SW071 Red Stick Creeks Leverage 1813 Mims Massacre to Avenge Prior Unprovoked Attack

In late August 1813, the Creek Nation was engaged in a civil war between the so-called Red Stick Faction that wanted to return to traditional Creek ways and the White Sticks who favored integrating with European and American ways. White settlers soon found themselves haplessly involved. In feeling threatened by the Creek war, they sought protection. Territorial militia and volunteers arrived only to creating conflict rather than eased it. They attacked Creeks at their mid-day meal at a place called Burnt Corn Creek.

On August 30, 1813, the Creeks gathered a war party and retaliated by attacking Fort Mims in lower Alabama, just north of Mobile --when the fort’s dinner bell rang. When the dust had cleared, the Battle of Fort Mims seemed more like a massacre. This armed engagement, and the war between the United States and the Red Stick Faction, lead to a string of conflicts between Americans and the existing Indian populations in the Southeast, including Florida. The Fort Mims battle was one piece in a conflict that ran roughly from 1812 until 1858 when the Second Seminole War ended. Americans retaliated for Fort Mims and defeated the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horsehoe Bend in 1814. Red Stick Faction refugees migrated to Spanish Florida where they integrated with Miccosukee and Seminole tribes. One of those refugees was a youth called Billy Powell or, as our listeners know him, Osceola. He would carry memories conveyed to him by his Great Uncle Peter McQueen, one of the leaders of the Creeks at Fort Mims. How the Red Sticks fought would inform his own actions in the Second Seminole war.

 

The Battle of Fort Mims is re-enacted as spectacle Aug. 29 and 30 at Tensaw, Alabama, where a reconstructed Fort Mims stands.

Southern writer, historian, and Creek Indian reenactor, Dale Cox joins us to narrate and explain the tale. Hailing from the quant little community of Two Egg, Florida, Dale has authored or co-authored more than one dozen books on Southern history and culture. Of interest to listeners is his more recent focus on the Creek and Seminole Wars in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. These include the first two volumes in a four-book series - Fort Gaines, Georgia: A Military History; and Fort Scott, Fort Hughes & Camp Recovery: Three 19th Century military sites in Southwest Georgia. He has done pioneering research on the Negro Fort at Prospect Bluff for which he published his findings and has authored a biography of Millie Francis, the Creek Pocahantas. He has also written about Fowltown, the first battle of the Seminole Wars. In other words, you know we will be hearing again from Dale Cox on this podcast.

 

With Rachael Conrad, he founded TwoEggTV which produces short entertaining historical documentaries about these early 19th century events in the lower American Southeast. Two Egg TV features scenic outdoor locations, historic sites, legends, live events and more. Although many of their stories end up on commercial television throughout the world, our listeners can find them on YouTube and from their website, TwoEggTV.com

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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