Negro Fort was a short-lived fortification built by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812, in a remote part of what was at the time Spanish Florida. It was intended to support a never-realized British attack on the U.S. via its southwest border, by means of which they could "free all these Southern Countries [states] from the Yoke of the Americans".
The fort was destroyed on July 27, 1816 when a "hot cannon ball" landed in the magazine, leading to a huge explosion. This action is also sometimes referred to as the Battle of Negro Fort (also called the Battle of Prospect Bluff or the Battle of African Fort). Colonel Duncan L. Clinch, the attacking commander, reported salvaging approximately "2,500 muskets, 50 carbines, [and] 400 pistols" from the ruins; as well as inflicting nearly 300 casualties to the fort's occupants. The salvaged arms were given to Colonel Clinch's allies, the Creeks, as war booty for their help in taking the fort.
This is the only time in its history in which the United States destroyed a community of escaped slaves in another country. However, the area continued to attract escaped Africans until the U.S. construction of Fort Gadsden in 1818.
Built on a site overlooking the Apalachicola River, about 15 miles north of present-day Apalachicola, Florida, it was the largest structure between St. Augustine and Pensacola. Trading posts of Panton, Leslie and Company and then John Forbes and Company, loyalists hostile to the United States, had existed since the late eighteenth century there and at the San Marcos fort, serving local Native Americans and fugitive slaves. The latter, runaway or freed black slaves from plantations in the American South, used their experience of farming and animal husbandry to set up farms stretching for miles along the river.
Construction of the fort began in May 1814, when the British seized the trading post of John Forbes and Company. By September, there was a square moat enclosing a large field several acres in size. There was a 4 feet (1.2 m) wooden stockade the length of the moat, with bastions at its eastern corners. There was a stone building containing soldiers' barracks and a large warehouse, 48 feet (15 m) by 24 feet (7.3 m). Several hundred feet inland was the magazine, in which stands of arms and 73 kegs of gunpowder were stored.
The fort also had "dozens of axes, carts, harnesses, hoes, shovels, and saws," along with many uniforms, belts, and shoes. The British left all these behind. There were over a dozen schooners, barques, and canoes, one 45 feet (14 m) long, along with sails, anchors, and other equipment, and "a number of experienced sailors and shipwrights". It was intended to support a never-realized British attack on the U.S. via its southwest border, by means of which they could "free all these Southern Countries [states] from the Yoke of the Americans".
To attract recruits, the British visited the Creek, Seminole, and "negro settlements" along the river and its tributaries, distributing guns, uniforms, and other goods. The Creeks were enthusiastic about this opportunity to attack the United States, whose settlers had taken their land. At the request of the British, they started inviting Blacks to join them. Slaves of the Spanish in Pensacola were also invited, and came by the hundreds. As a result, the British Post was a "beehive of activity" in 1814. Colonel Nicolls had under his command, at Prospect Bluff, or living up the river, some 3,500 men eager to attack the Americans. Most of the Africans/Blacks did not want to return to be slaves of the Spanish in Pensacola, some of them adopting English names and claiming to be fugitives from the United States so that they would not be returned. Nicolls's Colonial Marine detachment in Florida had grown to about 400 men.
Fugitive slaves had been seeking refuge in Florida for generations, and they were well received by the Seminoles and treated as free by the Spaniards if they converted to Catholicism; the origins of the future Underground Railroad are here. The Spaniards wanted their own Pensacola slaves back, but as far as American slaves they did not much care. In any event, they lacked the resources to find and "recover" them, at one point inviting the American slaveowners to catch the fugitives themselves. The settlement at the Negro Fort "was the largest concentration of refugees from chattel slavery in the South between the end of the Revolution and the Civil War".
Fugitive slaves continued to arrive, seeking in Florida their freedom; they set up a network of farms along the river to keep them supplied. The Southern plantation owners became increasingly alarmed as news of the fort spread.
Manrique complained to Cochrane about the slaves taken from Pensacola by Nicolls, Cochrane replied on December 5. Lt. José Urcullo arrived at Prospect Bluff on December 27. Nicolls was away (from December 7 to January 25), so Captain Robert Henry, as deputy, received him. He stalled Urcullo. On January 12, 1815, a dejected Urcullo, accompanied by only ten slaves, returned back to Pensacola to inform the governor that his mission had failed.
On February 26, William Hardridge traveled to Prospect Bluff, to reclaim his slaves. He spoke with Captain Hugh Ross, who responded that as Edward Nicolls was away, he could do nothing until Nicolls returned from Georgia. He spent three days there before departing, and passed on his observations to Hawkins, who wrote about these in a letter dated April 21 to Governor Early.
In January 1815, for a second time Florida governor Mateo González Manrique requested Cochrane return the runaway Spanish slaves to the Spanish. The Spanish official Vicente Sebastián Pintado arrived at Prospect Bluff on April 7, Post-Captain Robert Cavendish Spencer having arrived earlier on March 27. Pintado's report states that Spencer told the Spanish fugitives that they could not be transported to British territory, and warned them that he foresaw future vengeful behavior on the part of the Americans. He informed Pintado that he would not return the runaway Spanish slaves by force. Pintado interviewed 128 Spanish slaves, he was able to persuade only 10, all women, to return voluntarily. He estimated 250 runaways to be present. In the presence of Pintado, he discharged the enlisted men of the Colonial Marines, settled outstanding accrued pay, and presented each man with a discharge paper. Pintado was angered by what he considered to be manumission documents, coupled with the refusal to forcibly return these men to slavery.
British troops were to withdraw under the terms of peace that ended the War of 1812, consequently Nicolls received orders to withdraw his troops from the fort. The Royal Marine detachment embarked on HMS Cydnus on April 22, and were duly returned to Ireland Island in Bermuda, arriving on June 13, 1815, to rejoin the 3rd Battalion as a supernumerary company. On May 15 the British evacuated the last of the garrison there. Nicolls left in mid-May 1815 with the Redstick Creek Francis the Prophet, also known as Josiah Francis and Hillis Hadjo, the Native American spiritual and political leader known for his role in the Battle of Holy Ground, seeking official imprimatur for the treaty Nicolls had negotiated. Francis's son, who wanted an English education, also accompanied him. Just prior to his departure in May Nicolls composed a letter on May 12, 1815 to Benjamin Hawkins, implying that the freed slaves had been shipped off to British territory. At the time of his departure in May 1815, Nicolls promised his allies to return in six months, according to Hawkins.
Later American histories would accuse Nicolls of ensuring that "the fort was left intact for the use of the Indians. Instead, it came into the possession of a band of free renegade Negroes." It is the largest and best-known instance before the American Civil War in which armed African escapees from North American slavery resisted European Americans who sought to return them to slavery. (A much smaller example was Fort Mose, near St. Augustine.)