1816 – The first major military engagement of the First Seminole War, the Battle of Negro Fort, took place on this date. The fort, located on Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River, was originally established by the British during the War of 1812. Many of the African Americans fighting with the British stayed at the post. In the ensuing years, many runaway slaves from Georgia and Florida moved to the fort with approximately 800 people living there at the time of the attack. General Andrew Jackson’s force of 2 gunboats and 250 men fired hot shots into the fort, one of which exploded the fort’s magazine killing most of the occupants. The expedition by American forces into sovereign Spanish territory was justified by Washington as being national self-defense. The United States would acquire Florida only a few years later in 1819.