Decatur County During the Creek and Seminole Wars Era

Decatur County During the Creek and Seminole Wars Era. . Decatur County was once a frontier region shared by the Creek and the Seminole Nations. The Creeks, comprised of dozens of loosely associate groups, lived primarily along the southern reaches of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers in Alabama and Georgia. The closely-related Seminoles came together through similar alliances in Florida. Many of these people originally migrated to the region in the late 1700s and early 1800s to escape the pressures of American encroachment., In the early 1800s, several Native American towns with historic ties to both the Creeks and Seminoles occupied this region. Prominent among these were the town of Pucknawhitla and Fowltown. Pucknawhitla stood within the city limits of what is now Bainbridge, while Fowltown, or Tutalosi Talofa in the Muskogee language, actually moved to multiple locations over a period of years. At the time of the First Seminole War (1817), it was located about four miles to the south. Other towns in the immediate area included Tamathli, Attapulgus, Wekiva, and Mikasuki., Inset , Bainbridge , Non-native settlement of what is now the city if Bainbridge dates to the 1770s, when Englishman James Burges established a trading post known widely as "Burges Town"on the Banks of the Flint River. Burges served briefly as an interpreter for the United States Creek Agency after its establishment in the 1790s. Bainbridge can trace its roots more directly to the small American settlement that developed here after the First Seminole War, however. The community, named after Commodore William Bainbridge, commander of the U.S.S. Constitution ("Old Ironsides"), was established in the early 1820s and officially incorporated in 1829., Map captions , Top right: Map showing migration routes of Creeks who helped form the Seminole Tribe. , Bottom right: This 1796 map of the Southeast, by John Reid and W. Winterbotham, indicates the "Lowest Creek Towns" were located in this area adjacent Seminole territory. , Bottom right: This map of Georgia, produced by Adiel Sherwood in 1829, is among the first to show the location of Bainbridge.