The Scott Battle of 1817

The Scott Battle of 1817. . A bloody battle fought on this site more than 200 years ago helped assure that Florida would become part of the United States., Angered over an attack by American soldiers on the Lower Creek village of Fowltown near today's Bainbridge, Georgia, hundreds of Seminole, Miccocukee, Red Stick Creek, and Maroon (escaped slave or Black Seminole) warriors ambushed a U.S. Army supply boat here on November 30, 1817., The Scott Battle of 1817 was furious and brief. The warriors surprised Lt. Richard W. Scott of the 7th Regiment of U.S. Infantry and his 40-man company as they tried to move their keelboat against a swift current that pushed it near the riverbank. The lieutenant and many of his men went down in the first volley of musket and rifle fire. Others fought back using their muskets and a small swivel cannon. The warriors waded into the river and stormed the boat, ending the battle with brutal hand to hand combat., The battle was the first U.S. defeat of the Seminole Wars. It assumed a critical role in negotiations with Spain and helped assure the transfer of Florida to the United States in 1821., Homathlemico , Homathlemico, the leader of the Native American forces in the Scott Battle, was a refugee Red Stick Creek chief who fled Alabama at the end of the Creek War of 1813-1814. He was captured and executed by U.S. forces in 1818. , Abraham , Abraham was a Maroon (escaped slave or Black Seminole) fighter during the First Seminole War. He served in the British Colonial Marines on the Apalachicola River in 1814-1815, gaining valuable military experience. He was an important Black Seminole leader and advisor for many years. , The Fowltown Raids , The Scott Battle was a retaliatory attack. Acting under direct orders from the administration of President James Monroe, Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines ordered U.S. troops to carry out two raids on the Creek Indian village of November 21-23, 1817. The soldiers were ordered to kidnap the Fowltown chief, Neamathla (Eneah Emathla), who was to be held hostage until his people agreed to evacuate lands taken from them by the Treaty of Fort Jackson. , Elizabeth Stewart Dill , Elizabeth Stewart was the sole female survivor of the attack. She was the wife of a U.S. soldier and reunited with him after nearly six months of captivity. He died in the years that followed, and she remarried John Dill of Fort Gaines, Georgia, where two of her homes still stand today.