SW084 1817 Encounter on Apalachicola River Not a Massacre But Still a Seminal Battle in a Long War

More than two centuries ago this week, on November 30, 1817, a lieutenant sailed his boat along the Apalachicola River to destruction. His boat contained 40 soldiers and noncombatant women and children. Seminole, Creeks and Maroons waited for their passing to open fire. Nearly everyone on board was killed in the volley and one white woman was taken prisoner by the Indians. A few survivors made a swim for it and reached a friendly shore.

The action outraged the American public and the Monroe Administration. Newspapers called it a massacre, a name that stuck until very recent times. The action also inaugurated the First Seminole War to the Americans and the long war to the Seminole tribe. Why did they attack this military vessel in what was thought to be a time of peace? What precipitated the encounter? And how did American history change decisively as a result.

Author and historian Dale Cox returns to the Seminole Wars podcast to assemble this narrative and to analyze its short- and long-term effects. First Seminole War lasted under two years but the wars of Seminole Removal lasted from 1817 to 1858, hence, a Long War. 

 

 

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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