at one point inviting the American slaveowners to catch the fugitives themselves.

Fugitive slaves continued to arrive, seeking in Florida their freedom; they set up a network of farms along the river to keep them supplied. The Seminoles knew how to do this because the former African slaves, who had learned on plantations how to farm and care for domestic animals, either taught them or did their farming for them, or both. The Creeks knew nothing of farming and were impoverished; even Nicolls commented on the number of starving, resourceless Creeks who were arriving, and the challenge of feeding them. The Creeks had a champion,Indian AgentBenjamin Hawkins, who tried to help them recover their lands. They had never been enslaved and thus did not have to worry about being returned to slavery. They wanted to return to their lands, which were taken or threatened by white settlers.

The fugitive slave situation became more serious as news of a Negro Fort (African Fort) with weaponry spread through the southern United States.

British troops were to withdraw under the terms of peace that ended theWar of 1812,^[14] consequently Nicolls received orders to withdraw his troops from the fort.^[a] The Royal Marine detachment embarked onHMS Cydnus on April 22, and were duly returned to Ireland Island in Bermuda, arriving on June 13, 1815, to rejoin the 3rd Battalion as a supernumerary company.^[b][18] On May 16 the British evacuated the last of the garrison there.^[19] Nicolls left in mid-May 1815 with the Redstick CreekFrancis the Prophet,^[c][d] also known as Josiah Francis and Hillis Hadjo, the Native American spiritual and political leader known for his role in theBattle of Holy Ground, seeking official imprimatur for the treaty Nicolls had negotiated.^[22] Francis's son, who wanted an English education, also accompanied him.^[23] Just prior to his departure in May^[24] Nicolls composed a letter on May 12, 1815 to Benjamin Hawkins, implying that the freed slaves had been shipped off to British territory.^[25]: 117 At the time of his departure in May 1815, Nicolls promised his allies to return in six months, according to Hawkins.^[26]

The Negro Fort (African Fort) flew the British Union flag (Union Jack), as the formerColonial Marines considered themselves British subjects.^[27] The Spaniards continued their policy of leaving the fugitive slaves alone.^[28] What was different now was that a corps had had some military training, and was well armed, and had been encouraged by departing abolitionist Nicolls to get others to run away from their owners and join them. The number and ethnicity of men, and in some cases their families, at the Negro Fort was not fixed; they came and went as the unstable political situation evolved. Yet the existence of a fortified, armed sanctuary for fugitive slaves became widely known in the southern United States.

Thepro-slaverypress in the United States expressed outrage at the existence of Negro Fort.^[29] This concern was published in theSavannah Journal:

It was not to be expected that an establishment so pernicious to the Southern states, holding out to a part of their population temptations to insubordination, would have been suffered to exist after the close of the war [of 1812]. In the course of last winter, several slaves from this neighborhood fled to that fort; others have lately gone fromTennessee and theMississippi Territory. How long shall this evil, requiring immediate remedy, be permitted to exist?^[30]

Escaped slaves at Prospect Bluff came from as far as Virginia (A single individual recaptured by US forces after the battle, Charles, had escaped from Virginia toHMS Seahorse when it was raiding the Chesapeake Bay, and subsequently debarked at Prospect Bluff). The Apalachicola, as was true of other rivers of north Florida, was a base for raiders who attacked Georgia plantations, stealing livestock and helping the enslaved workers escape. Other slaves escaped from the militia units near the border, in which they had been serving. To correct this situation, seen by Southerners as intolerable, in April 1816 theU.S. Army decided to buildFort Scott on theFlint River, a tributary of the Apalachicola. Supplying the fort was challenging because transporting materials overland would have required traveling through unsettled wilderness. The obvious route to supply the Fort was the river. Although technically this was Spanish territory, Spain had neither the resources nor the inclination to defend this remote area. Supplies going to or from the newly-built Fort Scott would have to pass directly in front of the Negro Fort. The boats carrying supplies for the new fort, theSemelante and theGeneral Pike, were escorted by gunboats sent fromPass Christian.^[31] The defenders of the fort ambushed sailors gathering fresh water, killing three and capturing one (who was subsequently burned alive); only one escaped.^[32]

When the U.S. boats attempted to pass the fort on April 27 they were fired upon.^[33] This event provided acasus belli for destroying Negro Fort.

Hawkins and other white settlers made contact withAndrew Jackson, seen as the person most capable of doing so. Jackson requested permission to attack, and started preparations. Ten days later, without having received a reply, he ordered Brigadier GeneralEdmund P. Gaines at Fort Scott to destroy Negro Fort. The U.S. expedition includedCreek Indians fromCoweta, who were induced to join by the promise that they would get salvage rights to the fort if they helped in its capture.^{[citation needed]} On July 27, 1816, following a series of skirmishes, the U.S. forces and their Creek allies launched an all-out attack under the command of Lieutenant ColonelDuncan Clinch, with support from a naval convoy commanded by Sailing Master Jarius Loomis. Secretary of StateJohn Quincy Adams, who called Negro Fort "a seat of banditti and the receptacle for runaway slaves,"^[34] later justified the attack and subsequent seizure of Spanish Florida by Andrew Jackson as national "self-defense", a response to Spanish helplessness and British involvement in fomenting the "Indian and Negro War". Adams produced a letter from a Georgia planter complaining about "brigand Negroes" who made "this neighborhood extremely dangerous to a population like ours". Southern leaders worried that theHaitian Revolution or a parcel of Florida land occupied by a few hundred blacks could threaten the institution of slavery. On July 20, Clinch and the Creek allies left Fort Scott to assault Negro Fort (African Fort) but stopped short of firing range, realising that artillery (gunboats) would be needed.

The Battle of Negro Fort (African Fort) was the first major engagement of theSeminole Wars period, and marked the beginning of GeneralAndrew Jackson's conquest of Florida.^[35] Three leaders of the fort were former Colonial Marines who had come with Nicolls (since departed) from Pensacola. They were: Garçon ("Servant"), 30, a carpenter and former slave in SpanishPensacola, valued at 750pesos; Prince, 26, a master carpenter valued at 1,500pesos, who had received wages and an officer's commission from the British in Pensacola; and Cyrus, 26, also a carpenter, and literate.^[36] Prince may have been the military commander of the same name at the head of 90 free blacks brought from Havana to assist the Spanish defense in St. Augustine during thePatriot War of 1812. As the U.S. expedition drew near the fort on July 27, 1816, black militiamen had already been deployed and began skirmishing with the column before regrouping back at their base. At the same time the gunboats under Master Loomis moved upriver to a position for a siege bombardment. Negro Fort was occupied by about 330 people at the time of the battle. At least 200 weremaroons, armed with tencannons and dozens ofmuskets. Some were formerColonial Marines.^[37] They were accompanied by thirty or soSeminole andChoctaw warriors under achief. The remaining were women and children, the families of the black militia.^[35]

Before beginning an engagementGeneral Gaines first requested a surrender. Garçon, the leader of the fort, refused. Garçon told Gaines that he had orders from the British military to hold the post, and at the same time raised theUnion Jack and a red flag to symbolize thatno quarter would be given. The Americans considered the Negro Fort to be heavily defended; after they formed positions around one side of the post, theNavy gunboats were ordered to start the bombardment. Then the defenders opened fire with their cannons, but they had not been trained in using artillery, and were thus unable to utilise it effectively.^[35] It was daytime when Master Jarius Loomis ordered his gunners to open fire. After five to nine rounds were fired to check the range, the first round ofhot shot cannonball, fired by Navy Gunboat No. 154, entered the Fort'spowder magazine. The ensuing explosion was massive, and destroyed the entire Fort. Almost every source states that all but about 60 of the 334 occupants of the Fort were instantly killed, and others died of their wounds shortly after, including many women and children.^[38] A more recent scholar says the number killed was "probably no more than forty", the remainder having fled before the attack.^[39]: 288 The explosion was heard more than 100 miles (160 km) away inPensacola. Just afterward, the U.S. troops and the Creeks charged and captured the surviving defenders. Only three escaped injury; two of the three, an Indian and a Black person, were executed at Jackson's orders.^[38] General Gaines later reported that:

The explosion was awful and the scene horrible beyond description. You cannot conceive, nor I describe the horrors of the scene. In an instant lifeless bodies were stretched upon the plain, buried in sand or rubbish, or suspended from the tops of the surrounding pines. Here lay an innocent babe, there a helpless mother; on the one side a sturdy warrior, on the other a bleedingsquaw. Piles of bodies, large heaps of sand, broken glass, accoutrements, etc., covered the site of the fort... Our first care, on arriving at the scene of the destruction, was to rescue and relieve the unfortunate beings who survived the explosion.

Garçon, the black commander, and the Choctaw chief, among the few who survived, were handed over to the Creeks, who shot Garçon and scalped the chief. African-American survivors were returned to slavery. There were no white casualties from the explosion. The Creek salvaged 2,500 muskets, 50 carbines, 400 pistols, and 500 swords from the ruins of the fort, increasing their power in the region. The Seminole, who had fought alongside theblacks, were conversely weakened by the loss of their allies. The Creek participation in the attack increased tension between the two tribes.^[40] Seminole anger at the U.S. for the fort's destruction contributed to the breakout of theFirst Seminole War a year later.^[41]Spain protested the violation of its soil, but according to historianJohn K. Mahon, it "lacked the power to do more".^[42]

The largest number of survivors, including blacks from the surrounding plantations who were not at the Fort, moved east to theSuwannee River valley and settled Nero's Town, near Alachua Seminole leaderBolek's (Bowlegs) "Old Town."^[25]232-233 Some took refuge further south in the Tampa Bay area^{[39]: 283–285} while other refugees foundedNicholls Town [sic] in theBahamas.^[25]: 129 Also, a very large group "more than 800" of former British Colonial Marines were evacuated from the Apalachicola toTrinidad between 1815-1816.^[43]230

Garçon was executed by firing squad because of his responsibility for the earlier killing of the watering party, and the Choctaw Chief was handed over to the Creeks, who scalped him. Some survivors were taken prisoner and placed into slavery under the claim that Georgia slaveowners had owned the ancestors of the prisoners.^[44]

Neamathla, a leader of the Seminole atFowltown, was angered by the death of some of his people at Negro Fort (African Fort) so he issued a warning to General Gaines that if any of his forces crossed the Flint River, they would be attacked and defeated. The threat provoked the general to send 250 men to arrest the chief in November 1817 but a battle arose and it became an opening engagement of theFirst Seminole War.^{[citation needed]}

Anger over the destruction of the fort stimulated continued resistance during theFirst Seminole War.^[25]: 235

• Merikins
• Angola, Florida
• Black Seminoles
• Fort Mose Historic State Park
• Fort Scott
• Quilombo

• Clavin, Matthew J. (2019).The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community. New York:New York University Press.ISBN 978-1-47-983733-5 – viaProject MUSE.
• Covington, James W., ed. (1993).The Seminoles of Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.ISBN 978-0-306-80429-8.
• Cox, Dale (2015).Nicolls' outpost: a War of 1812 fort at Chattahoochee, Florida. Old Kitchen Books.ISBN 978-0-69-237936-3.
• Cox, Dale (2020).The Fort at Prospect Bluff, The British Post on the Apalachicola and the Battle of Negro Fort. Old Kitchen Media. ISBN 978-0-57-863462-3
• Hughes, Christine F.; Brodine, Charles E., eds. (2023).The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 4. Washington: Naval Historical Center (GPO).ISBN 978-1-943604-36-4.
• Landers, Jane G. (1999).Black Society in Spanish Florida.Urbana, Illinois:University of Illinois Press.ISBN 025202446X.
• Millett, Nathaniel (Fall 2012). "Slavery and the War of 1812".Tennessee Historical Quarterly.71 (3):184–205.JSTOR 42628263.
• Nuño, John Paul (Fall 2015)."'República de Bandidos': The Prospect Bluff Fort's Challenge to the Spanish Slave System".Florida Historical Quarterly.94 (2):192–221.JSTOR 24769178.
• Rivers, Larry Eugene (2012).Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Florida.University of Illinois Press.ISBN 978-0-252-03691-0 – viaProject MUSE.
• Taylor, Matthew (2024).Black Redcoats: The Corps of Colonial Marines. Barnsley, Yorkshire:Pen and Sword Books.ISBN 978-1-39-903401-2.
• Weiss, John McNish (2008).The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad 181–1816. McNish & Weiss, London.

• USDA Forest Service (2011).Historic Fort Gadsden. The Archeology Channel. RetrievedFebruary 22, 2018.
• "North America's Largest Act of Slave Resistance", a 2015 lecture by Nathaniel Millett
• Tragedy and Survival: Virtual Landscapes of 19th-Century Gulf Coast Maroon

• Negro Fort
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