Apalachicola Fort | |
Nearest city | Holy Trinity, Alabama |
---|---|
Built | 1689 |
NRHP reference No. | 66000931 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 [1] |
Designated NHL | July 19, 1964 [2] |
The Apalachicola Fort Site is an archaeological site near Holy Trinity, Alabama, United States. Spain established a wattle and daub blockhouse here on the Chattahoochee River in 1690 in an attempt to maintain influence among the people of the Apalachicola Province. Abandoned after about one year of use and rediscovered in 1956, it was investigated by archaeologists and is now owned by the county. It is not open to the public. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964. [2]
The Apalachicola Fort Site is located in a rural setting in eastern Russell County, Alabama, on a bluff overlooking the Chattahoochee River a few miles from the Holy Trinity monastery. The site was chosen by the Spanish governor of La Florida, Don Diego De Quiroga y Losada, for its proximity to Apalachicola, the principal town of the Lower Creeks. The fort site measures about 72 feet (22 m) across, encompassing the site of a bastioned blockhouse surrounded by a wooden palisade and dry moat. [3]
The Spanish governor was concerned over the encroachment of English traders from the Province of Carolina into Spanish territory, where they provided local Native Americans with a broader selection and higher quality of trade goods than Spanish traders did. This fort was built in an attempt to extend Spanish influence into the northernmost reaches of its claimed territory. The effect of the constructing the fort was that the local Creeks, instead of staying with the Spanish, migrated to English-controlled areas. This move undermined the purpose of the fort, which was already encumbered by a long supply line. It was consequently abandoned after just one year of use, and largely demolished by the Spanish prior to their departure. [3]
Although the Creek village was later reoccupied, the Creeks were forced out of the area in the 19th century by American Indian removal policy. The site lay abandoned and unknown until 1956, when archaeologists and one of the monastery's monks worked to locate the site from the few surviving records. Subsequent archaeological digs confirmed the find, and led to its designation as a National Historic Landmark. The site, located on privately held farmland, was turned over to the county in 1971. [3] It is not open to the public.
The Chattahoochee River is a river in the Southeastern United States. It forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida and Georgia border. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a relatively short river formed by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers and emptying from Florida into Apalachicola Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. The Chattahoochee River is about 430 miles (690 km) long. The Chattahoochee, Flint, and Apalachicola rivers together make up the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River Basin. The Chattahoochee makes up the largest part of the ACF's drainage basin.
Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now Indiana, United States. It was a palisade stockade with log blockhouse used as a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles southwest of modern-day West Lafayette. The name 'Ouiatenon' is a French rendering of the name in the Wea language, waayaahtanonki, meaning 'place of the whirlpool'. It was one of three French forts built during the 18th century in what was then New France, later the Northwest Territory and today the state of Indiana, the other two being Fort Miami and Fort Vincennes. A substantial French settlement grew up around the fort in the mid-18th century. It was ceded to the British and abandoned after the French and Indian War. Later, it passed into Indian hands and was destroyed in 1791 by American militia during the Northwest Indian War. It was never a U.S. fort. The original site was rediscovered in the 1960s; the archaeological site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021.
Prospect Bluff Historic Sites is located in Franklin County, Florida, on the Apalachicola River, 6 miles (9.7 km) SW of Sumatra, Florida. The site contains the ruins of two forts.
Fort Hawkins was a fort built between 1806 and 1810 in the historic Creek Nation by the United States government under President Thomas Jefferson and used until 1824. Built in what is now Georgia at the Fall Line on the east side of the Ocmulgee River, the fort overlooked the sacred ancient earthwork mounds of the Ocmulgee Old Fields, now known as the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. The Lower Creek Trading Path passed by just outside the fort's northwestern blockhouse, and continued in a westerly direction until it reached a natural ford on the Ocmulgee River. A trading settlement and later the city of Macon, Georgia, developed in the area prior to the construction of the fort, with British traders being in the area as early as the 1680s. Later, the fort would become important to the Creek Nation, the United States, and the state of Georgia for economic, military, and political reasons.
Hitchiti was a tribal town in what is now the Southeast United States. It was one of several towns whose people spoke the Hitchiti language. It was first known as part of the Apalachicola Province, an association of tribal towns along the Chattahoochee River. Shortly after 1690, the towns of Apalachicola Province moved to the central part of present-day Georgia, with Hitchiti joining most of those towns along Ochese Creek. In 1715, most of the towns on Ochese Creek, including Hitchiti, moved back to the Chattahoochee River, where the town remained until its people were forced to move to Indian Territory as part of the Trail of Tears.
The Fort Walton culture is the term used by archaeologists for a late prehistoric Native American archaeological culture that flourished in southeastern North America from approximately 1200~1500 CE and is associated with the historic Apalachee people.
Mission San Luis de Apalachee was a Spanish Franciscan mission built in 1656 in the Florida Panhandle, two miles west of the present-day Florida Capitol Building in Tallahassee, Florida. It was located in the descendent settlement of Anhaica capital of Apalachee Province. The mission was part of Spain's effort to colonize the Florida Peninsula and to convert the Timucuan and Apalachee Indians to Christianity. The mission lasted until 1704 when it was evacuated and destroyed to prevent its use by an approaching militia of Creek Indians and South Carolinians.
The Cayson Mound and Village Site (8CA3) is a prehistoric archaeological site located near Blountstown, Florida. It is located three miles southeast of Blountstown, on the Apalachicola River. The site was occupied by peoples of the Fort Walton Culture. On March 15, 1976, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
The Yon Mound and Village Site (8LI2) is a prehistoric archaeological site located two miles west of Bristol, Florida on the east bank of the Apalachicola River. The site was occupied by peoples of the Fort Walton Culture. On December 15, 1978, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as reference number 78000952.
Lake Seminole is a reservoir located in the southwest corner of Georgia along its border with Florida, maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Chattahoochee and Flint rivers join in the lake, before flowing from the Jim Woodruff Lock and Dam, which impounds the lake, as the Apalachicola River. The lake contains 37,500 acres (152 km2) of water, and has a shoreline of 376 mi (605 km). The fish in Lake Seminole include largemouth bass, crappie, chain pickerel, catfish, striped bass and other species. American alligators, snakes and various waterfowl are also present in the lake, which is known for its goose hunting.
Cusseta, also known as Kasihta, was a Peace Town of the Lower Towns, a division of the Muscogee Confederacy. It was located in what the Spanish called Apalachicola Province on the Chattahoochee River, then in what is now the state of Georgia near the Ocmulgee River, and finally again on the Chattahoochee River. It was one of the two major towns of the Lower Creek, with a population of 1,918 in 1832.
Apalachicola Province was a group or association of towns located along the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in present-day Alabama and Georgia. The Spanish so called it because they perceived it as a political entity under the leadership of the town of Apalacicola. It is believed that before the 17th century, the residents of all the Apalachicola towns spoke the Hitchiti language, although other towns whose people spoke the Muscogee language relocated among the Apalachicolas along the Chattahoochee River in the middle- to later- 17th century. All of the Apalachicola towns moved to central Georgia at the end of the 17th century, where the English called them "Ochese Creek Indians". They moved back to the Chattahoochee River after 1715, with the English then calling them "Lower Creeks", while the Spanish called them "Ochese".
Holy Trinity is an unincorporated community in Russell County, Alabama, United States. It is about 20 miles south of Columbus, Georgia, on State Route 165 and is the location of Apalachicola Fort Site, a National Historic Landmark.
Fort Mitchell Historic Site is a park and an archaeological site in Fort Mitchell, Alabama, that was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The park features a reconstruction of the 1813 stockade fort that was an important United States military post in the Creek War, a museum with exhibits about the fort's history, and a collection of historic carriages, a restored 19th-century log home, and a visitor center.
Yuchi Town Site, or Yuchi Town, is a late prehistoric and historic era archaeological site showing occupation of both the Apalachicola and of Yuchi tribes. The site is located in a remote area of Fort Moore, Russell County, Alabama. The Yuchi Town Site is an example of historic Native American cultures adopting various strategies to maintain their cultural integrity in the face of European colonization and the expansion of the United States. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1996.
Diego de Quiroga y Losada was the acting Governor of Spanish Florida 1687–1693. His administration was mainly concerned with building fortifications, including the Castillo de San Marcos, which his predecessors began to defend La Florida against British and French attacks by land and water.
Fort Dale was a stockade fort built in present-day Butler County, Alabama by Alabama Territory settlers. The fort was constructed in response to Creek Indian attacks on settlers in the surrounding area.
Sabacola was a Native American tribal town in what is now the Southeastern United States of America during the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Usually regarded as belonging to Apalachicola Province, Sabacola had poorly understood connections to the Apalachee people. Although usually described as speaking the Hitchiti language, at least one source stated that the Sabacola spoke another, unidentified language. The town moved to several locations along the Chattahoochee River, sometimes with more than one town including Sabacola in its name at the same time. The town of Sabacola moved to the Ocmulgee River area of central Georgia for about 25 years, before returning to the Chattahoochee River. Sabacola was the only Apalachicola town to have a mission established by the Spanish. The Apalachicola towns, including Sabacola, evolved into the Lower Towns of the Muscogee Confederacy.
Apalachicola was a tribal town in the Apalachicola Province in the 17th century, located on the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in what is now Alabama and Georgia. The residents of the town spoke the Hitchiti language. The town of Apalachicola moved to the Savannah River in the early 1690s, when the other towns in Apalachicola Province moved to central Georgia, primarily to sites along the Ocmulgee River. In 1715, Apalachicola moved back to the Chattahoochee River along with the towns that had been on the Ocmulgee River, with the English then calling them "Lower Creeks", while the Spanish called them "Ochese". The town of Apalachicola continued as part of the Lower Towns through the 18th century.
Oconee was a tribal town of Hitchiti-speaking Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands during the 17th and 18th centuries.