The ramparts are worn with age. It’s been almost 200 years since events swirled around this place in a brief and terrible tornado. So many gamblers came here; African slaves fighting for freedom, American Indians fighting for a chunk of land they could call their own, officers of the British Royal Marines in a last ditch effort to topple the newly born United States of America, and our Federal government fighting for its very existence.
In the west, the sun sinks toward the dark silhouetted forest on the opposite bank. That sunset flashes fire across the mirrored surface of the Apalachicola River. Here, in the ruins of this fort, tree shadows crawl across the remaining earthworks. In the spreading twilight, darkness seems to fill the moat.
The ghosts which occupy these shadows belong to all of us. The smoke from that terrible explosion sweeps across the intervening years, seeping into the fabric of our collective story.
Prospect Bluff, 15 miles up the Apalachicola River from the Gulf of Mexico, July 27th, 1816, 4:00 am. Nights breath seemed to pause in its deepest sleep as the hulls of gunboats 149 and the 154 drifted past. Only a few crickets chirped from the inky darkness of the forest close on their port side. Sailing Master, Jarius Loomis, understood the power of stealth and surprise.
This fort, this Negro Fort, held very real danger for the men aboard the boats. Four of their friends had already lost their lives on the voyage up river. Designed by the best British military science, the fort sported 12 cannon.
The stars still filled the sky as the gunboats neared the fort. A flash, and the thunderous roar of a cannon split the night. Another and another flared from the forts dark ramparts. Iron cannon balls crashed through the branches of the sleeping forest. In the boats, artillery crews leapt to their station. The blast from their cannon illuminated the crew for a second and then the sailors scrambled again in darkness. By the sound of the cannon balls impact, they knew if they hit earth or wooden stockade walls. Flashes like distant lightning tore the growing cloud of smoke enveloping the fort.
Aboard ship, tongs drew a glowing cannon ball out of an oven. As the hot shot left the mouth of the gun, it sparkled on its short path to the fort. Then there was a muffled rumble. A concussion followed by a growing angry roar. Suddenly the early dawn was rent by a terrible eruption. The fort disintegrated into fiery splinters and wreckage arching high into the sky. A roiling fireball climbed above the scene as human body parts rained down. Burning debris splashed hissing into the river .
The ninth shot, fired from the gunboats, had fallen directly into the forts magazine of almost 700 kegs of powder. It was the biggest explosion anyone had ever seen. Of the 320 Africans and American Indians inside the fort, only 50 lived. Outside the fort, more than a thousand defenders fled east through Florida’s dense forests, toward the slanting rays of the rising sun.
An African American man named Abraham may have been among them. Freed from the service of a Spanish Doctor in Pensacola by Lieutenant Colonel Nichols, of his Majesty’s Marines, Abraham may have witnessed that blast. From the banks of the Apalachicola, he made his way to the Suwannee River. In 1818 he would meet the U.S. military again as they raided Bowlegs Town. His courage in a rear guard action, allowing African and Seminole women and children to escape, won him the name of "Suwannee Warrior."
Abraham participated in the Dade battle in 1835 and became one of the chief negotiators during the second Seminole war. A free man living in the Oklahoma territory, he returned to Florida to negotiate a settlement of the Third Seminole War, the Billy Bowlegs War. Some of Abraham’s people eventually moved to Mexico. Some, became Buffalo Soldiers fighting for our Federal Government. They may have passed through Tampa on their way to Cuba during the Spanish American War. I wonder, where their descendants are now?
Sunset colors have faded to grays. The stories and ideas which struggled here have found meaning in millions of distant lives. Most have forgotten their connection to this incredible place, and I suppose that’s all right too.
For the best description of the struggle over Fort Negro, read Old Hickory’s War by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler. ISBN 0-8117-0113-1
