Background
William Augustus Bowles was was born on October 22, 1763, in Frederick County, Maryland and was the son of Thomas and Eleanor Bowles.
William Augustus Bowles was was born on October 22, 1763, in Frederick County, Maryland and was the son of Thomas and Eleanor Bowles.
William had an extensive education and excelled in acting, music, art, chemistry, and many other fields.
At the age of thirteen, Bowles joined the British forces, and in 1778, was made an ensign in the Maryland Loyalist Corps. In December 1778, shortly after the arrival of the corps at Pensacola, he was cashiered. With this event began his life-long, though intermittent, connection with the Creek Indians, with whom he now took refuge. Reinstated in his commission in 1781, he was put on half-pay in 1783.
After several years' wandering in the Southern states and the Bahamas, he returned to the primitive life of the Creek country, partly, no doubt, because of his maladjustment to civilized society. While on the Island of Providence he had formed a connection with the governor, Lord Dunmore (formerly of Virginia), and a wealthy merchant, John Miller, which shaped his course for the rest of his life.
Desiring to supplant Panton, Leslie & Company in the profitable trade with the Creek Indians, and nursing war-time grievances against Spain, these men made Bowles their instrument. With such backing, he thrice attempted to drive Panton and the Spaniards out of the Floridas.
Bowles first appeared in Florida in 1788 but soon retired, and in December 1790, at the end of the Nootka crisis, we find him in England with a party of Indians. In July 1791, he was again in Providence, and about August 19, he appeared at St. Mark's, Florida, in his second and most formidable attempt to gain control of the Creek country. This time, he made a determined effort to conciliate the Spanish officials, but one of his renegade followers later testified that, together with William Blount and John Sevier, Bowles was concerting a plan to drive Spain out of the Floridas and Louisiana.
At any rate, after he had plundered Panton's store at St. Mark's, Governor Carondelet procured his arrest through an unsavory stratagem. Although much impressed by his striking personality, Carondelet sent him to Havana, whence, after a brief interval, he was taken to Spain. Kept in confinement at Madrid from September 1792 to January 1794, he was then sent to the Philippines. As he was being brought back to Spain he escaped from the ship and made his way to Sierra Leone, where the British governor showed him every courtesy.
Thence in 1798, he returned to England, where he prepared for his third filibustering expedition to Florida, obtaining for a time the backing of the Missionary Society.
In September 1799, he was once more in Florida. Early the following year he and his followers, who were mostly Lower Creeks, again plundered Panton's store and even captured the Spanish fort at St. Mark's. The fort was very shortly retaken by the Spaniards, but for nearly three years Bowles continued to live at Miccosukee with about sixty followers, who said Benjamin Hawkins, were "more attentive to frolicking than fighting".
On 31 October 1799, Bowles issued a proclamation declaring the 1795 treaty between Spain and the United States void because it ignored the Indians' sovereignty over Florida. Bowles had the support of the Seminoles and Chattahoochee Creeks because of his generous supply of gunpowder, and of his promises to get more when he captured the Panton-Leslie store at San Marcos. The Spanish attacked and captured Bowles' camp on the Ocklockonee River and captured much of his personal effects, so Bowles moved his operations to the town of Miccosukee near Tallahassee.
In 1802, Governor Folch of Pensacola offered a reward of $4, 500 for his capture, and in 1803, he was seized while at a feast at Tuskegee and was turned over to the Spanish officials.
By May 1803, both America and Spain were conspiring against Bowles. America wanted to get rid of him because he opposed Creek land cessions in Georgia. The Spanish wanted to get rid of him because of his raids against ships and plantations in the area. Bowles opposed the pro-American Muskogee Creek families of McGillivray and MacIntosh, and American Indian agent to the Creeks, Benjamin Hawkins. The latter whom he declared a death sentence upon.
Benjamin Hawkins eventually laid a trap that put an end to Bowles. On May 24, 1803, there was a conference at the Creek town of Tukabatchee between Hawkins and his Lower Creeks supporters, and a general council of the Seminoles, Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Choctaws. That day Bowles declared himself king of all the Indian nations present. The next day Hawkins had gained enough supporters to have Bowles captured and placed in irons, and delivered him as prisoner to the Spanish governor in Pensacola. Bowles was taken to Morro Castle prison in Havana, where he died in 1805.
In the end, William Bowles and the State of Muskogee turned out to be the worst possible thing for the Seminoles. It started the domino effect on the Seminoles' removal from Florida.
When Spain proved unable to capture or defeat Bowles on Spanish territory, it was obvious to all that Spain had minimal control of Florida. Weak Spanish influence encouraged Andrew Jackson to lead a campaign to capture Pensacola from Spain during the War of 1812 and the First Seminole War. The Seminoles could no longer run to a safe haven away from the United States. The last coffin nail on the casket of the State of Muskogee was during the First Seminole war in 1818, when Andrew Jackson destroyed the town of Miccosukee.
It was only a matter of time before the United States would gain control of Florida. The U. S. believed that the Seminoles could not peacefully co-exist with settlers that needed to move into Florida. Even worse, runaway slaves from Georgia were finding shelter with the Florida Indians, being a big threat to the southern plantation economy. Since the Indians would not adopt the white American ways, then they had to be removed. For the next 100 years, the policy of the U. S. towards the Indians in Florida was removal.
The State of Muskogee did have a flag. It is described as being rectangular, with a broad blue cross with white outline. The left upper and lower quarters, and the lower right quarters are red. The upper right quarter is blue, with the sun having a face on it.
While sent to Havana and imprisoned in the Morro Castle, William Bowles died on December 23, 1805.
According to his own statement, Bowles had a larger purpose, namely, to establish an independent Muscogean state trading with all nations. At other times he seems to have regarded himself as a second Robert Clive, with Dunmore and Miller playing the part of the East India Company and the Creek warriors that of sepoys, and with the reincorporation of the Floridas in the British empire as his objective. Although he failed in every attempt, he alarmed the governments of Spain and the United States, caused Panton's company heavy losses, and destroyed Alexander McGillivray's ascendance over the Creek Indians.
Bowles was actively raising support among the Indians for his idea of Creek Indian nationalism. He proposed that the Indians in the southeast were sovereign in the land that they lived, and had been guaranteed by treaty the right to remain as lawful inhabitants by Britain and Spain. His idea of an Indian nation included all the tribes of the southeast, including the Choctaw and Cherokee.
America wanted to get rid of him because he opposed Creek land cessions in Georgia. The Spanish wanted to get rid of him because of his raids against ships and plantations in the area. Bowles opposed the pro-American Muskogee Creek families of McGillivray and MacIntosh, and American Indian agent to the Creeks, Benjamin Hawkins.
Bowles was married to a daughter of a Creek chieftain and left a number of descendants, among them Chief Bowles, the friend of Gen. Sam Houston.
