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The deadliest cannonball in American history
Luke Ball
July 30, 2022
Hi, this is Our Bloody History, where we uncover obscure parts of history that are often forgotten.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
The deadliest cannonball in American history, which blew up a refuge for escaped slaves this week, 206 years ago, on 27 July 1816.
Let's get macro first.
It's 19th-century United States and there's a raging cultural belief that American settlers are destined to expand across North America. Why? Because of their special virtues, of course. And because it's their divine duty and mission to redeem the Old World. Duh.
This belief is called Manifest destiny.
Between 1812 and 1867, the United States is busy expanding "from sea to shining sea," in what's often called the age of manifest destiny. It's a messy time with lots of conflicts, including the War of 1812, the Creek War, the Seminole Wars, and the Patriots War.
The short-lived War of 1812 is fought between the United States and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America. Cheeky Spain, who currently controls Florida, also jumps in a bit.
Towards the end of the war, the British decide to build a fort in a remote part of Spanish Florida. Located deep within Apalachicola National Forest and on the bank of the Apalachicola River, the fort commands an ideal position from which to execute an attack on the US via its southwest border. The goal: to finally free the southern states from the "Yoke of the Americans."
British agents then begin to recruit disaffected native tribes and fugitive slaves to form a Southern front against the manifest-destiny-toting-americans. Florida is the perfect place for it too. Escaped slaves have been fleeing to the Spanish territory for generations. If you can make it, the Spanish will consider you free (gotta become Catholic though) and the local Seminoles (the Native American people who developed in Florida) will treat you with respect and dignity.
The newly constructed fort begins to receive an immediate flow of refugee Seminoles and runaway slaves from Southern states, all seeking protection and arms to defend their lands from white settlers. The population at the fort swells to over 1,400 fighting men, but in 1815, at the end of the war, the British abandon the fort, leaving it to some Red Stick Creeks and Seminole warriors. But they too abandon house and the fort comes under the control of a band of free renegade African Americans.
Word travels fast across the south of a "Negro Fort" with weapons. Say what? Fugitive slaves flock to the banks of the Apalachicola River and the fort transforms from a small strategic base to a thriving, free black community.
"They were surrounded by extensive forests, and far removed from the habitations of those enemies of freedom who sought to enslave them; and they regarded themselves as secure in the enjoyment of liberty. Shutout from the cares and strifes of civilized men, they were happy in their own social solitude. So far from seeking to injure the people of the United States, they were only anxious to be exempt, and entirely free from all contact with our population or government; while they faithfully maintained their allegiance to the Spanish crown.”
Awesome, right? Leave 'em alone I say.
But you better believe that white people are freaking out. Negroes with guns! A free black community! Hope and resistance! Shut. It. Down.
The now called Negro Fort is a threat to all that is manifest destiny: expansion, control, slavery, and the do-what-we-want-because-we-are-special attitude. So, naturally, military officials and slaveholders plan its complete elimination.
“I have little doubt of the fact, that this fort has been established by some villains for rapine and plunder, and that it ought to be blown up, regardless of the land on which it stands; and if your mind shall have formed the same conclusion, destroy it and return the stolen Negroes and property to their rightful owners.”
On July 27 1816, our day in history this week, gunboats under the command of Colonel Duncan L. Clinch approach the fort. They find it eagerly defended under two flying flags: the Union Jack and a red flag symbolising get lost, no quarter will be given here.
“Warriors from bondage” by Jackson Walker
The black defenders fire the fort's artillery but to little effect – no one's been trained properly in how to use the cannons. Now it's the US Navy's turn. After a few practice rounds to test the range, Navy Gunboat No. 154 fires a single hot shot cannonball.
Hot what?
Hot shot. Not a cool dude, but an iron ball that's been heated in a furnace beforehand, so that when it strikes it sets fire to stuff.
And this single shot, the one and only, happens to enter the fort's power magazine where the gunpowder is stored. Kaboom. The explosion is next level massive and is heard more than 100 miles away. The entire fort is destroyed along with 334 occupants, including many women and children.
"The explosion was awful, and the scene horrible beyond description. You cannot conceive, nor I describe the horrors of the scene. In an instant lifeless bodies were stretched upon the plain, buried in sand and rubbish, or suspended from the tops of the surrounding pines. Here lay an innocent babe, there a helpless mother; on the one side a sturdy warrior, on the other a bleeding squaw. Piles of bodies, large heaps of sand, broken guns, accoutrements, etc, covered the site of the fort. The brave soldier was disarmed of his resentment and checked his victorious career, to drop a tear on the distressing scene."
In another more official report, Col. Clinch decides to slip in some divine justification by acknowledging that "the great Ruler of the Universe must have used us as his instruments in chastising the blood-thirsty and murderous wretches that defended the fort.”
The response of American officials to this absolute tragedy is shockingly quiet, if not absent. Maybe that's because the entire campaign was illegal. US forces have just invaded a foreign territory without the right congressional and executive authority. Spain is rightly pissed off for the violation on their soil, but according to historian John K. Mahon, "lack the power to do more." The Seminole people are also furious at the US for the fort's destruction, and this is a major contributing factor of the First Seminole War a year later.
This funky forest-eaten star is all that remains of the Negro Fort today.
Aerial view of the remains of Negro Fort in Apalachicola National Forest.
Although hard-to-access and nearly forgotten, Negro Fort is a powerful reminder of one community's desperate struggle for freedom and the sickening power of twisted ideologies like manifest destiny.
3 quick facts:
There are no white casualties from the explosion and all African American survivors are returned to slavery. Even those who were born free in Florida are enslaved because their "ancestors had once been slaves."
This is the only time in its history in which the United States destroys a community of escaped slaves in another country. This episode is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Negro Fort (also called the Battle of Prospect Bluff or the Battle of African Fort).
In 1818, a new fort is built on top of Fort Negro, which becomes known as Fort Gadsden. American forces are garrisoned there until Florida cedes to the United States.
Other conflicts that happened this week:
25 July 1467: Artillery and firearms are intensively used for the first time in Italy during the Battle of Molinella, one of the country's most important battles of the 15th century.
26 July 1814: The Swedish–Norwegian War, also known as the Campaign against Norway or the Norwegian War of Independence, begins.
27 July 1202: The Kingdom of Georgia defeats the Sultanate of Rum at the Battle of Basian during the Georgian–Seljuk wars.
28 July 1915: The United States begins a 19-year occupation of Haiti.
29 July 904: Saracen raiders sack Thessalonica, the Byzantine Empire's second-largest city and plunder it for a week.
30 July 1419: A crowd of radical Hussites kill seven members of the Prague city council during the First Defenestration of Prague.
31 July 1492: All remaining Jews are expelled from Spain as the Alhambra Decree takes effect.
A historical quote about historical things:
"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going."
See ya next week!
DisclaimerYou are reading my abstractions based on the abstractions of others. History is not always an accurate map of what really happened. The map is not the territory. Reality can be very different. We are like blind people groping an elephant, describing what we feel. It always pays to do your own research and ask questions.