The Second Spanish Period
1784-1821
Part Seven
William Augustus Bowles – Part Six
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| Artist interpretation of a 19th century Seminole village |
Bowles’s Second Siege of San Marcos
William Augustus Bowles’s second siege on Fort San
Marcos began in January 1802. This time, however, the fort was in better shape than it was in 1800,
and had a larger garrison. Also, two warships at the fort’s wharf offered
additional protection. On top of that, the engineer Perchet, who was there
overseeing repairs to the fort, had a chain stretched across the San Marcos
River to prevent enemy vessels from using it.[1]
With Bowles recently receiving more supplies from a New Providence merchant
ship, he was feeling bold. Bowles and his men, including his Indian allies numbering in the hundreds, camped
not far from the fort and harassed it at all hours of the day. A solider
named Juan Dozal, who had ignored the fort’s rules about venturing out to far,
was captured by the Seminoles. At the same time, two Seminoles approached the
fort offering to sale meat. DuBreuil had them locked up in the fort as spies.
On
January 6, Seminoles opened fire on San Marcos and the fort returned fire, as well as the galleys anchored in the river. The Seminoles escaped back to their
camp, which they set up just out of shot range of the fort. DuBreuil found out
that the captured soldier Dozal had been taken to Lake Miccosukee, and that the Seminoles there wished to
do a prisoner exchange. DuBreuil said that he would accept the exchange, only
if the Seminoles also gave up two Spanish soldiers who had deserted the fort some time before and were living with the Seminoles at Miccosukee. The Seminoles did not accept
the counter offer and began to move in closer to the fort. DuBreuil ordered
the advancing, hostile looking Seminoles to be fired on. The Seminoles fled and withdrew back out of range of the
fort’s cannon, but they were not finished. A Creek named Topahuaique, who was a
secret courier for DuBreuil, was ordered to scout the enemy’s camp. The many
campfires could be seen from the fort, and Topahuaique went to investigate.
Without getting close enough to be discovered, the scout reported back to the fort
that one of the fires had at least 150 men camped near it.
DuBreuil had plans for a sneak
attack on the Seminole encampment, but assuming they were well supplied, in the
way of arms and ammunition from the Bahamas, and after his scout told him that
they were large in numbers, he abandoned it. The Spaniards had not yet seen
Bowles, but the fact that the Seminoles were using posted guards at their camp,
something Indians were not known to do, suggested that there were Europeans
with the Seminoles, perhaps even leading them. Fort San Marcos was not
at full strength, and DuBreuil even heard that some Seminoles were guarding the
rivers entrance in the bay. At five o’clock in the afternoon, on January 12,
1802, a group of Indians, with a small group of white men, placed a red flag at
the edge of the woods on the land side of the fort. Angered by this, DuBreuil
ordered two warning shots from the fort’s cannon, as well as from a galley
anchored in the river. The next day, a schooner called Eugenia entered the mouth of the St. Marks River from Apalachee
Bay, on its way to resupply the fort, and the galley Luisiana was sent to protect it as it floated towards San Marcos.
The Eugenia ran aground in the
shallow channel of the St. Marks River, and had to wait for the tide to rise
the next day to free itself. In the meantime, the Luisiana anchored by it to help keep it safe from Indian attacks.
The next morning, soldiers in the
fort could see Indians on the other side of the river heading towards the Eugenia. Another galley, the Felipa, was sent downriver to help the Luisiana protect the Eugenia. The Seminole had entrenched
themselves in a position where they could fire on any boat entering the St.
Marks River. On January 14, the Felipa,
with Engineer Juan Maria Perchet and twenty of San Marcos best soldiers aboard,
headed toward the Seminole’s trenches, and opened fire, sending them fleeing
for safety in the woods. The galley Luisiana
and the schooner Eugenia, returned
safely to the fort, and anchored. The soldiers on the Felipa then went ashore and destroyed the Seminoles earthworks by
filling in the trenches and pulling up the protective pine logs and throwing
them into the river. They then set fire to all the surrounding vegetation,
leaving a smoke screen to cover their return to their ship. While the Felipa was returning to the fort it
fired one more cannon shot towards the Seminoles in the woods.
Around the time Perchet returned
from his foray against the Seminole fortifications, DuBreuil had received a
message from Bowles given to him by Indians bearing a white flag of truce. In the
letter, which proved Bowles’s involvement in all this, the “Director General”
again put out forth the prison exchange proposal, the captured soldier Dozal
for Miccosukee villagers being held in Fort San Marcos’s jail. DuBreuil decided not to recognize Bowles as their leader and began to work on a letter to Chief
Kinache of Miccosukee instead. The supply ship Eugenia had come bearing much needed supplies for the fort, but it
also came with the news that the war between Spain and England was over. DuBreuil wanted to let the Seminoles
know that they could no longer expect anything from the British.
The next day, the Felipa went down river to check and see
if the Seminoles had repaired their earthworks, which they had a bit. The men
went ashore and destroyed the fortifications again. By January 16, 1802, DuBreuil had finished his letter and sent it under white flag to the enemy
encampments in the woods not far from the fort. He again stated in the letter that he would only
exchange prisoners if the Seminoles turn over the two Spanish deserters they
had with them. They must have not have liked the idea because the tense
situation between the Indians and the Spanish at San Marcos continued. When Pedro Rousseau arrived at the fort with two more galleys, the Seminoles slowly
began to withdraw back to Lake Miccosukee. William Augustus Bowels again
escaped the Spanish, and soon moved his headquarters from Lake Miccosukee to
Estiffanulga, located on the Apalachicola River, in present-day Liberty County. Bevasue the Spanish were much better prepared, Bowles's second siege of Fort San Marcos de Apalache was a failure.
Peace at San Marcos and the Capture of William
Augustus Bowles
Because
Bowles moved out of the immediate area, the Spanish at Fort San Marcos were able
to enter into peace negotiations with the Seminoles at Miccosukee and smaller
surrounding villages. In August of 1802, Creek and Seminole chiefs traveled to Fort San Marcos to meet with DuBreuil, and a peace treaty between the Indians and
the Spanish was established, which ended hostilities between the two. The white
flag of truce was lowered from the fort’s flagpole, the Spanish banner raised,
and fifteen celebratory cannon blasts then echoed throughout the area.[2]
The
Treaty of Apalache ended the war between the Seminoles and the Spanish at San
Marcos. Most important to San Marcos was article five of the treaty, stating
“The Florida Indians, and particularly the Mesasuques (Miccosukees), and their
chief, Captain Micko Kinache, obligate themselves not to lend aid, direct or
indirect, guards or auxiliaries, to the adventure William Augustus Bowles, and
not to trade with him since he has been the cause and moving spirit of all
hostilities which have occurred; and they shall leave this adventurer to his
fate, taking notice that this article will form the essential base of the
treaty.”[3]
Spanish and Indian relations were now mended for the most part, but Bowles was
still receiving small amounts of supplies from pirates who managed to get
through the watchful eye of Spanish galleys patrolling the Gulf Coast.
In
November of 1802, William Augustus Bowles, and his few remaining followers,
journeyed to Tampa Bay to commandeer any vessel they could get their criminal
hands on. While attempting to capture a vessel, four of Bowles’s supporters
were killed in a gunfight, including Chief Kinache’s brother. That was the life
of a pirate. In February of 1803, one of Bowles’s former supporters told the
Spanish that he was currently on the Steinhatchee River. Taking fourteen
soldiers, Lieutenant Ramon de Uribe left San Marcos de Apalache on a skiff and
headed east down the Gulf coast towards the Steinhatchee River. On the
Steinhatchee, Uribe and his men spotted Bowles and a few followers on a pirogue
in the middle of the river. This was it. The time was now. Uribe was about to capture the
criminal Bowles that had so often escaped Spanish grip. Or so he thought.
Once
Bowles noticed the Spanish approaching, he and his men began to throw everything overboard and then jumped into the river themselves, swimming to shore and fleeing into
the woods. Once again the rascal Bowles was gone, but so was all his supplies.
Despite Spanish victories against Bowles, he was still on the lam, and therefor
still a problem that needed to be dealt with. Ignoring the Treaty of Apalache, a few of Bowles's followers who remained
in Apalachee fired sporadically at Fort San Marcos until early 1803. In March,
a company of grenadiers was sent from Pensacola to San Marcos, bolstering its
garrison to one-hundred soldiers.
As 1802 became 1803, Bowles was extremely
weakened. His support from the British in the Bahamas was gone, most of his Seminole allies had left him, and his pirates were failing him miserably. In March of 1803,
United States Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins informed Folch in Pensacola that
Bowles had moved his camp across the boundary into U.S. territory.[4]
Bowles began to desperately search for new recruits among the Upper Creeks,
where he again promised goods that he could not deliver. But by now his words
were mostly falling on deaf ears. Nevertheless, Bowles was planning to speak at
Hickory Ground, a Creek village near present-day Wetumpka, Alabama. Many
villages were invited to hear him speak, and by May 22, Upper and Lower Creeks,
including the Seminoles, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and the Choctaw nations arrived
at Hickory Ground. Hawkins was there, and planned on arresting Bowles, but
wanted his seizure to be done by the Indians. Folch believed that letting the
Indians seize Bowles, rather than the Spanish or Americans, was the best way to
deal with him, and calm the tribes.[5]
In the spring of 1803, the Spanish
heard word that Bowles was in the southernmost Upper Creek villages, (in
Alabama) trying to bolster his ranks. While in that area, Bowles summoned
chiefs Little Prince of Ofooche, Micco Tucoches of the Seminoles, and Mislogue,
the one-time prisoner at Fort San Marcos. The chiefs all refused to speak with
him. Although Bowles was having a difficult time finding new followers, he
still vowed to war on the Spanish, and drive out any Spaniard or American
living within Creek lands. Growing more and more desperate to find friendlies,
Bowles began to tell the natives that he had twenty-five fully stocked ships
waiting for him off the Gulf Coast, but this new lie did little to garner him any
new support. Bowles then returned to Kinache at Miccosukee, and told him that
he had gained the support of several Lower Creeks, which was another lie, and Kinache
welcomed him which was a clear violation of the Treaty of Apalachee. An Indian
assembly was coming up soon, the Council of the Four Nations, and Bowles and
his Seminole allies planned to go. Also planning on going were the anti-Bowles
Seminoles, who wanted to arrest Bowles if their chiefs allowed them to do so.
Spain and the United States were also
invited to send representatives to the meeting. Folch sent his son, Esteban
Folch, to represent Spain, and Benjamin Hawkins represented the United States.
The congress of the Upper Creeks, Lower Creeks and the Seminoles, Chickasaws,
Cherokee, and Choctaw was to be held at Hickory Ground, near Wetumpka, Alabama (which is
not far from present-day Montgomery) on or close to May 20, 1803.
Either Bowles was actually foolish enough to attend a meeting surrounded by his
enemies, or he may have been forced to go by chiefs he thought were his allies but were really planning on arresting him. Many Lower Creeks, and a large
faction of Seminoles, longed to end the warfare and misery Bowles had brought
them, and expel him without creating inter-tribal fighting.[6] Most
of what we know about Bowles’s capture comes from John Forbes, the successor of
William Panton and his company, who was present and kept notes about the
meeting.
Esteban Folch and Benjamin Hawkins
both arrived to Hickory Ground on Saturday May 21, 1803. Over that weekend,
Indians slowly entered the village, and by Monday, word was out that Bowles and
chiefs from Seminole and Lower Creek towns would arrive the next day. On
Tuesday, May 24, Bowles, being only a few miles away, dispatched runners to arrive
before himself to procure quarters for him and the chiefs. The Creek chief
Hopoy Micco, leader of the upcoming council, agreed to provide a residence for
Bowles. Folch and Hawkins planned on arresting Bowles on sight, and went to
Hopoy Micco to receive approval to do this. Hawkins told Hopoy Micco that he
regarded the Seminoles with Bowles as hostile, and asked that he keep him
informed on to what the council planned to do with Bowles. Hawkins was not sure
whether he or the chiefs were going to arrest Bowles, though he was more than
happy to do it, Hawkins did not want to anger the Seminoles, and provoke a
violent reaction, so he preferred that the chiefs made the capture. Hopoy Micco
then informed Hawkins that the chiefs would indeed arrest Bowles themselves.
When Bowles arrived at Hickory
Ground, he was not allowed to attend the council of chiefs. For the rest of the
day, May 26, the chiefs discussed Bowles cautiously, without even using his
name. Hopoy Micco secretly met with Seminole chief, Efau Hadjo, an ally of
Bowles. Unfortunately we do not know the exact details, but Hopoy Micco must
have talked the Seminole leader into betraying Bowles. In the afternoon of May
26, after the gathered chiefs summarized their talks, the day ended with tribal
ceremonies. In his journal, John Forbes wrote about how impressed he was with
the secrecy displayed regarding the talks about Bowles. Bowles and his friends
had no idea the danger they were in. After being barred from the council talks,
a couple of chiefs, Topalca and Noumatimatla, persuaded Bowles to attend a
feast, and he happily agreed to go.
Once Bowles arrived to the “feast”,
he was suddenly seized by Indians and put in chains. He was then put in a boat
bound for Mobile. On the way to Mobile, Bowles and his guards camped out on a
small island. In the middle of the night, the famously slippery Bowles wriggled
out of his chains, found a small boat and fled his captors. When his Indian
guards woke up and found Bowles missing, they hurriedly searched for him and,
lucky for them, found him not far and easily recaptured him. That would be the
last time William Augustus Bowles ever escaped custody. On June 7, 1803, Bowles
arrived at Mobile, and three hours later he was on his way to New Orleans. On
June 13, Governor Salcedo had his son transport Bowles to Havana, Cuba, where
he was to be imprisoned at El Morro Castle. In New Orleans, Governor Salcedo
held a ceremony to award those who brought Bowles to justice.
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| El Moro Castle - Cuba |
Sources used:
Din, G. C. (2012). War on the Gulf Coast: The Spanish Fight Against William Augustus Bowles. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
[1]
Din, p.177
[2] Ibid. p.198
[3]
Kinnaird, p.42
[4]
Din, p.207
[5] Ibid. p.207
[6]
Ibid. p.209
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