The Battle of Negro Fort of 1816, also known as the Massacre of Negro Fort, was a major clash that marked the beginning of the Seminole Wars in Florida. The fort was a haven for freedmen and women, who settled there and aligned themselves with Native Americans in the region.
After the British left Florida’s shores in 1815, they left behind an armed fort on the Apalachicola River to their allies. Around 300 African-Americans and over two dozen Seminole and Choctaw Indians coexisted. Before long, free people began heading south and settling at the fort.
Negro Fort was under the command of an African man named Garson, or Garcia according to some accounts. An unnamed Choctaw chief was also a leader within the community. Soldiers from the fort were infamous in the south for running raids across the Georgia border to the north.
At the time, the area was under the rule of Spain and a territorial battle ensued after U.S. Army General Andrew Jackson used the Spanish waterways to replenish his ships. In early 1816, General Jackson, under direction of Georgia slave owners, asked the Spanish Governor of Florida to take down the fort as it housed assumed fugitives.
Jackson worked alongside General Edmund Gaines, who commanded military that patrolled the Creek Nation lands. Under General Jackson’s orders, General Gaines attempted to retrieve fugitive slaves and send them back to Georgia.
On July 27, 1816, the small clashes between Negro Fort soldiers and the U.S. Army came to a head. The American army and 500 Creek Nation allies attacked Negro Fort using naval gunships. The first of the attack was largely unsuccessful and the Black soldiers were not as skilled as the American military. An American shell ignited a blast at an explosives storage hall, destroying the fort and 270 of its occupants.
Garson and the Choctaw chief survived the blast and were given over to the Creek leaders. Garson was executed by gunfire, while the chief was scalped. The remaining five or six dozen people were ordered back into slavery.
The Seminole Wars raged on in Florida from 1816 until 1858. The Indian nation did their best to beat back American forces but were initially forced out of their native lands by the invaders from the north.
PHOTO: Floridamemory.com
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