Prospect Bluff Historic Sites

British Fort
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
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Location	Franklin County, Florida
Nearest city	Sumatra
Coordinates	29°56′N 85°1′W / 29.933°N 85.017°W / 29.933; -85.017
Area	7 acres (2.8 ha)
Built	1814
NRHP reference No.	72000318[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	February 23, 1972
Designated NHL	February 23, 1972[2]

Prospect Bluff Historic Sites (until 2016 known as Fort Gadsden Historic Site, and sometimes written as Fort Gadsden Historic Memorial)

The earlier and larger one was built by the British in 1814, during the

The site has been known by several other names at various times, including Prospect Bluff,[5]^: 48 British post,^{[5]: 48 [6]} Nicholls' Fort, Blount's Fort,^[7][8] Fort Blount,^[9] African Fort, and Fort Apalachicola.^[10]: 60 The local natives called the land Achackwheithle.^[11]

Listed in the

The site of both Negro Fort and the later Fort Gadsden was Prospect Bluff, "a fine bluff overlooking the Apalachicola River,"[12]^: 18 whose modest elevation of 12 feet (3.7 m) and the swamp that almost surrounded it (description below) gave it a natural military strength. The name parallels the Spanish one, Loma de Buena Vista,^{[13][14]: 8} literally "hill with a good view".^[15]

Accessible only by river then, the site was and is still remote. The river was the boundary between

Control of Prospect Bluff meant control of the river, which had served as a transportation

Prospect Bluff was valuable militarily not only because of the elevation its name suggests, but because it was at a "strategic location",[13] a bend in the river, giving an important sight advantage over any boat.

Before 1814

The

In January 1783 a conference was held in St. Augustine between the representatives of the British Crown—Governor Patrick Tonyn, Brigadier General Archibald McArthur, and Thomas Brown, the superintendent of Indian affairs—and the head men and principal warriors of the towns of the Upper and the Lower Creeks, who complained of the long distance they must travel to the stores from which they obtained their supplies. The Indians offered protection to merchants who would move their stores to locations closer to their territory, and pointed out the Apalachicola River as a suitable place for a trading house. The Creeks said it was not only more convenient for themselves, but also much nearer to the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee Indians, and requested that the house of Panton, Leslie & Company, who had been supplying them with goods, should be solicited to settle there for that purpose.

William Panton was present at the conference, and agreed with the Indians to establish a store at such a place as he or his co-partners might find suitable between the forks of Flint river and the mouth of the Apalachicola River, provided that letters of license were issued to him and his partners. The agreement was confirmed by the Crown, and the traders were granted the necessary license.^[21] Their store opened in 1784, by which time Spain had regained possession of Florida, at Fort San Marcos de Apalache (modern St. Marks, Florida). This store was attacked and looted by the adventurer William Augustus Bowles in 1792 and again in 1800, at which point it ceased operations.^[22]: 60

A trading post run by John Forbes and Company, successors to Panton, Leslie & Company, was set up in 1804 at the more defensible Prospect Bluff at the request of "Indians" ("Mickosuckees" is the only ethnicity mentioned). It was "manned by Edmund Doyle with some assistance from William Hambly, an Indian trader with years of experience in the area."^{[12]: 18 [22]: 63} Both "owned plantations higher up the river, at Spanish Bluff on the west bank and near present-day Bristol."^[14]: 7 The site of the trading post was inside the walls of the Fort, built around it;^[23]: 69 this explains why the precise site has never been identified. (Cox, without citing any evidence, says the Fort was "adjacent" to the store.^[24]: 47) It included a building for storing hides (what the Native Americans had to trade), quarters for negro slaves, and a cow pen for several hundred cattle that were raised nearby. During the War of 1812, British troops ransacked the store and freed the slaves.

Figures on the number of maroons who settled in the surrounding area range from 300 to 1,000.^[25] The blacks developed plantations extending up to 50 miles along the river.^{[9][22]: 81} A report from 1812 mentions over 36 cleared acres and 1,200 cattle,^[22]: 63 and they lived in "large and well-built cabins".^[20]: 233 Their crops were peas, beans, corn, and rice.^[20]: 233

British Post (1814–15)

Construction of the fort began in May 1814, when the British seized the trading post of John Forbes and Company.^[26]

The British launched an invasion of Pensacola during the

It was located at Prospect Bluff. Woodbine began to train local Native Americans as well as escaped slaves.^{[16]: 15 [30][31]} Nicolls recruited the ex-slaves into the new (black) Corps of Colonial Marines. They were well-armed, well-equipped, and underwent drills; many had been in training for months.^[23]: 69 He also assembled and trained more than five hundred Creek and Seminole Indians by February 1815, but they came from a different culture, did not like being trained,^[20]: 63 and did not have the incentive of being protected from American re-enslavement. Nicolls found the ex-slaves superior as soldiers, reporting that his black recruits had enlisted "with the strictest good faith and conduct, so much so, that out of 1,500 of them I never had occasion to punish one of them". He added that in contrast with British soldiers, "they would not get drunk".^[20]: 63

They were preparing to attack Georgia when news arrived of the end of the war.^[32][33] The British paid off the Colonial Marines (at the same rate as the white Marines) and withdrew from Florida.

Blacks and Native Americans under Nicolls' direction built two forts on the Apalachicola River. The larger and more important one was to be on the border of Georgia, at the juncture of the

The area enclosed by the fort was 7 acres (34,000 sq yd; 2.8 ha); on the eastern corners (those most vulnerable to attack) were bastions with walls 15 feet (4.6 m) high and 18 feet (5.5 m) thick.^{[12]: 18 [36]}

The magazine area of the fort was located about 500 feet from the river bank, and consisted of an octagonal blockhouse holding the principal magazine. This was surrounded by an extensive star-shaped enclosure covering about 16 acres with bastions on the eastern corners. The ravelin along the river with cannon was 15 feet high and 18 feet thick.^[4]

Gaines estimated that 900 Native American warriors and 450 armed blacks inhabited the fort.^[37][38]

A miniature replica of the later Fort Gadsden was constructed in the 1970s; a picture is in the State Archives of Florida.^[39]

Negro Fort (1815–16)

When the British withdrew, they deliberately left all their weapons, hoping that the locals would use them to defend themselves from U.S. attempts to re-enslave them, just as African and Native Americans had assisted the British during the

The fort, located as it was near the border, was seen by the U.S. as "a beacon of light to restless and rebellious slaves,"^[18] "a center of hostility and above all a threat to the security of their slaves,"^[44] "a direct threat to the slave-holding interests rapidly flocking to the newly opened lands in what is today Mississippi and Alabama."^[12]: 20 On April 8, 1816, General Jackson ordered General Gaines to "take care of the situation", because the Fort "ought to be blown up"; it was only fomenting "rapine and plunder", and he should "return the stolen Negros and plunder to their rightful owners".^[12]

Having done so, on April 23 he then complained to the West Florida military governor Mauricio de Zúñiga, asking

whether that fort has been built by the government of Spain — and whether the negroes, who garrison it, are considered subjects of his Catholic Majesty — and if not by the authority of Spain — by whom, under whose orders, has it been established[?]

He informed Zúñiga that:

Secret practices to inveigle Negroes from the frontier citizens of Georgia as well as from the Cherokee and Creek nations of Indians are still continued by this Banditti [sic; he means the garrison] and the Hostile Creeks. This is a state of things which cannot fail to produce much injury to the neighboring settlements and incite Irritations which may ultimately endanger the peace of the nation and interrupt that good understanding that so happily exists between our governments.

He insisted on the "return to our citizens and the friendly Indians inhabiting our Territory those Negroes now in the said fort and which have been stolen and enticed from them." This conduct "will not be tolerated by our government and if not put down by the Spanish Authority will compel us in self Defence to destroy them."^{[45]: 22–23}

After Zúñiga's reply of May 26, 1816, informing Jackson that he could not act "unless I receive the Orders of my Captain General [in Cuba^[46]: 25] and the necessary Supplies",^{[45]: 41–43} Jackson proceeded with his plans to destroy the Fort.

The first step was the construction of

Spain protested the violation of its soil, but according to historian John K. Mahon, it "lacked the power to do more."^[49]

A former commemorative plaque at the scene reads as follows:

BRITISH FORT MAGAZINE

It is hard to imagine the horrible scene that greeted the first Americans to stand here on the morning of July 27, 1816. The remains of 230 persons killed in the

black powder

. Some original timbers from the octagonal magazine were uncovered here by excavations.

The trading post of John Forbes and Company, storekeeper Edward Doyle, was reestablished following the destruction of the fort.^[50]: 109

Fort Gadsden (1818–21)

To secure the militarily significant Prospect Bluff, protect commerce on the river, prevent the recreation of a fugitive slave community—new fugitives were arriving—, and as a base for his further invasion of Florida, in 1818 General Jackson directed Lieutenant James Gadsden, of the Army Corps of Engineers, to rebuild the fort, which he did within the earthworks that had protected Negro Fort, as it was much smaller.^{[51][52]: 80} The fort needed a new name; Jackson named it Fort Gadsden.^[53] However, an aide to General Andrew Jackson reported to his superior in August 1818 that Fort Gadsden was "a temporary work, hastily erected, and of perishable materials, without constant repair, it could not last more than four or five years."^[54] It was abandoned in 1821, the year Florida became a U.S. territory and there was no longer a national border to defend.

Fort Gadsden had no direct involvement in any military endeavor, either in 1818–1821 or during the Civil War.

Colinton

In 1820, Colin Mitchell would purchase the Forbes Lands, including Fort Gadsden. The following year he made plans to construct a city at the site, Colinton. The planned city would have had 4 squares and wharves for incoming steamboats. However, Mitchell's claim to the land would be found invalid, and Colinton was never built.^[55]

"Milly Francis"

A marker at the site recalls the case of

A steamboat, the Irvington, burned and sank in 1838 four miles north of the Site. The rusting boilers and some of the works thought to be from this ship were dredged from the river (when the river was being dredged for navigation) and can be seen at the Site.^[5]: 52

Civil War (1862–1863)

During the American Civil War, Confederate troops occupied the fort, using it to protect communications from plantations in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama with the port of Apalachicola.^[57] In July 1863, an outbreak of malaria forced its abandonment.^[58]

Fort Gadsden given disproportionate emphasis at historic site?

"The settlement of former slaves has been marginalized in and has largely receded from both the scholarly and popular imagination for much of the last [20th] century."^{[20]: 1–2}

The most important moment in Prospect Bluff's history is arguably the Negro Fort period (1815–1816) and this is the period of significance cited in the National Register Nomination. However, the site was initially named for Fort Gadsden, much less significant historically. The Fort Gadsden Historic Site was created in 1961,^[4] when racial divisions may have led to downplaying the battle, although other causes such as population displacement may have contributed as well.

The 2016 renaming of the site as Prospect Bluff Historic Sites does acknowledge in the name that more than Fort Gadsden existed there and uses a name that the residents of that area in the 19th century would have known it as.

Bicentennial activities

• On May 16–20, 2016, the National Park Service held a workshop with 50 participants on using technological tools to non-destructively investigate below a site's surface.^[59][60]
• On October 22, 2016, the
  keynote speaker Chairman James E. Billie of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.^[61]
  A video of the ceremony is available.
• The Florida Humanities Council funded a program that created virtual landscapes for 1816 Prospect Bluff as well as the Maroon community of Angola on the Manatee River.[62]

See also

• Seminole Wars
• Fort Mose Historic State Park

Further reading

• Millett, Nathaniel (2015). Maroons of Prospect Bluff and Their Quest for Freedom in the Atlantic World. University Press of Florida.
  ISBN 978-0813060866
  .
• Saunt, Claudio (1999). A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816. Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 0521660432
  .