More new details from 1814 British map of Apalachicola & Chattahoochee Rivers

Section of Woodbine's
Map of 1814.
National Archives of Great Britain
(Click to Enlarge)

I first showed you part of the newly discovered Woodbine Map of 1814 in a post earlier this week. If you missed it, just click here to read that part before continuing with this article.

Today we are focusing on the next part of the map, which covers the Apalachicola River from the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. In the next post, we will look at the section that covers the Chattahoochee River north from the Alabama state line to above Eufaula.

The more than 200 year old Woodbine Map was discovered in the National Archives of Great Britain. It reveals a great deal of new information about the location of Native American settlements and refugee camps along the Apalachicola and Chattahoochee Rivers in the days immediately following the Creek War of 1813-1814.

Red Stick Creek refugees were pouring south into Spanish West Florida following the defeat of their last army at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Alabama. They were starving and fleeing for their lives. Not only were they being pursued by U.S. troops, but white-allied Creeks under William McIntosh and Choctaws under Pushmataha had joined the chase. Even William Weatherford, a former Red Stick fighter, was now guiding U.S. troops in pursuit of his former friends and allies.

 The Woodbine Map was drawn at a time when Red Stick families were establishing refugee camps along the Conecuh, Choctawhatchee, Chattahoochee, Apalachicola and other rivers of the region. So many of these refugees had died along the way that one old warrior told a British officer that he knew the trail to his enemy because it was marked by the graves of his children.

Capt. George Woodbine of the British Royal Marines arrived on the Apalachicola in May 1814. Ordered to recruit Creek and Seminole warriors to the cause of Great Britain in the ongoing War of 1812, Woodbine traveled as far upstream as Eufaula on the Chattahoochee River. His map appears to have been drawn during his journey and pinpoints the locations of both established towns and refugee camps.

It should be noted before continuing that the map was drawn at a time when large numbers of Native American men, women and children were still on the move. Many of the sites shown were transitory at best. Some were occupied for no more than a few weeks, which makes the document extremely valuable in understanding the movements of Red Stick groups as they entered Florida.

In our last article about the map, we discussed the massive number of towns and camps that had appeared along the relatively short section of the Chattahoochee River in Jackson County, Florida. Most Red Stick groups had not yet reached the Apalachicola River.

Looking at today's section of the map, we will move south down the Apalachicola from the forks of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. The Tocktoethla towns of the Perryman family, shown just above the forks, were discussed in the last article.

The Apalachicola River as seen from River Landing Park in
Chattahoochee, Florida. Mosquito Creek enters from the left.

Moving downstream from the forks, the map shows Mosquito Creek flowing into the river from the east were the City of Chattahoochee stands today. The large island in the river below Chattahoochee is also shown.

The first Native American village below the confluence was the town of "Tomathleu" (also spelled "Tomatley" and "Tomathli") on the west bank in what is now Jackson County, Florida. This town had been established in the 1760s by a Creek band that moved down the river at the invitation of the British, who possessed Florida from 1763-1783.

Tomatley was one of the towns where the white trader James Burges had a home and operated a trading post. He also lived, had a family and operated a store on the bluff at today's Bainbridge, Georgia. Burges had died by 1814, but his children and grandchildren by his Tomatley wife still lived in the town.

The village was also the home of a man called Vaccapuchasse by the Spanish and the "Mulatto King" by the Americans. A maroon or escaped slave, he was the child of black and Native American parents and had become one of the principal chiefs of Tomatley. John Yellowhair was also an important leader in the town, which stood near the old Jackson County Port Authority complex.

Section of the Woodbine Map showing "Ocheesee Town" and
"Negro Settlements" in what is now Calhoun County, Florida.

The next village down the Apalachicola was Ocheesee Talofa, which stood on Ocheesee Bluff in what is now Calhoun County, Florida. This well-known town had also been established in the 1760s and was the one-time home of the white trader John Mealy. He had provided horses and other support to the British during the American Revolution. His son, Jack Mealy, was now the principal chief of Ocheesee.

Perhaps the biggest surprise from the Apalachicola River section of the newly discovered map is the large "Negro Settlements" that it shows running down the west side of the river below Ocheesee Bluff. This previously unknown settlement had been established by maroons (runaway slaves) who fled to the Apalachicola during and following the Creek War of 1813-1814. Some had been held by white plantation owners but others had been the slaves of Creek chiefs and principal men.

These individuals were now free and living in Spanish Florida. Woodbine undoubtedly spent considerable time with them as one of his assignments was to recruit a battalion of black soldiers for service in the British Colonial Marines. The maroon settlement below Ocheesee was not shown on later maps and its villagers probably moved downstream to Prospect Bluff at Woodbine's request. A number of the recruits who enlisted in the British service there gave their home town as "Ocheesee Talofa."

Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River.

The last Creek town shown on the river was Yawalla (Iola), the primary town of chief John Blunt. This village was at the site of today's Blountstown and not at Iola Landing lower down the river.

Blunt had fled with his people from the Creek Nation during the war and had suffered great losses in the process. White people sometimes called him Lafarka, but this must be a corruption of an Indian name or title as the Muscogee language includes neither the letter "r" nor its equivalent sound.

More Red Sticks would soon arrive on the Apalachicola as the bands of Prophet Josiah Francis, Homathlemico (Hoboithle Mico?) and others made their way east from the western Florida Panhandle. At the time of Woodbine's trip, however, these groups were still on the Choctawhatchee, Conecuh and other rivers to the west.

A noteworthy point of interest is Forbes Island just below Panton's Cliffs. This was not the Forbes Island today, but an upriver island formed by the confluence of the Apalachicola with the River Styx and other streams. It was also shown as Forbes Island on Spanish maps of this era.

Lower Apalachicola River as shown on the
Woodbine Map. Notice Prospect Bluff on the
east bank and the offshore anchorage of the
British warship HMS Orpheus.

Panton's Cliffs was Estiffanulga Bluff. It had been called Estiffanulga as late as 1804, but officers of John Forbes & Company renamed it in honor of William Panton. He had been a partner in Panton, Leslie & Company, the original name of the trading company. The name never stuck, however, and Estiffanulga remains in use today.

Further downstream can be seen the mouth of the Chipola River and Prospect Bluff. The bluff, called the Loma de Buena Vista by the Spanish, was the site of a Forbes & Company trading post and would soon be selected by the British as a location for one of two forts that they would build on the river.

Below Prospect Bluff, no settlements are shown as existing on the Apalachicola River. The map does show the anchorage of the HMS Orpheus off Cape St. George. The Orpheus was a British warship filled with arms and ammunition for the Creeks and Seminoles. She remained offshore while Woodbine made his trip up the Apalachicola and Chattahoochee Rivers. The war materials from the ship were being landed on St. Vincent Island where they were housed in temporary structures until they could be transported up to Prospect Bluff.

The next installment in this series will focus on the Chattahoochee River from the Alabama line north to Eufaula. If you would like to learn more about British activities on the Apalachicola and Chattahoochee Rivers during the War of 1812, please consider my books Nicolls' Outpost: A War of 1812 Fort at Chattahoochee, Florida and Milly Francis: The Life & Times of the Creek Pocahontas.

Both are available in either book or Amazon Kindle formats.

      

The Forgotten Indians of Jackson County, Florida

by Dale Cox

It is an often overlooked fact that even after the tragedy of the Trail of Tears, several small groups of Native Americans continued to live in Jackson County. Some had hidden in the woods as the U.S. Army and state militia rounded up most of the Indians in the area, while others either married into or had white families as guardians.

The photo seen here, for example, is of Ola Avery Cox, a Jackson County resident descended from William Brown (Efau Emathla), a noted chief of the Yuchi Creeks.

When Chief Pascofa and his band of Creeks were loaded aboard the steamboat William Gaston and shipped west in January of 1843, newspapers across the region proclaimed that the last Indian had been removed from Northwest Florida. The claim was a bit premature and in less than one year the U.S. Army was once again combing the woods and swamps south of Jackson County for bands of refugee Creeks. Some corn fields were burned and a few people captured, but for the most part the Native Americans once again slipped into the swamps and disappeared.

The situation soon quieted and the presence of hidden bands of Indians in the area was forgotten by the people of Jackson County. That all changed on an October morning in 1851 when three warriors boldly appeared on the main street of Marianna. “Three Indians made their appearance in town on Tuesday last,” reported the Marianna Whig newspaper, “and for the time being created quite a stir.”

“Though apparently friendly,” it was reported, “their belligerent aspects and terrible accoutrements of long knives, tomahawks and battle axes, seem to breathe forth anything but a spirit of peace and amity.”

What happened to these bold warriors was not recorded, although a mysterious note at the end of the newspaper article that the Indians apparently had been “seeking the spirit land” by appearing in Marianna suggests they could have been killed.

The three brave warriors were not alone. One family of Native Americans lived among the slaves on the plantation of Adam McNealy, a member of the Jackson County Commission, during the years leading up to the Civil War. Their family traditions preserve memories not only of the years on the McNealy plantation, but also of how their ancestors hid in the caves at today’s Florida Caverns State Park when Andrew Jackson’s army passed through in 1818.

Other small families, most of Creek ancestry, also continued to live in Jackson County, for the most part in isolated piney woods locations away from the prime areas taken by white settlers. Their exact numbers are impossible to determine as most attempted to assimilate with their white neighbors as other settlers moved into their neighborhoods. A number of families around the Parramore area of eastern Jackson County and along the Calhoun County border area south of Marianna can trace their family trees back to verifiable Native Americans.

It is also worth noting that the 1860 census of Jackson County lists 36 people as “mulatto.” Although the term was generally used in the years after the Civil War to identify individuals of mixed white and black ancestry, during the years before the war it usually referred to those of mixed white and Indian ancestry.

Although many Jackson County residents with Native American ancestry have no knowledge of their Indian heritage, others still preserve legends, traditions and relics of their Indian ancestors. Even though more than 160 years have passed since the end of the Trail of Tears, the descendents of those who escaped the great tragedy of Indian Removal can still be found in Jackson County.

Note: To learn more about the history of the area, please consider my books: The History of Jackson County Florida: The Early Years, The Battle of Marianna, Florida, Two Egg, Florida and The Early History of Gadsden County. They are available online at www.amazon.com or locally at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna.

Native American Hiding Places at Florida Caverns

Since a brief article about the archaeology of Florida Caverns State Park appeared online at www.jacksoncountytimes.net last week, I've had the pleasure of hearing from several individuals who trace their roots back to the families of Native Americans who once used the caves as hiding places during the Seminole Wars.

There are old legends in Jackson County that Native Americans regularly used the caves to elude capture during the Seminole Wars. According to the emails I've received, there is strong tradition in local Native American families that the legends are true.

One writer indicated that over the years her family had developed a tradition regarding the caves. She remembered how her grandfather would take the family children and show them the cave in which their ancestors hid to avoid capture and being shipped west on the Trail of Tears.

It is a little known fact that a number of small bands of Native Americans somehow managed to elude capture at the time of the Trail of Tears in the region (1836-1844) and remained hidden in secluded areas of Jackson County (and neighboring Calhoun) until they were able to blend with their white neighbors and enough time passed that the forced removals ended. Even so, the elder members of such groups urged continued secrecy about their ancestry out of fear of reprisals.

If you did not catch the original article and would like to read it, just click here. You can also learn more about the colorful history of Florida Caverns State Park by visiting www.exploresouthernhistory.com and looking for the Florida Caverns heading.