Fort Gadsden
Wewahitchka, Florida, USA

But the word figures prominently in the story of Fort Gadsden, so let's all say it together: Appa-latchi-cola! We can of course blame Native Americans for this word, as it was the name of a tribe which lived along a mighty river that flowed through what is today's Florida's panhandle. When white guys with parchment 'n' quill pens showed up to make the maps, they naturally named the river after the people who populated its banks. What's mostly exciting about the Apalachicola River today is that, if you drive over in from east to west, you're suddenly in the Central Time Zone, and you need to set your watch back an hour! Or forward an hour. Well, you definitely do one of those things.

At the start of the 19th century Florida's panhandle was still almost entirely wilderness, yet proximate to America's southern states, whose agricultural economy was built on the backs of slaves. As a relatively unimportant part of the Spanish Empire, Florida's borders weren't aggressively patrolled by the authorities, nor was its colonial government interested in returning escaped slaves to their indignant masters. There were also a great many Native Americans who had been pushed out of their lands to the north again and again, who had coalesced in western Florida, tribes which included the Seminoles. Sharing a common enemy in the wicked white man, the Seminoles and escaped slaves got along relatively well, and set up their own plantation system...some of which operated on and around Prospect Bluff.

When the British were ejected from Pensacola in November of 1814 by US Army General and later-to-be-7th-US-President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), events conspired to put 100 British officers and men at Prospect Bluff, amongst the Indians and black folks who were farming in the area. Commanded by Royal Marine Brevet Captain George Woodbine (1787-1833), the Brits wasted no time in recruiting and training the locals in the use of the Long Land Pattern Musket (the famous, and excruciatingly heavy, Brown Bess), in the interest of seeding armed discord in the Yankees' backyard. Some Native American tribes took more willingly to training and drills than others, a reminder that the many tribes represented many different cultures.

The British built a "formidable fort," whose formadibility did not extend to its name, which was British Fort: Any other commander would have just named the fort after himself, but apparently Woodbine was a self-depreciating sort. This fort was somewhere in the vicinity of 1600 feet long (east to west) and 800 feet wide...not enormous, but it dwarfed the future Fort Gadsden.

Woodbine's multihued force was planning to invade Georgia when, sadly, the war ended. The Royal Marines paid off their new recruits and withdrew, leaving behind a force much more able and willing to defend itself: A Corps of Colonial Marines, comprising 300 escaped slaves and 30 Seminole and Choctaw Indians, well supplied with arms and ordnance, now manned what became known as Negro Fort. This community became a beacon for disaffected slaves (all of them), a happenstance which did not endear it to slaveholders in nearby Georgia.

The captured US sailor was reportedly burned alive by the garrison of Negro Fort. Unsporting, former Colonial Marines. By this point, the US Navy was understandably looking for an excuse to do away with Negro Fort. On April 27 of 1816, supply vessels were fired upon by the fort, and the Navy asked Andrew Jackson if they could pretty please deal with these unruly black folks.

Jackson ordered Fort Scott's commander, General Edmund P. Gaines (1777-1849)(namesake of the stellar Fort Gaines, which guards the western side of the entrance to Mobile Bay: Gaines had also commanded Fort Erie in Ontario, after it had been captured by non-Ontarians), to destroy Negro Fort, which was now armed with 10 artillery pieces. The Colonial Marines had not been trained in the use of artillery, however, which became evident once US gunboats started trading shots with the fort on July 27. Prior to opening fire, however, Gaines requested the fort's surrender: Garçon, the leader of Negro Fort's defenders and a former Colonial Marine, declined, saying that he had orders from the British military to hold this post.

Those black folks who had somehow managed to avoid being dismembered in the explosion were immediately dragged back into slavery, under the questionable (though perfectly reasonable to the parties (except the black parties) involved at the time) justification that Georgia slaveholders had owned their ancestors (?!). The trading post of John Forbes & co. was re-established at Prospect Bluff, but the area continued to be a destination for escaped slaves, whose grasp of current events may not have been the strongest.

Up to this point, the United States had been more or less respecting the fact that Spain owned Florida: They regularly passed through this Spanish land and had conducted military operations therein, but avoided any actual occupation of Western Florida. Recognizing the need to prevent Negro Fort from resuming its existence, the need to effectively police the area, and with an eye towards establishing a forward base for future forays into Florida, in 1818 Andrew Jackson ordered US Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant James Gadsden (1788-1858) to build a fort on Prospect Bluff.

Fort Gadsden Historic Site was opened in 1961, with a notable downplaying of the most historically significant period of Prospect Bluff's history, which was unquestionably that of Negro Fort. In 2016 the park was renamed Prospect Bluff Historic Sites...unfortunately, Florida's budgetary woes also forced the site to close that same year.

I visited Fort Gadsden in 2016! If you somehow haven't had enough Fort Gadsden already, perhaps you might be gently persuaded to check out the My Visit to Fort Gadsden page, in the Starforts I've Visited section.