The Negro Fort

Between 1814 and 1816, a population of over three hundred blacks and twenty Choctaw Indians occupied the neighboring lands of and manned a military outpost known as the Negro Fort. Located on the Apalachicola River at Prospect Bluff, the fort had been constructed during the War of 1812 and served as a recruitment base for British officers charged with raising a combined force of slaves and Indians to reinforce military initiatives against the Americans. The fort was decimated in 1818 by an invasion force authorized by General Andrew Jackson. Survivors of the attack made their way to Angola, a black maroon community near Tampa Bay.
 
Plan of Fort Gadsden, with Negro Fort identified.1818. Reprinted from the Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 16, July 1937.
Reproduction.
Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society.
 

Angola

The maroon community of Angola was established in 1812 on the Manatee River near Tampa Bay. The community was composed of several hundred blacks, many of who had fought in or were refugees of the Patriot War in 1812, the Battle of the Suwannee in 1818, as well as former occupants of the Negro Fort. Located near traditional Indian hunting grounds and a Cuban rancho, Angola provided its black inhabitants with a geopolitical network of allies.

In 1821, the community was destroyed by a war party of Lower Creek Indians deployed by General Andrew Jackson. Refugees from the invasion made their way to Cape Florida, where they used their connections with Cuban fisherman and Bahamian wreckers to obtain transport to Cuba and Andros Island in the Bahamas.

Map of Florida according to the Latest Authorities. 1826.
Historical Museum of Southern Florida. X-2003-1.