Siege of Pensacola (1707)
The siege of Pensacola included two separate attempts in 1707 by English-supported Creek Indians to capture the town and fortress of Pensacola, one of two major settlements (the other was St. Augustine) in Spanish Florida. The attacks, part of Queen Anne's War (the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession), resulted in the burning of the town, and caused most of its Indian population to flee, although the fort withstood repeated attacks. The battles were primarily fought in the nighttime hours due to the excessive heat of the day. The first siege, in August, resulted in the destruction of the town, but Fort San Carlos de Austria successfully resisted the onslaught. In late November, a second expedition arrived, and made unsuccessful attacks on three consecutive nights before withdrawing. Pensacola's governor, Don Sebastián de Moscoso, whose garrison was depleted by disease, recruited convicted criminals to assist in the fort's defense. Background English and Spanish colonies in southeastern North America began coming into conflict as early as the middle of the 17th century. The Spanish population of Florida at the time was fairly small. Since its founding in the 16th century, the Spanish had set up a network of missions whose primary purpose was to pacify the local Indian population and convert them to Roman Catholicism. The founding by English colonists of 1670 of Charles Town (present-day Charleston, South Carolina) in the recently established (1663) Province of Carolina heightened tensions. By the early 18th century, Carolina traders like Anthony Dodsworth and Thomas Nairne had established alliances with Creek Indians in the upper watersheds of rivers draining into the Gulf of Mexico, who they supplied with arms and from whom they purchased slaves and animal pelts. These traders penetrated into Spanish Florida, leading to raiding and reprisal expeditions on both sides. In 1700, Carolina's governor, Joseph Blake, threatened the Spanish that English claims to Pensacola, established by the Spanish in 1698, would be enforced. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, the French founder of Mobile, in January 1702, warned the Spanish commander at Pensacola that he should properly arm the Apalachee Indians and engage in a vigorous defense against potential English incursions into Spanish territory. D'Iberville even offered equipment and supplies for that purpose. However, an attempt at a punitive expedition against the Creek resulted in a rout of the Spanish and their Apalachee allies in October, shortly before news of war declarations bringing the English government into the War of the Spanish Succession arrived. After a failed Carolinian assault on St. Augustine, Spanish mission towns were severely reduced by numerous raids by combined Creek-Carolina raids against the Spanish mission network from 1703 to 1706. A French-organized 1706 expedition against Charles Town was a failure but motivated Carolina authorities to again target the Spanish at Pensacola and the French at Mobile. Nairne proposed a major expedition after the attack on Charles Town, intending to recruit as many as 1,500 Indians to capture Mobile, but political divisions in Carolina prevented execution of the