Fort Mims Massacre

Fort Mims
Part of Creek War
The Battle
Date August 30, 1813 Location 35 to 40 miles north of Mobile, Alabama near Bay Minette, Alabama Result Decisive Red Stick victory Red Sticks take Fort Mims and kill inhabitants
Belligerents
Red Stick Creek	United States
Commanders and leaders
Head warriors (Tastanagi): William Weatherford Peter McQueen	Major Daniel Beasley Dixon Bailey
Strength
750-1,000warriors	265 militia, including: 70 Tensaw home militia 175 Mississippi volunteers 16 from Fort Stoddard
Casualties and losses
50 to 100 killed unknown wounded	265 militia killed or captured 252 civilians killed or captured unknown wounded Fort Mims severely damaged

Fort Mims Site
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Inside the reconstructed fort, looking at the west wall and gate.
Show map of Alabama Show map of the US
Nearest city	Tensaw, Alabama
Area	5 acres (2.0 ha)
Built	1813 (1813)
NRHP Reference #	72000153
Added to NRHP	September 14, 1972

Decisive Red Stick victory

Head warriors (Tastanagi):

265 militia, including:

The Battle at Fort Mims occurred on 30 August 1813 during the Creek War, when a force of Creek Indians, belonging to the "Red Sticks" faction under the command of head warriors Peter McQueen and William Weatherford (also known as Lamochattee or Red Eagle), stormed the fort and defeated the militia garrison. Afterward, a massacre ensued and almost all of the remaining Lower Creek, white settlers, and militia at Fort Mims were killed. The fort was a with a blockhouse surrounding the house and outbuildings of the settler Samuel Mims, located about 35 miles north of present-day Mobile, Alabama.

The Creek Nation split into factions during the War of 1812. One group of Creek nativists, the Red Sticks, argued against any more accommodation of the white settlers while the other Creeks favored adopting the white lifestyle. The Red Stick faction from the Upper Towns opposed both land cessions to settlers and the Lower Towns' assimilation into European-American culture. The nativists were soon called "Red Sticks" because they had raised the "red stick of war," a favored weapon and symbolic Creek war declaration. Civil war among the Creeks erupted in the summer of 1813 and the Red Sticks attacked accommodationist headmen and, in the Upper Towns, began a systematic slaughter of domestic animals, most of which belonged to men who had gained power by adopting aspects of European culture. Not understanding internal issues among the Creek, frontier whites were alarmed about rising tensions and began 'forting up' and moving into various posts and blockhouses such as Fort Mims while reinforcements were sent to the frontier.

American spies learned that Peter McQueen's party of Red Sticks were in Pensacola, Florida to acquire food assistance, supplies and arms from the Spanish. The Creek received from the newly arrived Spanish governor, González Manrique, 45 barrels of corn and flour, blankets, ribbons, scissors, razors, a few steers and 1000 pounds of gunpowder and an equivalent supply of lead musket balls and bird shot, but took and drank no alcohol. When reports of the Creek pack train reached Colonel Caller, he and Major Daniel Beasley of the Mississippi Volunteers led a mounted force of 6 companies, 150 white militia riflemen, and 30 Tensaw métis (people of mixed American Indian and Euro-American ancestry) under Captain Dixon Bailey to intercept those warriors. They ambushed the Red Sticks in the Battle of Burnt Corn in July 1813 as the Creek were having their mid-day meal. While the United States forces were looting the pack trains, the warriors returned and successfully drove off the Americans. The United States was now at war with the Creek Nation.