Siege of Fort Mose
Battle of Fort Mose | |||||||
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Part of the War of Jenkins' Ear | |||||||
Site of the old fort | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Great Britain |
Spain | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Col. John Palmer † |
Cap. Antonio Salgado Francisco Menéndez | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
170 regulars and Indians[1] |
300 regulars some militia Indian auxiliaries free black auxiliaries[1][2] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
68[3]–75 killed[4] 34 captured[3] |
10 killed 20 wounded[5][6] | ||||||
The Battle of Fort Mose (often called Bloody Mose, or Bloody Moosa) was a significant action of the
Taken by surprise, the British garrison was virtually annihilated.[8] Colonel Palmer, three captains and three lieutenants were among the British troops killed in action.[6] The battle destroyed the fort. The Spanish did not rebuild it until 1752.[9][10]
Background
Located two miles north of St. Augustine,
The fort consisted of a church, a wall of timber with some towers, and some twenty houses inhabited by a hundred people.
The fort, to the Spanish, served as both a colony of freedmen and as Spanish Florida's front-line of defense against possible incursions from the Southern colonies. Word of the free black settlement reached the Province of South Carolina; it is believed to have helped inspire the Stono Rebellion in September 1739. During the slave revolt, several dozen blacks headed for Spanish Florida, and were recruited into the colonial militia.[12][13][14]
At the outbreak of the War of Jenkins’ Ear in 1739, General James Oglethorpe, governor of Georgia, encouraged by some successful raids made by the British and their Indian allies in the frontier, decided to raise a significant expedition to capture St. Augustine, capital of Spanish Florida.[15] As part of the campaign, he realized his forces had to capture and hold Fort Mose.[citation needed]
Oglethorpe launched his campaign. Regular troops from South Carolina and Georgia, militia volunteers, about 600 allied Indian
Battle
Approaching St. Augustine, a British party under Colonel John Palmer, composed of 170 men belonging to the Georgia colonial militia, the Highland Independent Company of Darien, and auxiliary native allies, rapidly occupied Fort Mose, strategically sited on a vital travel route.[8] The British forces suffered from conflicts in command and control. The Highlanders were primarily Gaelic speaking and were unimpressed with Colonel Palmer's leadership. For his part, Colonel Palmer was likewise distrustful of the Highlanders' abilities as disciplined soldiers.
Manuel de Montiano had ordered the fort abandoned after some of its inhabitants had been killed by Indian allies of the British. The free black residents moved to St. Augustine.[citation needed]
While the Oglethorpe expedition laid siege to St. Augustine, Montiano considered his options. Knowing the strategic importance of Fort Mose, and realizing its vulnerabilities, Montiano decided to undertake a
Aftermath
The Spanish victory at Fort Mose demoralized the badly divided British forces and was a significant factor in Oglethorpe's withdrawal to Savannah.[4] In late June St. Augustine was relieved by Spanish forces from Havana, and the Royal Navy's warships abandoned the land forces.[4] Governor Montiano commended the maroons for their bravery.[16] Although Fort Mose had been destroyed during the siege, its former residents were resettled in St. Augustine for the next decade as free and equal Spanish colonial citizens.[16]
When the Spanish rebuilt the fort in 1752, free blacks returned there. After the British victory against the French in the Seven Years' War, it took over East Florida in a related trade with Spain. Most of the residents and military evacuated to Cuba, and Francisco Menéndez and most of the free blacks went with them.[17][18]
See also
- Battle of Bloody Marsh
- Invasion of Georgia (1742)
- Francisco Menéndez
Notes
- ^ a b Wasserman p. 61
- ^ a b c Martínez Láinez/Canales p. 239
- ^ a b Quesada p. 49
- ^ a b c d e Landers p. 37
- ^ Marley p. 254
- ^ a b Gómez
- ISBN 978-1-9821-4511-8.
- ^ a b c Burnett p. 167
- ^ Jones p. 13
- ^ Henderson p. 94
- ^ a b Patrick Riordan (Summer 1996). "Finding Freedom in Florida: Native Peoples, African Americans, and Colonists, 1670–1816". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 75 (1). Florida Historical Society: 30.
- ^ a b Martínez Láinez/Canales p. 236
- ^ Linebaugh, p. 250
- ISBN 978-0-8070-5007-1.
- ^ a b Landers p. 35
- ^ a b c Wasserman p. 96
- JSTOR 2162952.
- ISBN 978-0-8130-1352-7.
References
- Burnett, Gene M. (1997). Florida's Past: People and Events That Shaped the State. Pineapple Press Inc. ISBN 978-1-56164-139-0
- De Quesada, A. M. (2006). A History of Florida Forts: Florida's Lonely Outposts. The History Press. ISBN 978-1-59629-104-1
- Gómez, Santiago: La Guerra de la Oreja de Jenkins. Combates en el Caribe. Operaciones principales. Revista de Historia Naval (in Spanish)
- Henderson, Ann L. (1991). Spanish Pathways in Florida, 1492–1992. Pineapple Press Inc. ISBN 978-1-56164-004-1
- Jones, Maxine D.; McCarthy, Kevin M. (1993). African Americans in Florida. Pineapple Press Inc. ISBN 978-1-56164-031-7
- Landers, Jane (1999). Black Society in Spanish Florida. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06753-2
- Linebaugh, Peter and Marcus Rediker (2001). The Many-headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-5007-1.
- Marley, David (1998). Wars of the Americas: a Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-837-6
- Martínez Laínez, Fernando; Canales, Carlos (2009). Banderas Lejanas: la Exploración, Conquista y Defensa por España del Territorio de los Actuales Estados Unidos. EDAF. ISBN 978-84-414-2119-6
- Riordan, Patrick. "Finding Freedom in Florida: Native Peoples, African Americans, and Colonists, 1670–1816", Florida Historical Quarterly 75(1), 1996, pp. 25–44, at JSTOR.
- Twyman, Bruce Edward. The Black Seminole Legacy and Northern American Politics, 1693–1845. Washington: Howard University Press, 1999.
- Wasserman, Adam (2009). A People's History of Florida 1513–1876: How Africans, Seminoles, Women, and Lower Class Whites Shaped the Sunshine State. Adam Wasserman. ISBN 978-1-4421-6709-4