{"id":1036,"slug":"negro-fort-florida","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["On July 27, 1816, a single American cannonball ended the largest free Black community in North America. When the British evacuated Florida after the War of 1812, they left their fort on Prospect Bluff — a strong earthwork and octagonal magazine on the Apalachicola River — armed and supplied in the hands of their allies: about 300 Black men and a band of Seminole and Choctaw warriors. Hundreds of fugitives came down to it; the maroon settlement around 'Negro Fort' may have held 800, and fugitives ran from as far as Tennessee to reach it.","To Georgia slaveholders the fort was intolerable — a beacon of armed freedom sixty miles inside Spanish territory. Andrew Jackson ordered it destroyed, and in July 1816 Colonel Duncan Clinch moved up the river with 500 Lower Creek allies while Navy gunboats under Jairus Loomis closed in. The fort's gunners couldn't find the range. An American shot — accounts describe a heated ball — entered the powder magazine.","The explosion killed some 270 men, women, and children in one blast — among the deadliest single cannon shots in American history. The commander Garson was executed; the surviving fifty were returned to slavery. The United States had invaded a foreign territory to destroy a community of people who had freed themselves. The Army built Fort Gadsden on the ruins; Hurricane Michael tore the trees out in 2018 and unburied the maroon community's artifacts from the roots.","Negro Fort is the archive's Prospect Bluff file — the British-built fort on the Apalachicola that sheltered the largest free Black settlement in North America until a magazine explosion killed 270 in July 1816."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Negro Fort is the archive's maroon file — the Prospect Bluff stronghold where hundreds of self-freed people lived under arms until the United States destroyed it in a single magazine blast, the site's artifacts still surfacing from the hurricane-torn ground.","A fort erased by one shot keeps its bluff — the file's suggestion being that Prospect Bluff's hold is the explosion: the moment the largest free Black community in the country was killed at once, and the artifacts the hurricanes keep returning."]}],"name":"Negro Fort","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD","FORT"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Negro Fort is a historic site in Sumatra, Florida, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. It sits in the archive under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 2 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"736 Fort Gadsden Road","city":"Sumatra","county":"Franklin","state":"Florida","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.022979,"lon":-84.982518,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: Yes. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 36FL02, source row 583. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' carry the record. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Negro Fort is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic site; verify hours and access with the managing agency before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The Apalachicola fort—where the maroons held the river.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 36FL02, source row 583. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 4; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Negro Fort","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro_Fort","desc":"Fort built by the British in 1814 in Spanish Florida, US","extract":"\nNegro Fort was a short-lived fortification built by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812, in a remote part of what was at the time Spanish Florida. It was intended to support a never-realized British attack on the U.S. via its southwest border, by means of which they could \"free all these Southern Countries [states] from the Yoke of the Americans\".","img":null,"score":93,"lat":29.93824,"lon":-85.01127},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}