There were
Spanish freebooters, Irish roustabouts, Scotch free lances, and
runaway slaves--a nondescript lot, and all ready for any undertaking
that promised excitement, revenge, or booty. Furthermore there were
some British soldiers who had remained on their own responsibility
after the troops were withdrawn. The leading spirit among these was
Colonel Edward Nicholls, who had already made himself obnoxious to the
United States by his conduct at Pensacola.
At the close of the war Nicholls and his men built a fort on the
Apalachicola, fifteen miles from the Gulf, and began again to collect
and organize fugitive slaves, Indians, and adventurers of every sort,
whom they employed on raids into the territory of the United States
and in attacks upon its inhabitants. The Creeks were falsely informed
that in the Treaty of Ghent the United States had promised to give up
all lands taken from them during the late war, and they were thus
incited to rise in vindication of their alleged rights. What Nicholls
was aiming at came out when, in company with several chieftains, he
returned to England to ask for an alliance between the "mother
country" and his buccaneer state.
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