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Fort Mims massacre
The Fort Mims massacre occurred on August 30, 1813, at a fortified homestead site 35-40 miles north of Mobile, Alabama, during the Creek War. A large force of Creek Indians belonging to the Red Sticks faction, under the command of Peter McQueen and William Weatherford, stormed the fort and defeated the militia garrison.
The Red Sticks performed the massacre, killing almost all the remaining mixed Creek, white settlers, and militia at Fort Mims. Afterward, they took nearly 100 enslaved African Americans as captives. The small fort consisted of a blockhouse and stockade surrounding the house and outbuildings of settler Samuel Mims.
At the time of the War of 1812, tensions within the Creek Nation caused it to divide into factions. Creek nativists known as the Red Sticks wanted to maintain tradition and argued against more accommodation of white settlers. But other Creeks, who tended to have had more trading and other relations with whites, favored adopting elements of European-American culture. The Red Stick faction from the Upper Towns opposed both land cessions to settlers and the Lower Towns' assimilation into European-American culture.
These natives were soon called "Red Sticks" because they had used the "red stick of war," a favored weapon and symbolic Creek war declaration. Civil war among the Creeks erupted during the summer of 1813. The Red Sticks attacked headmen associated with accommodation. In the Upper Towns, they began a systematic slaughter of domestic livestock, most of which belonged to men who had gained power by adopting aspects of European culture. Not understanding internal issues among the Creek, frontier whites were alarmed about increasing tensions and began sheltering in various posts and blockhouses such as Fort Mims, while the states sent military reinforcements to the frontier.
American spies learned that Peter McQueen's party of Red Sticks were in Pensacola, Spanish Florida, to acquire food assistance, supplies, and arms from the Spanish. The newly arrived Spanish governor, Mateo González Manrique, authorized giving the Creek 45 barrels of corn and flour, blankets, ribbons, scissors, razors, a few steers, and 1000 pounds of gunpowder and an equivalent supply of lead musket balls and bird shot.
When reports of the Creek pack train reached Colonel Caller, he and Major Daniel Beasley of the Mississippi Volunteers led a mounted force of 6 companies, 150 white militia riflemen, and 30 Tensaw under Captain Dixon Bailey to intercept them. James Caller (Call/Cole) ambushed the Red Sticks in the Battle of Burnt Corn in July 1813 as the Creek were having their mid-day meal. While the United States forces were looting the pack trains, the warriors returned and drove off the Americans.
In August 1813, Peter McQueen and Red Eagle (Weatherford) were the Red Stick chiefs who commanded the attack on Fort Mims. Nearly 1,000 warriors from thirteen Creek towns of the Alabama, the Tallapoosa, and lower Abeka bands gathered at the outlet of Flat Creek on the lower Alabama River.
The mixed-blood people who were also called Creeks, of Tensaw, who had relocated from Upper Creek Towns with the approval of the Creek National Council,[further explanation needed] joined European-American settlers in taking refuge within the stockade of Fort Mims. There were about 517 people, including some 265 armed militiamen in the fort. Fort Mims was located about 35 to 45 miles (50–70 km) directly north of Mobile on the eastern side of the Alabama River.
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Fort Mims massacre
The Fort Mims massacre occurred on August 30, 1813, at a fortified homestead site 35-40 miles north of Mobile, Alabama, during the Creek War. A large force of Creek Indians belonging to the Red Sticks faction, under the command of Peter McQueen and William Weatherford, stormed the fort and defeated the militia garrison.
The Red Sticks performed the massacre, killing almost all the remaining mixed Creek, white settlers, and militia at Fort Mims. Afterward, they took nearly 100 enslaved African Americans as captives. The small fort consisted of a blockhouse and stockade surrounding the house and outbuildings of settler Samuel Mims.
At the time of the War of 1812, tensions within the Creek Nation caused it to divide into factions. Creek nativists known as the Red Sticks wanted to maintain tradition and argued against more accommodation of white settlers. But other Creeks, who tended to have had more trading and other relations with whites, favored adopting elements of European-American culture. The Red Stick faction from the Upper Towns opposed both land cessions to settlers and the Lower Towns' assimilation into European-American culture.
These natives were soon called "Red Sticks" because they had used the "red stick of war," a favored weapon and symbolic Creek war declaration. Civil war among the Creeks erupted during the summer of 1813. The Red Sticks attacked headmen associated with accommodation. In the Upper Towns, they began a systematic slaughter of domestic livestock, most of which belonged to men who had gained power by adopting aspects of European culture. Not understanding internal issues among the Creek, frontier whites were alarmed about increasing tensions and began sheltering in various posts and blockhouses such as Fort Mims, while the states sent military reinforcements to the frontier.
American spies learned that Peter McQueen's party of Red Sticks were in Pensacola, Spanish Florida, to acquire food assistance, supplies, and arms from the Spanish. The newly arrived Spanish governor, Mateo González Manrique, authorized giving the Creek 45 barrels of corn and flour, blankets, ribbons, scissors, razors, a few steers, and 1000 pounds of gunpowder and an equivalent supply of lead musket balls and bird shot.
When reports of the Creek pack train reached Colonel Caller, he and Major Daniel Beasley of the Mississippi Volunteers led a mounted force of 6 companies, 150 white militia riflemen, and 30 Tensaw under Captain Dixon Bailey to intercept them. James Caller (Call/Cole) ambushed the Red Sticks in the Battle of Burnt Corn in July 1813 as the Creek were having their mid-day meal. While the United States forces were looting the pack trains, the warriors returned and drove off the Americans.
In August 1813, Peter McQueen and Red Eagle (Weatherford) were the Red Stick chiefs who commanded the attack on Fort Mims. Nearly 1,000 warriors from thirteen Creek towns of the Alabama, the Tallapoosa, and lower Abeka bands gathered at the outlet of Flat Creek on the lower Alabama River.
The mixed-blood people who were also called Creeks, of Tensaw, who had relocated from Upper Creek Towns with the approval of the Creek National Council,[further explanation needed] joined European-American settlers in taking refuge within the stockade of Fort Mims. There were about 517 people, including some 265 armed militiamen in the fort. Fort Mims was located about 35 to 45 miles (50–70 km) directly north of Mobile on the eastern side of the Alabama River.