Fort Mitchell Site | |
Nearest city | Fort Mitchell, Alabama |
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Coordinates | 32°21′07″N85°01′18″W / 32.35194°N 85.02167°W |
Built | 1813 |
NRHP reference No. | 72000178 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | June 13, 1972 [1] |
Designated NHL | June 21, 1990 [2] |
Fort Mitchell Historic Site is a park and an archaeological site in Fort Mitchell, Alabama, that was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990. [2] 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. [3]
The Chattahoochee Indian Heritage Center has a ceremonial flame memorial to the Creek nation. Interpretive panels recount the history of the Creek War of 1836 and the subsequent forced removal of the Creek peoples along the Trail of Tears. The memorial is located adjacent to Fort Mitchell Historic Site. [3]
The site also features historic burial grounds.
Fort Mitchell Historic Site represents three different periods of relationships of the Creek nation with the United States. The first Fort Mitchell, built in 1813 as an outpost during the Creek War and War of 1812, represents the military aspect of Manifest Destiny. It was named for David Brydie Mitchell, a governor of Georgia. The United States defeated the Red Sticks of the Creek Indian Nation, who comprised the majority of the population and had opposed American expansion in their territory. The Creek in defeat were forced to cede 21 million acres 85,000 km2) of land in 1814 in Georgia and Alabama, affecting the Lower and the Upper Towns.
The second represents the Indian Factory, a trading post staffed by the assistant US Indian agent appointed by the government beginning in 1817, when the post was transferred from Fort Hawkins in Georgia. The trading factory operated until about 1820. A post office was operated here from 1818 to 1820 as well.
In 1821 Col. John Crowell was appointed by US President James Madison as US Indian agent to the Creek, to replace David Brydie Mitchell, who was pushed out for a scandal related to illegal smuggling of African slaves. John's brothers Thomas and Henry Crowell accompanied him to set up the agency. By 1825, Thomas was operating a tavern near the fort. That year, the US Army rebuilt the fort and staffed it with a garrison of the Fourth Infantry until 1840, after Indian Removal of the late 1830s. [4]
The last period represents the Federal government's attempt to live up to its treaty obligations, including payment of annuities and supplies, recognition of sovereignty and other elements since the 19th century.[ clarification needed ] Fort Mitchell was garrisoned during the Second Creek War (1836), which occurred in Alabama as the state tried to regulate Creek land allotments and freedom. [4] After this, most Creek in Alabama were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory. Those who stayed in the state had to give up tribal membership; they were considered state and US citizens. [2]
In 1971 professional archeological excavations were undertaken at the former fort, of which only ruins remained. Among the findings were gravesites, remains of a hospital, the old fort, outbuildings, offices, barracks, and storage rooms. The Alabama Archaeological Association published a 1974 report. In 1990 the site was designated as a National Historic Landmark. [4]
In 1987 the Department of Defense established the Fort Mitchell National Cemetery on this site for interment of United States veterans from the Southeast and Gulf Coast.
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.
The Creek War was a regional conflict between opposing Native American factions, European powers, and the United States during the early 19th century. The Creek War began as a conflict within the tribes of the Muscogee, but the United States quickly became involved. British traders and Spanish colonial officials in Florida supplied the Red Sticks with weapons and equipment due to their shared interest in preventing the expansion of the United States into regions under their control.
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 by the United States Army during President Thomas Jefferson's administration. Built in what is now Georgia on the Fall Line on the east side of the Ocmulgee River, the fort overlooked the Ocmulgee Old Fields. The Lower Creek Trading Path passed by just outside the fort's northwestern blockhouse, and continued in a westerly direction to a natural ford on the Ocmulgee River. The fort became important to the Lower Creek Indians, the United States, and the State of Georgia for economic, military, and political reasons.
San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park is a Florida State Park in Wakulla County, Florida organized around the historic site of a Spanish colonial fort, which was used by succeeding nations that controlled the area. The Spanish first built wooden buildings and a stockade in the late 17th and early 18th centuries here, which were destroyed by a hurricane.
Fort Stoddert, also known as Fort Stoddard, was a stockade fort in the U.S. Mississippi Territory, in what is today Alabama. It was located on a bluff of the Mobile River, near modern Mount Vernon, close to the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers. This location was just north of what was then the international boundary line between the new United States and Spanish-held West Florida. As a border fort, Fort Stoddert served as the southwestern terminus of the Federal Road which ran through Creek lands to Fort Wilkinson in Georgia. The fort, built in 1799, was named for Benjamin Stoddert, the secretary to the Continental Board of War during the American Revolution and Secretary of the Navy during the Quasi War. Fort Stoddert was built by the United States to keep the peace by preventing its own settlers in the Tombigbee District from attacking the Spanish in the Mobile District. It also served as a port of entry and was the site of a Court of Admiralty. While under the command of Captain Edmund P. Gaines, Aaron Burr was held as a prisoner at the fort after his arrest at McIntosh in 1807 for treason against the United States. In July 1813, General Ferdinand Claiborne brought the Mississippi Militia to Fort Stoddert as part of the Creek War. The 3rd Infantry Regiment was commanded by General Thomas Flournoy to Fort Stoddert following the Fort Mims massacre. The site declined rapidly in importance after the capture of Mobile by the United States in 1813 and the establishment of the Mount Vernon Arsenal in 1828.
Fort Mitchell National Cemetery is one of the 130 United States National Cemeteries, located in Fort Mitchell, Alabama, adjacent to the state-owned and operated Fort Mitchell Park. It has interred approximately 5,000 individual since it officially opened its 280-acre (110 ha) site in 1987. It serves as a national cemetery in Federal Region IV, to serve veterans residing in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
William McIntosh, also known as Tustunnuggee Hutke, was one of the most prominent chiefs of the Muscogee Creek Nation between the turn of the 19th-century and his execution in 1825. He was a chief of Coweta tribal town and commander of a mounted police force. He became a large-scale planter, built and managed a successful inn, and operated a commercial ferry business.
The Fort Mims massacre took place on August 30, 1813, at a fortified homestead site 35-40 miles north of Mobile, Alabama, during the Creek War. A large force of Creek Indians belonging to the Red Sticks faction, under the command of Peter McQueen and William Weatherford, stormed the fort and defeated the militia garrison.
Willstown was an important Cherokee town of the late 18th and early 19th century, located in the southwesternmost part of the Cherokee Nation, in what is now DeKalb County, Alabama. It was near Lookout or Little Wills Creek. It was in Wills Valley, which also incorporated Big Wills Creek. This was within the territory of the Lower Creek, who had crossed into this area in an effort to avoid European-American encroachment.
Fort Gibson is a historic military site next to the modern city of Fort Gibson, in Muskogee County Oklahoma. It guarded the American frontier in Indian Territory from 1824 to 1888. When it was constructed, the fort was farther west than any other military post in the United States. It formed part of the north–south chain of forts that was intended to maintain peace on the frontier of the American West and to protect the southwestern border of the Louisiana Purchase. The fort succeeded in its peacekeeping mission for more than 50 years, as no massacres or battles occurred there.
Fort Osage was an early 19th-century factory trading post run by the United States Government in western Missouri on the American frontier; it was located in present-day Sibley, Missouri. The Treaty of Fort Clark, signed with certain members of the Osage Nation in 1808, called for the United States to establish Fort Osage as a trading post and to protect the Osage from tribal enemies.
David Brydie Mitchell was a Scottish born American politician in Georgia who was elected in 1809 as governor of the state, serving two terms. He was elected again in 1815 for one term.
Fort Mitchell is an unincorporated community in Russell County, Alabama, United States. The settlement developed around a garrisoned fort intended to provide defense for the area during the Creek War (1813–14).
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Fort Cass was a fort located on the Hiwassee River in present-day Charleston, Tennessee, that served as the military operational headquarters for the entire Cherokee removal, an forced migration of the Cherokee known as the Trail of Tears from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Fort Cass housed a garrison of United States troops who watched over the largest concentration of internment camps where Cherokee were kept during the summer of 1838 before starting the main trek west to Indian Territory, and served as one of three emigration deports where the Cherokee began their journey west, the others of which were located at Ross's Landing in Chattanooga and Gunter's Landing near Guntersville, Alabama.
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Fort Gardiner was a stockaded fortification with two blockhouses that was built in 1837 by the United States Army. It was one of the military outposts created during the Second Seminole War to assist Colonel Zachary Taylor's troops to capture Seminole Indians and their allies in the central part of the Florida Territory that were resisting forced removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River per the Indian Removal Act.
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.