Earthquake shakes peace effort on the Apalachicola River

The ground trembles beneath the feet of peace emissaries.

by Dale Cox

USGS map showing that Intensity IV and V
earthquakes were felt well into Florida during
the New Madrid events of 1811-1817.

The New Madrid Earthquakes traditionally played a role in the coming of the Creek War of 1813-1814. It is a little known fact that an earthquake also shook the borderlands of Southwest Georgia, Southeast Alabama, and North Florida during the early stages of the Seminole Wars. It happened on the night of December 10, 1817:

Earthquake! – The shock of an Earthquake was distinctly felt in Milledgeville (Geo.) on Wednesday night, the 10th inst. about 11 o’clock. A gentleman recently from Columbia, in this State, informs that a slight shock was also experienced there, at exactly the same time. – Charleston City Gazette, December 25, 1817.

Experts believe that the quake was a strong aftershock of the massive New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812. It was felt from its center point in the Mississippi River valley somewhere between Memphis, Tennessee, and the forks of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.  A strange noise also accompanied the tremor:

Massive Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee was created by the
New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812.
The 1817 quake was an aftershock.

Between 11 and 12 o’clock on the night of Wednesday, an earthquake was felt in this town [i.e., Knoxville, TN] – the shock continued about half a minute, and violently shook the houses and furniture, arousing many that were asleep. It was accompanied by a rumbling noise, which many think was of longer duration than the noise accompanying the quakes at this season five years ago, though the shock was not so violent. The undulation was from west to east. – American Beacon, January 2, 1818 (republishing a letter from Knoxville dated December 1817).

The shock was felt at Fort Scott on the Flint River in Southwest Georgia and along the Apalachicola River in Florida. The Prophet Josiah Francis, who was assembling an army of more than 1,000 warriors for an attack on two United States supply ships, may have seen it as an omen. It definitely served notice that the Seminole War was about to spread.

The earthquake also signaled the entry of a new state to the Union. Mississippi became one of the United States on December 10, 1817.

The earthquake tossed boats on the Apalachicola River
when it struck on December 10, 1817.

There was an important conference at Fort Scott on the same day. Several of the Lower Creek chiefs in alliance with the U.S. Army appeared at the fort with an offer of peace from one of the most influential Red Stick chiefs. The U.S. raids on Fowltown and the Native American retaliation at the Scott Battle of 1817 threatened to engulf the borderlands with blood and fire. The Atasi Mico (Autossee Mico) made one last attempt to stop the war from spreading:

A proposition has been made by the Hostile Chiefs through the friendly chiefs Perriman and Johnston for peace. As evidence of their desire for peace, they say they will not permit their warriors to fire on our vessels ascending the river, that they will send on board the vessels the woman they took from Lieut. Scott’s command. - Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle to Commanding Officer of the Supply Boats on the Apalachicola River, December 10, 1817)

The Apalachicola River as seen from Spanish Bluff, where
William Hambly lived in 1817.

The circumstances of the proposition received from the chiefs are difficult to fully ascertain. It followed a discussion held between the Atasi Mico and Edmund Doyle, an employee of John Forbes & Company. Atasi Mico was a Red Stick Creek who had evacuated into Florida with his surviving followers after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Doyle was the storekeeper in charge of the trading post at Prospect Bluff on the lower Apalachicola River.

The meeting between the two likely took place at or near Spanish Bluff in what is now Calhoun County, Florida. Doyle had sought shelter there at the home of his friend and sometimes coworker William Hambly after hearing of the Battle of Fowltown. Atasi Mico was among the chiefs and warriors gathering at nearby Ocheesee Bluff under the leadership of the Prophet Josiah Francis for a planned attack on two U.S. ships making their way up the Apalachicola River with supplies for Fort Scott.

The Jim Woodruff Dam stands where the Chattahoochee
and Flint Rivers joined to form the Apalachicola in 1817.

The details of the discussions are not known. Still, Atasi Mico did authorize Doyle to go with the neutral chiefs William Perryman, George Perryman, and Johnston to see Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle. He had assumed command at Fort Scott on the departure of Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines after the latter was ordered to the St. Marys River.

The meeting took place at Fort Scott on December 10, 1817, and the lieutenant colonel was quick to tell Johnston and the Perryman brothers that he had not authorized Doyle to make an overture to the Native American force:

I have understood that Mr. Doyle has had a talk with Ottossee Micko about making peace. I did not ask Mr. Doyle to make this, or any other Talks with the hostile Indians, but I shall be glad if the talk has enduced them to wish for peace, as their Great Father the President of the United States, has always wished for peace with them. - Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle, Talk delivered on the 10th of Decr. 1817 to three Indian Chiefs, December 10, 1817.

Arbuckle outlined the U.S. Army’s position on what had happened at Fowltown. He touched on the real truth of the war by telling the chiefs that “the army did not come here to make war on the Indians, but expected their assistance in getting the negroes belonging to the white people who are in their country.” He also asked that “some offenders should be given up.”

The peace initiative failed.

For the Prophet Josiah Francis, who commanded the American Indian army that was gathering on the Apalachicola for an attack on the army's supply boats, the earthquake likely was an omen. The war expanded dramatically over the days that followed.

Editor's Note: You can learn more about the First Seminole War in these books by Dale Cox: