The Battle of Negro Fort The rise and fall of a fugitive slave community

During the War of 1812, the British built a fort at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River in Spanish Florida. At war's end, the British left the fully equipped post under the control of a group of African Americans who had served in the Colonial Marines during the conflict. The Negro Fort, as it was known, quickly became the center of a Maroon community of escaped slaves, free blacks, and Native Americans. As a magnet for runaway slaves and an obstacle to westward expansion, the fort's existence was unacceptable to southern slaveholders and was destroyed by a US military force in July 1816. In this work, Clavin (Univ. of Houston) vividly chronicles the development of the fort and the surrounding community and explains why this largely forgotten historical episode has such great importance. As he details, it ultimately led to the Seminole Wars and the acquisition of Florida. It also provided clear evidence of the slaveholders' growing influence on national policy and their obsession with capturing runaway slaves and was used by the abolition movement as an example of the cruelty of slavery, thus contributing to the coming of the Civil War. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. --Don Butts, emeritus, Gordon State College

During the War of 1812, the British offered American slaves the opportunity to serve in the British Colonial Marines in exchange for their freedom. Many slaves flocked to the British military. At the end of hostilities, many runaways sailed with the British, while others chose to occupy a well-supplied fort in Spanish Florida near the mouth of the Apalachicola River. Negro Fort, home to several hundred former slaves, Native Americans, and their families, was a constant irritation to slaveholders. Although just one of many maroon communities in Florida, Negro Fort was the largest and served as a source of hope and inspiration to runaways and enslaved people in the states bordering Florida. Clavin (history, Univ. of Houston; Aiming for Pensacola) tells the story of this fugitive slave outpost and its destruction at the hands of a combined U.S. Army and Navy force led by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson. Clavin describes how this action closed off an escape route, increased oppression of Southern Native peoples, and led to the rise of the Southern slave power and a federal government willing to use its influence to support slaveholders. VERDICT A must-read for those interested in early American republic history.--Chad E. Statler, Westlake Porter P.L., Westlake, OH