Negro Fort

Clinch’s detachment was part of an elaborate set play. As the Patriot War had shown, any U.S. association with an attack on Spanish soil could quickly embroil the country in a diplomatic fiasco. To counter this, Jackson sought to provoke the maroons into attacking first. The plan was to send a supply convoy up the river and past the fort, crossing through Spanish territory on the way to the U.S. Army’s Fort Scott in Georgia. While the supply boats headed north from the mouth of the Apalachicola, Clinch headed south to the junction of the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. By the time Clinch reached the vicinity of the fort in late July—nominally to find and escort the convoy—the U.S. plan had worked with tragic effect: the Seminoles had attacked a supply boat and killed three Americans. Surrounding the Negro Fort with the U.S. and Creek Indian forces, Clinch called for its surrender.