SW0118 An Uneven Fate awaited the International Cast of Characters after Prospect Bluff Battle

Warriors from Bondage by Jackson Walker portraying the attack on the Fort
at Prospect Bluff, or as the Americans called it, the Negro Fort.

In previous episodes, we have examined the history and activities surrounding the Fort at Prospect Bluff and then its destruction and its grim aftermath.

In this episode, published on the anniversary of the fort's destruction, July 27, Historian Dale Cox returns to give us the rest of the story on many of the key figures involved. While the Americans executed the fort’s leaders, how did Abraham fare? What became of the survivors? Who was the Forbes agent who treated the maroons whom the Americans had deemed too injured to treat. Who was the Coweta leader who captured some 100 maroons outside the fort? What was the brutal fate that awaited the British officer who removed any remaining maroons in the fort’s vicinity to a Black Seminole town further inside Florida?  What does a long overlooked letter from Lt. Col. Duncan Clinch tell us about American intentions for the self-liberated blacks within Spanish Florida’s borders? And who was Mary Ashley, a black maroon who hoisted the British flag each morning, helping with firing artillery, and who was buried in dirt by the explosion? She lived a harrowing life afterwards but was redeemed some years later by the British officer responsible for overseeing the fort’s operations. Dale Cox discusses all this and more.

 

A British flag flies over the former grounds of the British (or Negro) fort at Prospect Bluff. A marker on site details the devastation. Below, the British evacuated blast survivors to Nero's Fort on Suwannee River. 

 

American officers submitted an inventory of the stores captured from what they dubbed the Negro Fort.

Secretary of War John C. Calhoun submitted a report to the Congress on the battle at Negro Fort. 

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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