SW022 Newnan’s 1812 Raid Nearly Leads to 1835 Dade-like Massacre

 

We ended our last episode in September 1812,  just before Georgia Militia Colonel Daniel Newnan prepared to lead an attack on the Seminole Indian settlement called Paynestown in the fertile Alachua region of north central Florida.

This episode picks up as Newnan departs to find, fix, and destroy the Seminole and win some booty for his troops in the process. With us again to explain it all is Doctor James Cusick. As we have mentioned, Doctor Cusick wrote about this in The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida.

Newnan sought retribution against the Seminole for, well, we are not clear precisely why. Was it because the Seminole backed the Spanish government in Saint Augustine rather than maintain neutrality against the illegal Patriot invasion? Was it because they felt humiliated from an attack by Black militia and Black Maroon Seminoles? Although the attackers did don Indian war paint, the Alachua Seminoles were not part of or behind that attack. Maybe they just thought that as a Spanish ally, the Seminole would be easy mark to whom they could “teach a lesson” -- since they could not get inside the Spanish-held garrison at the Castillo de San Marcos.   

Artist rendering of Newnan's breastwork under siege in September 1812

It is not as if a persuasive justification was needed. The Patriots were mostly land-hungry Georgians posing as Floridians who were disgruntled with Spanish rule. They sought an imagined reason or none at all to stoke an uprising so they could declare a Republic and obtain American recognition for evicting the Spanish. The Alachua band of Seminole Indians resided on a main trading route close to Saint Augustine and who possibly -- the Georgia militia was not sure -- had wealth to pillage and plunder.

Thus, did events bring Georgians -- and by extension, Americans as a whole – into their first large-scale encounter with the feisty Alachua Seminole Indians. Although Newnan’s raid itself was ill-fated – it almost became Newnan’s massacre with his force wiped out – it did expose to the Georgians the Seminole’s rich and fertile grazing and farming land. This "first contact" discovery would, pardon the expression, plant the seed for a return later to take possession of this territory, with or without Seminole consent. The raid became a pivotal, and perhaps inaugural, battle that ushered in a half century of contention and conflict between the United States and the many bands and tribes comprising the Seminole Indians of Florida. These wars ultimately left the Seminole battered severely, partially removed to Oklahoma, but unconquered in Florida when it was all over.

George Militia Colonel Daniel Newnan

 

State Marker for Newnan's Raid in Alachua County  

Marker from Daughters of the American Revolution to Newnan's Raid  

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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